Do you consider PDF to be a legitimate "e-book" format? Why or why not?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My take on the question:

No, PDF is not an eBook format.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

To me, an eBook format, by definition, should be "aware" of the basic structural elements of a book - titles, lines, words, paragraphs. When you change the font size, it needs to be able to reflow lines and paragraphs. It should be aware of the concept of a "word", preferably allowing you to search for it, or look up its definition in a dictionary.

PDF files do none of that. PDF was designed as an electronic representation of a printed page. A PDF files doesn't know about lines, or words, or paragraphs. All it contains is instructions of the form "draw the letter 'A' in such-and-such a font at such-and-such a position on the page". The only structural "unit" in a PDF file is the letter (or other graphical element) and the page. No words, no lines, no paragraphs, no titles, no chapters; in short, none of the elements which make a book.

There are indeed a great many books which can be obtained in the form of PDF files, but to my mind, PDF files is what they are, not eBooks.

So, for these reasons, I vote "no". PDF files are not eBooks, even if they do happen to contain the pages of a book.

A tagged pdf that was tagged at the source knows about titles, headings, paragraphs, etc. and any pdf can be searched for words using Adobe on my pc. Thus it is not a basic database, file format problem. Rather it is poor implementation of the reader software that is at fault. It might be said that any untagged PDF is not suitable but it is possible to add tags that provide some knowledge of book stuff like paragraphs and headings although not as much as the intelligence of the original. Even TOC is supported if coded correctly.

I do agree that coding for a pdf document isn't the easiest thing in the world and most readers take a short cut and provide poor capabilities. Thus I think you are blaming the data when you should be crying for better software.

Dale

[HarryT]

I agree, Dale, a tagged PDF file is an eBook. Unfortunately, the majority of PDF files are not tagged.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I do agree that coding for a pdf document isn't the easiest thing in the world and most readers take a short cut and provide poor capabilities. Thus I think you are blaming the data when you should be crying for better software.

If it is hard to write programs that correctly handles the data format I definitely will blame the data format. If you need 100 hour to program a functionality for pdf and 1 hour coding it for another comparable format then the pdf format is bad and should be blamed.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

If it is hard to write programs that correctly handles the data format I definitely will blame the data format. If you need 100 hour to program a functionality for pdf and 1 hour coding it for another comparable format then the pdf format is bad and should be blamed.

At least their format is documented. It is an ISO standard. - unlike your great effort on the Mobi format.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

At least their format is documented. It is an ISO standard. - unlike your great effort on the Mobi format.

Yes, but the documentation is pretty thick and not a lot of people seems to have read the whole documentaion and understood it. Which then leads to that not many open source projects exists for manipulating pfd documents That a working pdfcrop that automaticall remove margins seems impossible to finds I find as a symptom of a over complicated data format.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

If it is hard to write programs that correctly handles the data format I definitely will blame the data format. If you need 100 hour to program a functionality for pdf and 1 hour coding it for another comparable format then the pdf format is bad and should be blamed.

I see your point here, but to be fair, I've set tags, TOCs, bookmarks and indexes for PDF documents at my former positions, and it doesn't take that long. A great deal of that work is automated by Acrobat (and some is automated by apps like Word when you convert to PDF). It's not that hard. (For the record, all of my books in PDF format are tagged, and have working TOCs if applicable.)

ePub isn't a format that you "just set up" in 2 or 3 minutes, either. That doesn't make it unsuitable as an e-book format. In fact, if taking extra time means you get a better document out of it, it's worth the effort.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I see your point here, but to be fair, I've set tags, TOCs, bookmarks and indexes for PDF documents at my former positions, and it doesn't take that long. A great deal of that work is automated by Acrobat (and some is automated by apps like Word when you convert to PDF). It's not that hard. (For the record, all of my books in PDF format are tagged, and have working TOCs if applicable.)

I referred to how long it takes to implement these kind of functionalities in for example Acrobat.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

I referred to how long it takes to implement these kind of functionalities in for example Acrobat.

Begging pardon, but what difference does that make? Whether it takes you an hour or a hundred, if it does the task once you're done, it works! Besides, those functionalities are already implemented in Acrobat.

As I said, setting up the document itself isn't that involved, and other than indexing, usually doesn't take that long.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Begging pardon, but what difference does that make? Whether it takes you an hour or a hundred, if it does the task once you're done, it works! Besides, those functionalities are already implemented in Acrobat.

Read the thread again. I replied to a comment that said that you should not blame the data format for bad programs. My point was that you often can blame the data format for bad programs.

Can you please tell me how I in Linux without using a graphical program can remove margins in a pdf document? Since you seem to say that all useful fuctionality is implemented. or using a graphical program for that matter?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

"Special needs" like clearly viewing graphics, for instance?

Generally, when I read e-books, I read, and occasionally look at graphics, and sometimes I bookmark things. PDF serves those needs fine, and I don't think they're all that unusual.

And I think PDF should also get major points due to its ubiquitous nature... more than any other e-book format, PDFs can be read on most any device, large and small, on most any OS including those of proprietary hardware, from old to new documents and old to new systems. That's more widespread than Mobi. That's the kind of ubiquitousness ePub drools about. And it's already here. That counts for a lot.

No adding graphics/bookmarks to a reflowable format is perfectly possible. And I'm sorry, but if we stuck to a format simply because it is ubiquitous, then we'd never change formats.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

@Kovid

When a reading device, such as the Sony, analyses a file for display, how does it proceed? Does it need to have the software that created each file type onboard? Does it proceed the same way with each file type?

Well no, it doesn't need the creation software, but it does have format dependent algorithms for pagination.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

Read the thread again. I replied to a comment that said that you should not blame the data format for bad programs. My point was that you often can blame the data format for bad programs.

Can you please tell me how I in Linux without using a graphical program can remove margins in a pdf document? Since you seem to say that all useful fuctionality is implemented. or using a graphical program for that matter?

No. (Not that I refuse to tell you...)

Assuming you are referring to a PDF document that isn't tagged (because, if it is, the margins automatically adjust to your reader), you're asking about reformatting a document layout that is not designed to be reformatted after it is created. A tagged PDF would not give you that problem.

If the document isn't properly set for the use you put it to (which, in the case of e-books, includes tagging), you're wasting a lot of time. True, many PDFs are not tagged, which makes them poor e-book files. That's no reason to condemn the lot.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No adding graphics/bookmarks to a reflowable format is perfectly possible. And I'm sorry, but if we stuck to a format simply because it is ubiquitous, then we'd never change formats.

Sure, but that's not what we're discussing here... we're discussing whether PDF is a legitimate e-book format. I mean, I see your points and all, but mere inferiority to other formats doesn't negate PDF's usefulness with certain kinds of e-documents. It may not be perfect, and it may not be popular with some people (okay, maybe a lot of people), but it's still legitimate.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There are indeed a great many books which can be obtained in the form of PDF files, but to my mind, PDF files is what they are, not eBooks.

So, for these reasons, I vote "no". PDF files are not eBooks, even if they do happen to contain the pages of a book.

The question that remains unanswered is how are you going to do an e-version of say a math book or anything where the 2 dimensional structure of the book is important.

There are even fiction books consisting essentially of text for which the 2 dimensional structure is quite important. Did you see House of Leaves by M . Danielewski with its inverted pages, column writing, empty or partially filled pages, various fonts?

Or more recently Debatable Spaces by P. Palmer - Orbit actually did a marvelous job of recreating the 2 dimensional structure in its e-extract, but I think it would take a lot of work to do it for the whole novel and there are pages where I doubt reflowability will work.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

The question that remains unanswered is how are you going to do an e-version of say a math book or anything where the 2 dimensional structure of the book is important.

There are even fiction books consisting essentially of text for which the 2 dimensional structure is quite important. Did you see House of Leaves by M . Danielewski with its inverted pages, column writing, empty or partially filled pages, various fonts?

Or more recently Debatable Spaces by P. Palmer - Orbit actually did a marvelous job of recreating the 2 dimensional structure in its e-extract, but I think it would take a lot of work to do it for the whole novel and there are pages where I doubt reflowability will work.

But, isn't that true of every eBook format on the planet? These kinds of things are tough even for paper books. Typically empty pages are pretty easy as are partially filled pages and various fonts. Some of the others are tougher but sometimes a graphic can be substituted when necessary to maintain a picture of what the page is to look like. This is actually a pretty good way, in an electronic document to represent something that is beyond normal formatting.

A few formats simply won't do all the things you can do on paper can will certainly not reflow it. Some eBook formats don't even support graphics but they still seem to be useful for some purposes.

Dale