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

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Its all SMOP anyway. (Small matter of programming)

I'll have to remember that one. I could get some great mileage out of it!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

PDF is a good e-book format, provided you use it properly... which is something many people do not or cannot do. For example, if you have a non-tagged PDF, you won't be able to have it reflow on your device... that's the wrong way to use it. But if it is tagged, it can reflow and be perfectly readable on the smallest of devices (I read PDFs on my PDA regularly, and they reflow easily).

Most of us can use PDFs, provided we can get it set to the size or aspects we need in advance. Once that is done, most of the problems with PDF simply go away. Even indexing and searching can be set up, in advance, making PDF a very flexible format. It just takes planning before the PDF is created.

And the fact remains that, for complex graphics, it beats out any other e-book format.

[RWood]

For a client I put a manual in PDF and scaled it to the screen size of the Sony PRS-500. This way their techs can have the manual in front of them while working on the equipment without lugging a portable PC with them. As Steve noted above, the graphics render wonderfully.

[ewayde]

I agree with the disdain over DRM'd .pdf docs. On the other hand, most of what I deal with for work, i.e. technical information, is in the .pdf format and to be able to store and read, intact, with my ebook reader is a must-have.

Wayde

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by RWood

For a client I put a manual in PDF and scaled it to the screen size of the Sony PRS-500. This way their techs can have the manual in front of them while working on the equipment without lugging a portable PC with them. As Steve noted above, the graphics render wonderfully.

I have a question for you. How long does it take to reformat a document in the reader's size compared to remaking it in Book Designer? I can't compare because I don't have Acrobat Pro.

[SpiderMatt]

Is PDF a legitimate ebook format? What a silly question. Is PDF electronic? Yes. Do PDF docs contain books? Yes. So is it a legitimate ebook format? Absolutely. I think it's dumb to argue that PDF is not a "legitimate" format just because you don't like it.

Originally Posted by JohnClif

PDF is not a valid ebook format, although it is most likely the most predominant ebook format.

That's a completely contradictory statement. The format isn't "valid" but it's the "predominant" one. How does that even make sense? What establishes an ebook format's validity?

Frankly, PDF is useful for a number of purposes as have already been noted in this thread. I agree with akiburis and ath about the usefulness of PDF in preserving format. I think it's an important feature which is why I use it most often for my Sony Reader. When I format my own PDF and load it on to my Reader, I know exactly how it is going to look. That's a comforting thought to me.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@ath: You seem to be coming from the perspective that the job of an ebook is to be a pbook. If that's you're perspective, then you're going to love PDF. If however, like me, you believe the job of the ebook is to make the pbook obsolete, then PDF is simply not the answer.

Except when you can format your own PDF files to your liking then they are already superior to p-books. With the right program, converting and reformating PDF books is simple, as well. Why should a reading device tell me how my ebook is going to look when I can know exactly how it will look before I even load it on my Reader.

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I have a question for you. How long does it take to reformat a document in the reader's size compared to remaking it in Book Designer? I can't compare because I don't have Acrobat Pro.

I use Microsoft Word to format my books and then convert it into PDF. It doesn't take very long at all. I set the Word pages and margins to match that of my Sony Reader (which I set up using settings described on Sony's website). It's then pretty simple to scroll through Word and rearrange and rescale pictures and reformat any text that needs changing (though it typically doesn't). With Acrobat Pro, you have a PDF print driver (you might be able to find one without even having to get Acrobat Pro), so you just select Adobe Acrobat as your printer and it "prints" the book into a PDF doc. Therefore all formatting remains exactly as you had it. Personally, I love it. I needn't worry at all how it will look on my Reader.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Except when you can format your own PDF files to your liking then they are already superior to p-books. With the right program, converting and reformating PDF books is simple, as well. Why should a reading device tell me how my ebook is going to look when I can know exactly how it will look before I even load it on my Reader.

No converting and reformatting PDFs is not simple. Indeed, it cannot be simple, because in a PDF file there is no structural/semantic information. You're arguing from an end user perspective, basically I can do what I want with PDF therefore ODF must be a good ebook format. Look at the larger picture.

An ebook, unlike a pbook, should serve multiple purposes. One is presenting the information to humans, PDF is great for that. The other is presenting the information to computers for processing/extraction/indexing/transformation, PDF sucks for that. And PDF by its very nature will always suck for that. Thus, PDF does basically what a pbook does (somewhat better, I agree), but that's not nearly enough.

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You're arguing from an end user perspective...

How can I argue from any other? Most people who use PDFs are "end users." We're talking about consumers using PDFs as ebooks, which is the only perspective I have. I find Acrobat Pro to be useful and easy to use. I have no problem converting and reformating PDFs.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The other is presenting the information to computers for processing/extraction/indexing/transformation, PDF sucks for that. And PDF by its very nature will always suck for that.

Not being a programmer, you'd have to explain your position here a bit for me to fully understand. As a normal user, I have no problem with processing, extracting, indexing, or transforming. Granted, I understand your beef against page images, but I avoid page images whenever possible. I fully agree that page images remove most advantages to ebooks. I like reflowable PDF files, however, and find few disadvantages when compared to other formats. I think different formats have different advantages, however. For plain text, I will use rtf for my Reader. But sometimes I want a specific format (generally something I use for articles I copy from the Internet), which PDFs are good for.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

I use Microsoft Word to format my books and then convert it into PDF. It doesn't take very long at all. I set the Word pages and margins to match that of my Sony Reader (which I set up using settings described on Sony's website). It's then pretty simple to scroll through Word and rearrange and rescale pictures and reformat any text that needs changing (though it typically doesn't). With Acrobat Pro, you have a PDF print driver (you might be able to find one without even having to get Acrobat Pro), so you just select Adobe Acrobat as your printer and it "prints" the book into a PDF doc. Therefore all formatting remains exactly as you had it. Personally, I love it. I needn't worry at all how it will look on my Reader.

If you do have Acrobat Pro, then there is an extension that installed itself directly into Word. You should find it in the menu bar. I used to have that when I installed the trial version. It is much simpler this way. I used to output my PDFs directly from Word.

I asked because I do all my books with Book Designer. To do a PDF, it's just a question of dragging a PDF file directly in BD and applying my favorite formating. It does beautiful PRS 500 renditions.

What I want to know is the time difference between that and an Acrobat size reformat.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

How can I argue from any other? Most people who use PDFs are "end users." We're talking about consumers using PDFs as ebooks, which is the only perspective I have. I find Acrobat Pro to be useful and easy to use. I have no problem converting and reformating PDFs.

Yes but today, end users use ebooks just as they use pbooks and PDF will not let you go beyond that usage model.

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Not being a programmer, you'd have to explain your position here a bit for me to fully understand. As a normal user, I have no problem with processing, extracting, indexing, or transforming. Granted, I understand your beef against page images, but I avoid page images whenever possible. I fully agree that page images remove most advantages to ebooks. I like reflowable PDF files, however, and find few disadvantages when compared to other formats. I think different formats have different advantages, however. For plain text, I will use rtf for my Reader. But sometimes I want a specific format (generally something I use for articles I copy from the Internet), which PDFs are good for.

For e.g. suppose I write a cool little web app that wants to "mangle" poems, i.e. extract stanzas from different poems and combine them into a new poem. Now if all my poems were in PDF files I'd have no way of knowing what a stanza is, beyond using some sort of hackish heuristic based on blank lines. This is because the poem is "rendered" in the PDF file and really the only way to identify semantic elements like a "stanza" is to have an entity as intelligent as a human look at the rendered poem.

And as for your claim of being able to process, extract content from a PDF. Can you extract the content from a letter sized PDF and create a non image based 6" inch PDF from it easily? If you can I'd really like to know how. And by easily I mean automatically, in no more than 5 minutes.

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

If you do have Acrobat Pro, then there is an extension that installed itself directly into Word. You should find it in the menu bar. I used to have that when I installed the trial version. It is much simpler this way. I used to output my PDFs directly from Word.

I have Word 2007 and it's hidden under the "Add Ins" tab. I used this feature with my first version of Acrobat Pro years ago, but I have found it so much faster to hit crtl+p and enter rather than drag my mouse up to the pdf button. I'm a keyboard shortcut whore.

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I asked because I do all my books with Book Designer. To do a PDF, it's just a question of dragging a PDF file directly in BD and applying my favorite formating. It does beautiful PRS 500 renditions.

What I want to know is the time difference between that and an Acrobat size reformat.

Well, I can't help you there. I just downloaded BookDesigner, though, and I'm going to try it out to see how I like it. My main motivation in using PDF is embedded images. If BookDesigner handles those well, that might become my primary tool.

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

For e.g. suppose I write a cool little web app that wants to "mangle" poems, i.e. extract stanzas from different poems and combine them into a new poem. Now if all my poems were in PDF files I'd have no way of knowing what a stanza is, beyond using some sort of hackish heuristic based on blank lines. This is because the poem is "rendered" in the PDF file and really the only way to identify semantic elements like a "stanza" is to have an entity as intelligent as a human look at the rendered poem.

Why would you want to mangle a poem? That's just disgusting! As for not recognizing stanzas, I don't know why a reflowable PDF should be different from another ebook format (again, not a programmer). How do stanzas stand out in other formats? Surely spacing can be recognized in a PDF just as it would be in another format...?

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

And as for your claim of being able to process, extract content from a PDF. Can you extract the content from a letter sized PDF and create a non image based 6" inch PDF from it easily? If you can I'd really like to know how. And by easily I mean automatically, in no more than 5 minutes.

I've never timed myself, but if the document contains no images (which kind of takes away the point of my using a PDF file in the first place) then I can easily do it in under 5 minutes. What I do is save the PDF as a DOC file (which Acrobat Pro allows users to do) and open it in Microsoft Word. I then set the page format to the preset format of 3.47"x4.54" and .15" margins. This resets the text, obviously, and fits it into Reader sized pages. Then I convert the document back to PDF. Images obviously need to be resized when in Word, which is usually what I wind up doing because I like to include images from articles I take from the Internet. It kind of livens up the document. I generally don't spend very long on this, however. As I said above, I'm going to try out BookDesigner to see how it handles images. That's really my big thing with PDFs. I can format a page, resize and place an image anywhere in Word, and know that it will look exactly the same on my Reader. I love it.

[kovidgoyal]

A semantic (typically XML based) format would represent a poem internally as

<poem>
<title>The blah poem</title>
<stanza>
<line>blah blah</line>
<line>...</line>
</stanza>
</poem>

PDF would represent it as

<bold, font size=20pt, centered>The blah poem</b, f, c>
<blank>
blah blah<line end>
...<line end>
<blank>

You see the difference, I hope? But forget about poems and stanzas. Say you're using your reader on a train and you enter a dimly lit tunnel, this makes the words on the screen harder to read so you want to increase the font size. PDF no can do, a semantic format, easy.

The conversion process you describe will work well only for very simple PDF documents. Whereas if the source file was in something like HTML you could reliably, with high fidelity convert a far larger set of typographical features.

[SpiderMatt]

I didn't know ebooks coded poems like that. It can be useful, I guess... Not something I would ever need to use, personally.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You see the difference, I hope? But forget about poems and stanzas. Say you're using your reader on a train and you enter a dimly lit tunnel, this makes the words on the screen harder to read so you want to increase the font size. PDF no can do, a semantic format, easy.

The conversion process you describe will work well only for very simple PDF documents. Whereas if the source file was in something like HTML you could reliably, with high fidelity convert a far larger set of typographical features.

I rarely use the increase font feature. The only time I use it is on new documents to get to the size I intend on using to read the whole book in. And the simple S, M, L sizes typically don't make the text large enough for me to see in low-lit areas, anyway. I'd wind up waiting until we were out of the tunnel anyway. But I see your point, and I do use other formats for other uses, as I said. I'm giving BookDesigner a try now. Maybe it's just what I need to get me off my PDF fix.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Well, I can't help you there. I just downloaded BookDesigner, though, and I'm going to try it out to see how I like it. My main motivation in using PDF is embedded images. If BookDesigner handles those well, that might become my primary tool.

Thanks for trying. This is why I've asked RWood, because I knew he had experience with both.