Capitalism 3.0 by Peter Barnes

[Kingston]

http://capitalism3.com/downloadbuy

The author gives us the choice to download the pdf for free or puchase from Amazon for $15.61.

Guess what I chose....

Here's the Amazon description

http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-3-0...959219?ie=UTF8

[JSWolf]

Don't people realize that PDF is a really bad idea for eBooks? I'm getting tired of PDF all the time. It's just a nightmare.

[moz]

At least it's unprotected pdf, easy enough to convert to another format.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by moz

At least it's unprotected pdf, easy enough to convert to another format.

Yes, it can be converted, but given the hassles we sometimes get with PDF, it's not always worth the bother.

In fact, I'm still fixing errors in Mistborn that I converted from PDF. One of the common errors with PDF is broken paragraphs and that's exporting using Acrobat 8 Pro.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes, it can be converted, but given the hassles we sometimes get with PDF, it's not always worth the bother.

In fact, I'm still fixing errors in Mistborn that I converted from PDF. One of the common errors with PDF is broken paragraphs and that's exporting using Acrobat 8 Pro.

And don't even think about conversion software that will be successful with tables.

Dale

[Kosst Amojan]

Read the review...seems more like Socialism 0.8 beta

[TommyCooper]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Don't people realize that PDF is a really bad idea for eBooks? I'm getting tired of PDF all the time. It's just a nightmare.

JS, I entirely agree. It is the most unfriendly format possible when using it for eBook reading. The page structure is far too inflexible and 'picture' like to make it a worthwhile choice for reading on anything other than a full-size computer screen.

Tommy

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

And don't even think about conversion software that will be successful with tables.

Dale

The tables might be easy.. I'd cut them out as graphics.

[cussedness]

Since I am here to become enlightened, bear with me while I ask a question after reading your complaints about pdf.

What are the alternatives to pdf and what software is involved?

[llasram]

Originally Posted by cussedness

Since I am here to become enlightened, bear with me while I ask a question after reading your complaints about pdf.

What are the alternatives to pdf and what software is involved?

Oh man – welcome to what is at least sometimes called “the e-book Tower of Babel.”

The “bad” is that there are about a half-dozen “major” e-book formats other than PDF, all of which have at least something going for them. The Mobileread Wiki has an exhaustive list containing info on more formats than anyone ever really faces.

The “good” is that PDF is the only major fixed-layout e-book format – all the other most-widely used formats are XML/SGML-based “reflowable” formats. Reflowable formats work like HTML, sacrificing some typographic quality and layout control for flexibility. PDF is inherently optimized for one particular display – be that pieces of A4 paper, a landscape computer monitor, or a 6" portrait e-ink display – while a single reflowable format file displays equally well on a wide variety of screen and font sizes and orientations. The PDF case is made worse for readers on this forum because most e-books released as PDFs are optimized for letter/A4 paper rather than our smaller e-book reader displays.

The “better” is that most of the most popular reflowable formats are not only HTML-like, but HTML-based or -derived. The most popular “device-independent” e-book formats used by major publishers are Mobipocket, Microsoft LIT, and eReader, all three of which are HTML-based. The International Digital Publishing Forum has established a set of standards for describing a “raw” HTML-based e-book, and various vendors/developers have produced tools (some open, some free, some neither) for converting from the IDPF’s standards to the “consumer” formats. Going one step further, the most recent versions of the IDPF’s standards include a “container specification” which allows one to directly package an IDPF-stardards-compliant book as a “.epub” format e-book. Many people here expect/hope .epub to get a lot of traction, although at this time the only vendor supporting it directly is Adobe with their Digital Editions software. The conversion from HTML to non-HTML mark-up–based formats like Sony’s BBeB format and the FB2 format (apparently popular in Russia) is less direct but still comparatively simple, and existing tools are again available.

The gold standard for dealing with the e-book Tower of Babel is how Fictionwise.com handles their “multi-format” books. Users can download purchased multi-format books in any of a dozen different e-book formats, and can re-download the book in any format at any time. They appear to have a software pipeline which converts from one source form (probably an IDPF OEBPS book) to the collection of downloadable formats, with provision for separate custom-generated versions (i.e., some books have high-quality PDFs with full formatting, etc).

Whew. Hope this helps .

[cussedness]

That helps a lot. I really appreciate it. I just downloaded and installed bookdesigner after reading the wiki on it. I may start picking people's brains in PM so that I don't get too obnoxious with my ignorance when I become confused.