Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book General > News

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 05-06-2009, 09:51 AM   #121
rhadin
Literacy = Understanding
rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rhadin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
rhadin's Avatar
 
Posts: 4,833
Karma: 59674358
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The World of Books
Device: Nook, Nook Tablet
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonist View Post
But, the new Adobe SDK provides support for reflow-able pages. . . . [ePub] has no clear benefits to offer over a de-facto document standard (PDF), and it will just confuse and fragment the market, and possibly slow adoption.
If the industry is not going to adopt PDF as the industry standard, then ePub gets my vote. However . . .

Although many on MR do not agree that PDF is an ebook format, I think it could become one and that if it publishers properly formatted their books for PDF distribution on ereading devices, then PDF could work well. I think PDF has lots of advantages once you get past straight-text novels. I also think that as ereading device screens become larger PDF will gain adherents among the publishing community and will become a de facto standard.
rhadin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2009, 10:01 AM   #122
Sweetpea
Grand Sorcerer
Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sweetpea ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Sweetpea's Avatar
 
Posts: 9,707
Karma: 32763414
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Krewerd
Device: Pocketbook Inkpad 4 Color; Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhadin View Post
If the industry is not going to adopt PDF as the industry standard, then ePub gets my vote. However . . .

Although many on MR do not agree that PDF is an ebook format, I think it could become one and that if it publishers properly formatted their books for PDF distribution on ereading devices, then PDF could work well. I think PDF has lots of advantages once you get past straight-text novels. I also think that as ereading device screens become larger PDF will gain adherents among the publishing community and will become a de facto standard.
I never liked PDF for ebooks. Especially not for novels. It's fine for textbooks, but for novels it's too rigid (which is the nature of PDF and the strong point of PDF).
Sweetpea is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2009, 10:01 AM   #123
Daithi
Publishers are evil!
Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Daithi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Daithi's Avatar
 
Posts: 2,418
Karma: 36205264
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Rhode Island
Device: Various Kindles
It is also a lot easier to create a PDF document -- especially if the book is not already in an electronic format.
Daithi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2009, 10:42 AM   #124
tirsales
MIA ... but returning som
tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
tirsales's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,600
Karma: 511342
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Germany
Device: PRS-505 and *Really* not owning a PRS-700
PDF is fine - if created correctly (and I rarely see correct PDF (not excluding my own)) and if created specifically for the display size (and you dont really believe publishers would go through the hazzle of producing a 5'',6'',9,7'',.. version, do you?)
I've yet to see a nice "resizeable" PDF-solution (theoretical possibilities or not). Apart from that PDF are less usable for accessibility-solutions (e.g. braille readers) and require more computational power (and storage) then html-based solutions (not to speak of font-resizing, zooming is just not the same).
Really - there is not much advantage of a PDF for free-flowing text over HTML (requires full (and real, standard-conform) CSS-support, but thats an error of the software publishers, not of the format)

--edit: And its only easier to create a PDF (especially out of analog material) if you accept "not good" PDF (e.g. scans or PDFs containing lots of "move here move there" definitions, w/o containing the font (text as image), etc)
tirsales is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2009, 10:48 AM   #125
DaleDe
Grand Sorcerer
DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DaleDe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
DaleDe's Avatar
 
Posts: 11,470
Karma: 13095790
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Grass Valley, CA
Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7
Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
PDF is fine - if created correctly (and I rarely see correct PDF (not excluding my own)) and if created specifically for the display size (and you dont really believe publishers would go through the hazzle of producing a 5'',6'',9,7'',.. version, do you?)
I've yet to see a nice "resizeable" PDF-solution (theoretical possibilities or not). Apart from that PDF are less usable for accessibility-solutions (e.g. braille readers) and require more computational power (and storage) then html-based solutions (not to speak of font-resizing, zooming is just not the same).
Really - there is not much advantage of a PDF for free-flowing text over HTML (requires full (and real, standard-conform) CSS-support, but thats an error of the software publishers, not of the format)

--edit: And its only easier to create a PDF (especially out of analog material) if you accept "not good" PDF (e.g. scans or PDFs containing lots of "move here move there" definitions, w/o containing the font (text as image), etc)
Good points. Another gotcha for PDF is direct editing of the PDF file itself. This practice really complicates the file and can make the edit area unreadable on some devices. Tagging can help a PDF and reflow can work fairly well if it is done properly. The latest strategy of reflowing untagged files as used on ADE isn't as good.

Dale
DaleDe is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-06-2009, 01:51 PM   #126
dmaul1114
Wizard
dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 2,300
Karma: 1121709
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle 1
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36 View Post
I agree with you that the MOBI/AZW format will eventually become obsolete. The ebook (at least, hardware-wise) is really just starting out. What's going to be important, I think, is what the transition to the next format looks like. Ideally, Amazon (or some other vendor) would be able to provide a device with support for both AZW and the Next Big Thing (whether that's epub or something else). But vendors won't do that unless they feel like they don't have a choice.
I really think it's just dependent on what kind of market share the Kindle and the Amazon bookstore gets.

If it dominates like iTunes did with music, Mobi/AZW will likely stick around, just like AAC files have in iTunes. At most Amazon will just remove DRM eventually like Apple did to allow people to convert them to other formats if they so choose, while sticking with their format.

But again, it's a non-issue for me since I just get stuff I'll read once. And even if the Kindle and mobi/AZW did totally die off at some point in the future, it's easy enough to strip the DRM and convert it to some other format for use on whatever device/format took over.
dmaul1114 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-08-2009, 06:47 AM   #127
zerospinboson
"Assume a can opener..."
zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.zerospinboson ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
zerospinboson's Avatar
 
Posts: 755
Karma: 1942109
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Local Cluster
Device: iLiad v2, DR1000
Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
PDF is fine - if created correctly (and I rarely see correct PDF (not excluding my own)) and if created specifically for the display size (and you dont really believe publishers would go through the hazzle of producing a 5'',6'',9,7'',.. version, do you?)
I've yet to see a nice "resizeable" PDF-solution (theoretical possibilities or not). Apart from that PDF are less usable for accessibility-solutions (e.g. braille readers) and require more computational power (and storage) then html-based solutions (not to speak of font-resizing, zooming is just not the same).
Really - there is not much advantage of a PDF for free-flowing text over HTML (requires full (and real, standard-conform) CSS-support, but thats an error of the software publishers, not of the format)

--edit: And its only easier to create a PDF (especially out of analog material) if you accept "not good" PDF (e.g. scans or PDFs containing lots of "move here move there" definitions, w/o containing the font (text as image), etc)
Something to keep in mind here though is that, in academia, it is often necessary to refer to page numbers. If you put a book in a reflowable format that will become nearly impossible (unless you integrate the page numbers into the text directly), so I'm not sure it is something that would be appreciated.
zerospinboson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-08-2009, 06:57 AM   #128
tirsales
MIA ... but returning som
tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
tirsales's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,600
Karma: 511342
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Germany
Device: PRS-505 and *Really* not owning a PRS-700
Quote:
Originally Posted by zerospinboson View Post
Something to keep in mind here though is that, in academia, it is often necessary to refer to page numbers. If you put a book in a reflowable format that will become nearly impossible (unless you integrate the page numbers into the text directly), so I'm not sure it is something that would be appreciated.
I agree - but then "the art of quotation" would have to change - e.g. paragraph numbering would be an option.
It's already happening (see the growing number of internet quotations)
tirsales is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-08-2009, 01:05 PM   #129
dmaul1114
Wizard
dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.dmaul1114 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 2,300
Karma: 1121709
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle 1
Yeah, citing would be an issue. One way around it is for eventually all ebooks and readers to use the same location system. On the kindle the locations are the same regardless of the font size etc..

So then you could site the location number in place of the page number for the direct quotes.

Paragraph numbers wouldn't work so well, unless readers all had an option to display the paragraph numbers on the screen. I hate with citations of internet articles now, it's a real pain for longer articles. I end up having to print them out and go through and write the paragraph numbers in the margins for longer articles that I'm quoting from multiple times.

But for PDFs, it's probably just easiest to have a standard maximum size and only have one size version of each document, and people who want an ereader for them will just have to buy a reader that supports PDFs up to the maximum size.
dmaul1114 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-15-2009, 05:35 AM   #130
Jill75
Zealot
Jill75 doesn't litterJill75 doesn't litter
 
Posts: 135
Karma: 150
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: none
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Drib View Post
Remember, it's not size that matters. (I heard that from somewhere.)

Amazon should concentrate on other issues, such as DRM-related issues and "control" issues. (Does anyone remember Radio Shack's Tandy computer series? Also: What would have happened if Apple had licensed its proprietary software back before Windows had existed?)

Don
I agree perfectly. Imagine having an upgrade on the screen size but have the same problem existing.
Jill75 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
formats, kindle, pdf

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
NYT: B&N planning big push to increase Nook sales Maggie Leung News 53 08-04-2010 11:34 PM
NYT: Sony Showcases New Rollable, Flexible Screen kjk News 0 05-26-2010 03:32 PM
Anyone worried about reading on such a big screen? (Kindle DX) Iliad users? Gideon News 19 06-05-2009 04:21 PM
Libertyville is waiting for its Kindle 2's to arrive! LadyReader Introduce Yourself 4 02-24-2009 07:41 PM
My new Kindle won't arrive until 3/09? bayou Amazon Kindle 10 12-02-2008 01:33 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:59 AM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.