Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
The problem with an in file pagination solution like eb1150 is that you are then tied to a particular reader implementation (screen size, font size and layout algorithm). I am very concerned that it may not be possible to layout HTML+CSS on existing devices quickly enough, in which case .epub is useless as anything other than an archival format, and as for archiving a zipped up set of HTML files with a opf for metadata and structure information is good enough.
|
It is true that any pagination solution requires this knowledge. It is even more important for technical manuals that may reference a page number somewhere else in the document which, in the case of ebooks, is a variable.
Taking the hit to reformat a book one time is a price that may be workable but in the long run it should not be required every time a user reselects that size so the standard could permit the build default sizes and then adjust as needed. There are standard screen sizes and font sizes so this should be possible and then the standard should provide a mechanism to store this data. This way the user can buy an epub book and have it automatically paginate for the device they choose. If they switch devices they would have a one time installation hit the first time. The standard just needs to define a format for the data storage in the .epub file.
The nice thing about zip files is that you can easily add data like this on the fly when the epub file is delivered.
Dale