Quote:
Originally Posted by NatCh
That's an interesting point of view, akiburis. Would you mind elaborating on where you see those other formats as being lacking compared to PDF? I'm less sensitive to such nuances myself (I figure if I can read the words clearly without moving my lips, I'm doing pretty well  ), and I'd like the perspective of someone who is more aware of them.  |
It depends upon your expectations.
The point to PDF is a portable format that will look the same on whatever device it is viewed on, and when printed will reproduce the paper document on which it is based.
The problem with PDFs from an ebook viewpoint is that they aren't designed to reflow, and implicitly assume a larger viewing area than most devices used to view ebooks possess.
Making them reflowable presents a different issue. I just got a PDF of the program book from a convention I'll be attending this weekend. The PDF reproduces the paper publication, which is an 8.5x11 magazine format with multiple columns. How do you go about reflowing that for display on a smaller screen? Without breaking the layout, which may be significant, you
don't.
And the PDF not only reproduces that paper publication, it
produces it: the printer that produces the paper version of the book uses the PDF as input to the image setter that produces the film used to make the plates for the press.
As a sometime designer, I find PDFs extraordinarily useful. I can generate a PDF for review that exactly duplicates how the printed matter will appear, can be handed off to the printer's prepress as input to their equipment that generates the plates, and can be provided electronically to folks who don't require the paper version. I also have far more control over the appearance of the documents, and can embed images and fonts in arbitrary ways that I don't think I could do with something like MobiPocket.
But I don't find it a useful format for ebooks precisely
because of its strengths. On an ebook, I am concerned far more with legibility than design. I likely won't have multi-column formats available, and may have restrictions on the fonts and images I can use. Since the intended output device will have restricted viewing area, there will be limits to what I can do in any case.
I won't have control over the fonts available on the reader's device, nor control over leading and measure. I just do the best I can with the book creation software, and cross my fingers.
In summary, I think PDFs are a
de facto ebook format, simply because of the volume of material produced in that format that people will want to read. I just don't think they are a preferable format for dedicated ebook readers because they simply assume a larger display than teh device is likely to have.
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Dennis