[ProfJulie]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Ahhh... now we come to the real reason why you like PDF: to lock down your work and prevent readers from actually "buying" it electronically.

What an assumption you make! I have no personal agenda here. These were not books I authored....it was for a job I had at the time. Locking down the format was not the emphasis and in fact I was not even looking at the DRM capabilities of Adobe. Most of my focus was on making the books accessible to smaller screens. Since PDF is so pervasive, that was one of the formats we used.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Let's see. I just did a reproducible test which demonstrates that PDF produces extremely large files compared to alternatives.

Yes, my assertion about the number of tagged PDFs out there is my opinion: based on the number of PDFs that I have acquired. I have a directory full of PDFs. None of them are tagged. All of them have come from commercial sources.

Based upon the fact that I have been working with eBooks for the last 5 years using various formats, I can say from experience that PDF offers no benefit over the alternatives.

To state something as fact, as you have attempted to do here, needs more testing, and more information about the variables tested.

I think we must agree to disagree. You seem to have quite a bias against the PDF format. I have listed out some of the additional functionality one gets with PDF books, but you have not even acknowledged that. Your tests, honestly, seem to be slanted toward the negatives here. I, personally, do not care for the PDF format and have not purchased many books in this format. In fact I avoid purchasing books in PDF format as much as possible. But it is not because the format can not be used as a legitimate eBook. My aversion to PDF is a reaction to its onerous DRM encryption and a lack of support by Adobe to address DRM problems.

But the fact remains that PDF is a everywhere and many times, it is the only electronic format that one can get books in.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Our discussion is about PDF. Not about Adobe Acrobat.

Our discussion may be about PDF but how can one talk about PDF files without talking about software? Adobe set the standard for the PDF format and Adobe really holds the cards to the additional features that PDF offers. I have not used many alternative PDF viewers, but the ones that I have used are no where near as rich in functionality as Adobe Acrobat. If you want to use the full functionality that PDF offers, you are going to wind up with Adobe Acrobat.

Just because other software vendors and companies that have produced electronic reading devices do not capitalize on this functionality does not mean it does not exist or that the file format is inferior.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Because our experience is that once an eBook is in PDF, it's extremely time consuming to change it to something else.

Oh, now you are talking about hacking the files! Something the average reader probably isn't even concerned with doing. Again, I state, "if Adobe wants to lock down the file to protect their intellectual property, that's certainly up to them."

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Yup. It is an electronic version of a paper book. As an eBook format it fails in every way.

Failed in what ways? Have you even read a tagged PDF file on a handheld? How can you make such a global statement as this?

Originally Posted by rlauzon

And I actually created PDFs to be used on my eBook readers and compared how well they worked compared to other formats.

I have formatted PDF files to make them work on the limited PDF reader that is on on my Cybook. That is not the same thing as creating a tagged PDF file that will work on this reader. The Cybook reader is deficient in regards to reading PDF files, not the file.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Experience trumps reading articles.

That won't ever happen. You can go read the articles about DRM to figure that out.

I have no idea what you are referring to here, but I think you are attempting to condescend to me, and so I terminate the conversation here.