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Old 04-24-2008, 02:10 PM   #124
DaleDe
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Posts: 11,470
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Grass Valley, CA
Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion View Post
PDFs are great if you want to print something. If you want to read it on a screen not so much. Even if the PDF is reflowable, the reader does not have control over the fonts, so if you want it on a portable device it needs to be formatted for both the screen size and the eyes of the person reading it. Different people need different size and style fonts-- this is particularly true as they age.

Some people swear by Arial, I prefer to swear at it.

The biggest advantage of reading something in a digital form is that it makes it easier to meet the needs of each individual reader rather than the "one-size-fits-all" model of paper. PDF is an expression of that model in digital format.

Yes it can be used as a digital reading format, but unless one has very specific formatting needs it's never a good choice unless it's specifically formatted for the device and the person reading it. At that point the question becomes why should I do something manually that the software does for all the other formats?f

You may be perfectly happy with a PDF that's been specifically optimized for your eyes and your screen, but what about me? What about people who may read on more than one device?

I just finished reading a science fiction magazine on my Palm TX. But I read part of it on my Nokia 6126. I need different font and page sizes for a 2.2" screen at 320x240 than for a 3.8" screen at 480x320. PDF makes adjusting that more difficult than it needs to be.

It meets certain needs, but as a general eBook format it causes more problems than it solves.
Zoom is for that very problem. A combination of zooming and reflow can provide you with the size text you want a still flow the document. As to the font type, most eBook Readers don't give you much control over that.

Dale
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