Quote:
Originally Posted by sdive
In connection with some Uni research I'm doing:
Is it possible to talk of e-book features (searchability, highlighting etc) independently of e-readers? From what I'm gathering e-book development was device driven (this is all very new to me ...).
Are e-books commercially available for PC consumption (excluding PDFs and apps)? I mean, could you talk about e-books for PCs before e-readers took off, apart from special interest books and classics/fiction? Again, what's coming thru is that the e-book market is mainly for dedicated readers or tablets, sometimes smartphones.
Thanks in advance.
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I think the bolded part is mostly true. Their are various standards in place that dictate what an e-book contains. They do not dictate how that standard is or must be interpreted or used by the end reader; therefore, tools should be discussed independently. A reader might make use of some aspect of the format to do a task but nothing dictates that it must.
An e-reader is to an e-book as a web browser is to a webpage.
A good exercise for the learner is to explore the structure of a few popular standards. Compare and contrast with the functionality of a few of their associated readers.