Quote:
Originally Posted by PsyDocJoanne
Thanks Bob and Blusaber!
But (and pardon me if this has been covered) why would whoever formats these books choose to format them that way? There must be something I'm missing.
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The best thing about the PDF format is the biggest problem with it for eBooks
PDF was designed to address the "paperless office", by seamlessly mimicking the printed (8.5x11) page in digital format. PDF is able to maintain typefaces, graphics, and (this is problem) static text layouts.
For some uses, static text layouts are essential-it means that Chapter 3 is always on page 124, for example, and the same first and last words can always be found on page 124, regardless of zoom level.*
Forms, documents, drawings, and technical manuals were the perfect content for this. And since most desktop computers had large enough screens to display the PDF files as they were meant to be seen.
The problem with static text layouts comes in when you shrink your display down from 15"-30" diagonal to 4"-6" diagonal, as most eBook devices tend to have. PDFs have only two options for display on these smaller screens-shrink down the page to fit (making the text too small to read), or displaying only a small viewport (like a picture frame) that has to pan across the full size page (in both horizontal and vertical directions).
The new eBook formats are designed for a different ideal. Rather than slavishly mimic printed books, they decided to take advantage of the strengths and unique opportunities that electronic text could offer: Giving the user a choice of typefaces, font sizes, and page layouts on a wide variety of reading devices.
eBook formats eschew static text layouts for reflowing text layouts; this means that Chapter 3 may no longer be on page 124-depending on what typeface the reader is using, and how big a screen his eBook reader may have. In fact, the whole concept of "page number" or "page layout" is somewhat irrelevant. The disadvantage, obviously, is that you can't refer people to "page 124" to find Chapter 3. The advantage is that what IS displayed on screen is exactly what the reader wants to see in terms of legibility. Instead of the static viewport that PDFs are stuck with, flexible eBook formats re-flow the text, more like pouring text into a glass of water to fit, depending on whatever size glass you happen to have.
Ok, that was TMI
In short, PDF was never really designed for the use we eBook readers are trying to shoehorn it into. Thank god for .ePub
*Sony is trying to have it both ways, by adapting PDFs so they can reflow text. From my (very) limited experimentation-it looks like they need to do some more work on that