Quote:
Originally Posted by Fledchen
I'm confused. Why is PDF not considered an ebook format? I understand that it does not display well on most mobile devices, but it can still be viewed on a laptop or desktop computer.
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Don't be fooled: PDF
is a valid e-book format, in fact, one of the very first. It's just not a
popular e-book format.
PDF was originally designed to facilitate printing of electronic documents on different computer platforms, but it was later altered so that it served other purposes, including reading documents on the PC, and preserving formatting, without bothering to print them. That makes it an e-book format.
These days, scalability is considered key to "proper" e-book formats, so they can be read on various devices of different display sizes. Some PDFs will scale reasonably if they are properly tagged, but not all producers know how to tag a PDF... and some (non-Adobe) PDF applications, including those on most dedicated reading devices, cannot properly read a tagged PDF.
With those inherent limitations (and a large group of people who are philosophically against using Adobe products, even when they are equal or superior to available alternatives), you get a very vocal majority against the format. But if it works fine for you, by all means, enjoy it!