[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

You're assuming most people have auto-rotate on. Kindles don't have autorotate in any case.
Sensible, since if I'm lying down and reading in bed, I don't want the text to rotate.
And for my iPad, I do have autorotate on most of the time, but for iBooks I turn it off--double click to get to settings, then one tap.

It's a choice between a couple of taps to zoom the image, or a couple of taps to toggle autorotate.

Anyway, I know you have to deal with very conservative clients, and need compatibility for every possible device, so I don't expect you to change your practice, but it is not "idiotic" to rotate an image if you don't have to worry about what every possible user might possibly do.

It has nothing to do with conservatism. My informal polls, which I take when I see people with devices, is that MOST people seem to have autorotate on, both in eReaders and, in much higher percentages, tablets and laptops.

And FWIW, I have two Kindles that autorotate. Would we all agree that people are going to rotate their device, to landscape, if it's not already in landscape, to view it? Right? And probably zoom it?

So, for the people who don't have autorotate on, they would have to change their device to make it rotate. For those that do have it on, they have to chase it around for a moment, aggravating the hell out of themselves, and THEN go turn it off, right? The people who already have it turned off already know that the image won't rotate. The people who have it turned on, aren't going to be amused chasing it around--I know I wasn't, the first time I stumbled across an image set at 90°. And what if I don't want to rotate the device, to see the image? If the image is set at 90°, I have no choice. When the image is not rotated, then everybody has a choice of how to see it.

To my way of thinking, you irritate fewer people, by setting it top-up, rather than top-left. Almost everyone will turn the device, to seea it in landscape orientation, anyway--so those who have auto-rotate on, are set; those who have auto-rotate off will have to fix that. But as I said, my poll-taking indicates that those with it turned off are vastly in the minority. I'm just trying to piss off the fewest number of people, that's all.

I honestly don't care about it--if someone wants to do that, it's their book.

Spoiler:

I had an unhappy print client that was livid about how SMALL his spreadsheets were, in his 6" wide print book. I had to argue with him about rotating them, top-left, to give the spreadsheets enough room. He blamed us for how tiny they appeared, and eventually, had someone ELSE redo his book, to achieve his goal--having them make the book 10" wide and I don't know how tall. He was convinced that "nobody" puts spreadsheets in a print book sideways--I've only seen them in hundreds, but what do I know? Idiotic, that he never realized that the stupid things would be too bloody small to read in a 4.5" wide page. Sweet Jesus.

Hitch