Quote:
Originally Posted by radius
I'm trying to figure out how a web site renders better on a phone than a small-screen-formatted PDF and I can't see the difference. Can you tell me what you mean?
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What? Because it's
responsive, like most modern sites are. Hell, mine is (in my sig, I think), for viewing on a phone. About...7-8 years ago, I tried to find a menu on a restaurant website, [to order some food to be ready when I arrived 30 mins later] more year-2000-ish than year-2013-enabled, and I was
infuriated at how horrible it was to find, navigate and VIEW on a smartphone. (Which, coincidentally, was...you guessed it, a PDF!).
I don't get to use my phone much, as my home and office are both surrounded by very nearby mountains, so my signal's been nearly unusable for dog's years. Until that day, I didn't
realize how important responsiveness is,
but it is.
Quote:
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As far as I can tell, both will be infinite scroll and not paged, neither lets you change the font size but rather let you pinch to zoom and then scroll around, both are supported out of the box on just about all phones. Neither will allow you to annotate, sync reading location or bookmark.
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No..I'm sorry, but pinch-zooming websites is
literally 20 years old as a viewing method. I really don't think you're going to find a lot of (successful) pinch-zoom, non-responsive websites still hanging around. Those that are responsive do a BOATLOAD more than pinch-zoom, in this day and age. Maybe you just don't realize what's happening in the background, when you view websites on your phone?
Heck, maybe you're
exactly like me and you don't really browse the Net much on your phone? I don't--that's
why it took me
forever to 'get it' around responsiveness, which is pretty damned dumb for someone whose website is
fundamental to the success of her biz. DUUUH.
Quote:
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I have read novels in PDF from Feedbooks back around ten-ish years ago when they used to let you choose a small-screen format, and it didn't bother me even if it wasn't perfect (but as someone who has had Palm, WinCE, Psion, Rocket and even Franklin devices I'm not a natural PDF consumer).
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Well, I would
lose my mind if I had to pinch-zoom, pan-scan, read; pan-scan-read; pan-scan-read; turn page, pinch-zoom, pan-scan, read....lather rinse repeat through 300-400 pages. I don't mind it for 5 pages, if it's non-fiction or whatever, but reading a book that way, for
hundreds of pages? You must have a high tolerance for gross inconvenience. Once you realize what a responsive website is/does, and what a PDF doesn't (the latter of which you obviously already do)--not to mention, reflowable eBooks--the difference is pretty huge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
Which size of phone would you format the PDF for? Whereas a decent Website is as "Responsive" as Mobi, AZW/KF8 or ePub2 to the size of screen.
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Yes, that's
my question. Size of a Fire 10"? A Paperwhite? Or, a Samsung Note 10? iPhone? That's a lotta different options and you know that
whatever you choose, it'll be wrong.
Not to mention, how are they
GETTING the PDF on their devices? I mean, to circle back a bit here--if they want to read that on their Kindles, now you got a whole 'other rodeo going on, amirite?
Hitch