[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Quoth

If they are quotes from the same page, then it's stupid even on paper (or web), leave it out of ebook.

Heh, yep. (See rants below.)

Originally Posted by Quoth

Go inline, but a different indent, face, size.

Yes, I'd agree... if it was actual headings (or an actual aside/sidenote).

But to have a phrase/sentence that's just going to appear right next to it two seconds later... it just doesn't work.

Quite often it also:

• Repeats what you JUST read.
• "Spoils" what's going to come up.
  
  • I believe this might be the point, to allow your eyes to "skim" and land on an emphasized quote. You thought quote was interesting? Then you'd begin reading at that paragraph.
    
  • Or if you were rifling through the pages of a magazine/newspaper, you'd stop and read that story.
    

Like take this:

Original PDF:

Blah blah blah.
     Blah2 blah2 blah2. This is          "This is a
a good quote. Blah2 blah2 blah2.         good quote."
     Blah3 blah3 blah3. Blah3 blah3 blah3. Blah3 blah3 blah3.

Spoiler:

Pullquote Before:

Blah blah blah.

"This is a good quote."

Blah2 blah2 blah2. This is a good quote. Blah2 blah2 blah2.
Blah3 blah3 blah3. Blah3 blah3 blah3. Blah3 blah3 blah3.

Pullquote After:

Blah blah blah.
Blah2 blah2 blah2. This is a good quote. Blah2 blah2 blah2.

"This is a good quote."

Blah3 blah3 blah3. Blah3 blah3 blah3. Blah3 blah3 blah3.

Meh.

When I created a workflow to go from online articles -> clean ebook, luckily they were tagged with:

<span class="pullquote-right">

I was able to use Saved Search + Regex to remove those within a second.

It was especially absurd to have multiple in such short articles (maybe a few thousand words, max).

If you were working on:

• some monstrous tome
• with enormous chapters
• huge, dense paragraphs
• and no/few subchapters

maybe... MAYBE there'd be an argument for keeping those pullquotes.

- - -

It brings to mind another book I worked on, a business book, (you know, the kind with lots of fluff).

Seriously, this thing had maybe 3 or 4 of these pullquotes per page. The thing BARELY HAD ANY ACTUAL TEXT on each page too!

• Stock images top/bottom + every 2 paragraphs
• 3+ pullquotes every page
• Font size that looked like it was 16pt
• [...]

It was like you're bloating a 2 page report into a 30+ page pamphlet.

When I converted the InDesign file into EPUB, it was completely unreadable on my device:

• Paragraph
• Full-page image
• Paragraph + pullquote
• Full-page image
• Paragraph
• [...]

Every "screen" on my cellphone only fit a few lines of text in it! Until the next image happened!

I told them I'd allow maybe ONE OR TWO key images per article. That was it.

They insisted every single stock image "was handpicked" and "extremely important to the text".

• An hourglass? (For "time".)
• A scale? (For weighing "costs and benefits".) Really?
• A laughing person at the computer? Really?
• A chart or graph, giving actual information? Yes.
• But a generic guy in a suit drawing "complex formulas" in marker on a glass board? No. Absolutely not.

Originally Posted by Quoth

[...] the Gutenberg ebook has tables (badly done) with a short letter in left column and the letter writer character's thoughts on the right. Even after fixing margins etc it's bad on an 8" Sage using a smaller than comfortable font.

Yeah, having side-by-side or interlinear texts are... rough. Again, this type of layout isn't something that's suitable, usable, or possible to do well on a skinny device (especially with LARGE FONTS!).

- - -

Side Note: We've written about side-by-side texts on MobileRead before (mostly with bilingual translations).

But a few weeks ago, I ran across this type:

• Wikipedia.org: "Interlinear Gloss"
  
  • Used in linguistics.
• TeX Stack Exchange: "Doing an interlinear text"
• /r/LaTeX: "I know nothing about LaTex. I have a very specific desire to create interlinear documents. Can you help me out?"

Having 3 levels per word:

• Number
• Original language
• Translated language

and then trying to typeset it all out, interleaved...

To try to reproduce this as an EPUB would be... horrifying.

This kind of thing would be best with a database/spreadsheet, then generating the text separately.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Simply having the letter, then the thoughts sequentially works better and is easier to read.

Yeah, completely depends on a case-by-case basis. That might work in some books, but be horrible in others.

We had similar discussions in all those bilingual book threads too.

Another problem becomes:

Where do you PLACE the parallel text? Before? After? A few paragraphs later?

Similar issue happens when you're dealing with floating charts/tables.

In a Print book, you have top/bottom floats.

In an ebook, there's no such thing, so you have to try to read the text and place the image as close to the reference as possible.