Quote:
Originally Posted by Daithi
For example, a book like Alice in Wonderland is simply far better as a PDF than as reflowing text. Even when the illustrations are included in the ebook the PDF version would still be far better. In the PDF version the text flows around the images that are in the book, and in one section of Alice in Wonderland the text is written in such a way that it looks like a mouse's tail. It curves around the page and it uses a font that gets smaller and smaller. Ereaders like the Kindle can try imitating this mouse tail effect but they do a poor job of duplicating it without displaying the text as an image.
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This is the kind of thing that ePub is significantly better at than earlier reflowable formats. For example the
Adobe Sample eBook Library includes a good ePub version of
Alice in Wonderland. See the attached screenshots, illustrating text wrapped around an image and the mouse's tail. One of the problems is that ePub is new, and so the knowledge required to produce good reflowable ebooks isn't widely disseminated.
I agree, by the way, that PDF might still "win" on larger screens. However, small screens are here to stay so ePub or something similar may give PDF a run for its money. An ePub can in principle degrade gracefully on a small screen while giving a "professional" layout on a larger screen. Most current ePubs are not doing this though.