Quote:
Originally Posted by Solitaire1
This brings forth a question: What is the definition of an ebook? I've thought it was an electronic version of a book, and the specific device that you read it on was irrelevant as long as the ebook is formatted for the device or can be reflowed on the device. Whether it is an EPUB, PDF, text, Palm Format (.pdb), .mobi, or .rtf (among the many formats) makes no difference as long as your ereader can display it. Although I could read ebooks on my smartphone I wouldn't try it because the screen is too small. Likewise, I wouldn't try it on a table (say 9 inch) because it is too large to easily carry around. However, that is just me.
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A PDF is electronic format of a print book. Fortunately you can now get portable devices with Letter/A4 is similar sized screens. For 20 years we wasted a lot of paper printing them. A compromise was a laptop, though 1600 x 1200 (from about 2002) was far better than later 1920 x 1080.
Smaller PDFs that where used for the paper instruction books by the printing company do work on 300 dpi approx 6" to 8" eink, the 8" being far better. Useless on phones and poor on 6" 167 dpi.
A true ebook has always been reflowable. The predecessor of epub2 was in 1998 and mobi and earlier mobipocket formats (pdb encompassed mobi and other incompatible formats! Palm database) worked on Symbian, Windows CE, Palm OS etc on any size/resolution screen, though very limited formatting. A PDF is a joke on the Palm, though Adobe did a reader.
PDFs are for 100% identical to print and still the preferred upload for either POD or a 1 million copy print run.