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Originally Posted by Sonist
I personally would rather see screen size standardization, showing pages as meant to be shown by the publisher, then reflowing. There is standardization for paper sizes, why not for screen sizes?
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Because not all of us want 6" screens (although I cope with mine, I'm saving money for a Jetbook), and we *certainly* don't all want to deal with letter/A4-sized pages for ebooks. I like my digital reader to be tiny--small enough to fit in my pocket. I am perfectly content to read text on a 3" screen that I can hold in one hand on a crowded train.
And there is *no reason* to need a 10" screen for me to read novels and fanfic, which is the majority of my reading. No reason that content that will flow to any screen and font size in my browser window, can't be shown with that flexibility on a portable device.
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In addition, PDF is already an established standard on the desktop. And, at least on a desktop, a PDF can be annotated, searched, stickies can be placed on it, and so on.
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If you have the software for it. If the PDF is searchable. If it's not security-locked to prevent those edits--there's no way to annotate with a txt file that associates itself with a given PDF.
The PDF is a standard for desktops because it's a standard for
printing. Not because it's the best way to read on a computer screen. HTML is the standard for digital content intended to be read on computer screens. (Like the content shared at this forum. There are reasons internet blogs, forums and news articles aren't produced as PDFs.)
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So, again, isn't it better to establish a standard (and PDF currently seems to be the best one I've seen), instead of fragmenting an already confused market with new formats, like EPUB?
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I adore PDFs. I convert most of my ebooks to PDF because some of Calibre's settings confuse me, and because I know how to format & edit PDFs. But I don't believe it's anything like the "best" format for ebooks; it's just the one I'm most comfortable with.
EPub is better. It has the flexibility of HTML, which is strongly desired on a device with variable content, especially one with a small screen. As an open source standard, it can be improved and adapted by anyone with some ingenuity; it doesn't have to wait for a committee to approve changes. (I haven't worked with Acrobat 9 yet... have they finally allowed the user to print a list of bookmarks? Or is that still only available through expensive third-party plugins?)