Sigh here we go again. The ultimate purpose of typography is to convey information to the end user in an efficient manner.
A hand crafted, fixed size layout achieves a certain boost in cognition, lets say that boost is x units.
Now the boost in cognition achievable by using semantic markup, which allow computers to preprocess information before presenting it to the user is y, where y is a number that grows exponentially as the amount of information available to process grows. To put it succintly
Therefore to claim that we should sacrifice the gigantic boost is cognition that semantic formats allow for the tiny and static boost in cognition that hand crafted, fixed size layouts allow, is ridiculous.
Now the boost in cognition I receive from a hand-crafted, fixed size layout is so much smaller than the boost in cognition I receive from a layout that allows computers to preprocess the information and there
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
You are right, AMJB. But for electronic books, reflow formats are definitely and objectively the wrong choice... unless of course we restrict the definition of eBooks, as people presumably do here, to novels with uncomplicated layouts.
Books are supposed to be able to convey information with far greater complexity (not to mention elegance) than reflow formats will ever be able to handle. Why? Because typesetting/bookmaking is not a machine-solvable problem and thus necessarily requires human intervention/assistance.
The above are facts that I am yet to see credibly disputed by anyone, or for that matter by somebody that that seemed to understand and acknowledge the full range of issues.
None of this changes the fact that most PDFs available today are unusable on eBook devices. But, in turn, the fact that most PDFs available today are unusable doesn't change the fact that only PDFs and similarly static solutions can solve all the problems of bookmaking (electronic or otherwise) and dynamic formats will not foreseeably be able to do so until computers have basically human-equivalent level intelligence (seeing as how that is exactly what is required for typesetting/bookmaking).
Yes, let's all be friends. Enjoy, everyone, your reflowing ePubs, LITs, LRFs, et cetera... particularly until 99% of PDFs out there stop being sh*te on account of poor production (which has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of the format). But why pretend that PDF couldn't be used to easily make a better looking and more professional eBook than can be produced with any of those other choices? Why does the truth hurt so much? Particularly when it is years away from having relevance/impact on people existing eBook related habits?
And if large-print editions are needed, by the way... nothing stopping publishers even today from including the content twice within a single PDF, once professionally typeset with a 10pt-12pt font, and once likewise treated with a 14pt-18pt font.
Reflowing the text for the sake of somebody having the benefit of a large-print edition is a bit like keeping all your plants in your garden inside ceramic pots just barely submerged in the ground so that you can move them around easily... the desired benefit is there, but the downsides are numerous and blatantly obvious to those that understand gardening (or, in our instance, typography/bookmaking).
- Ahi |