Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
An additional problem with PDFs is that experienced ebook devotees don't trust them--there are so many badly-made ebooks that we shy away from paying for them, especially from an unknown author. (Badly made: uncompressed, not tagged for reflow, no/bad metadata, no bookmarks/table of contents, print-resolution images, letter-sized pages made with Word's default settings, etc.)
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Thanks for all the details in your reply, Elfwreck, including the above quote. All of that was very helpful.
Could you please go into more detail about the "badly made" items you listed?
- Uncompressed? I gather this is because of limited storage on the reader?
- not tagged for reflow... I'm not sure what you mean by this. You mean the text doesn't flow without a particular command?
- no/bad metadata... Tell me what you look for in metadata and where you expect to find it in the file.
- no bookmarks/table of contents... In other words, you're looking for links in the table of contents that take you directly to the first page of each chapter?
- print-resolution images... If the file is made to use on a reader device rather than a printer, why is a print-resolution image important? In my own case, the only images I have are for the cover and the author snapshot, but still it would be good to know more about this issue you raised, particularly in light of your first item: compression.
- letter-sized pages made with Word's default settings... This one particularly surprised me. Given the smaller screen size, I would have thought that either the page size needed to be smaller to fit the screen or else that it was irrelevant on a reader. I didn't use Word to type my story. I used OpenOffice swriter instead. Still, the question of page size seems quite important, so I'd appreciate more details.
Remember, as I said in my first post, I don't own any kind of e-reader (other than my laptop), so I don't know the limitations of any of them at all! The more details you can provide, the better.