[cmdahler]

I agree completely with LDBoblo. Typesetting is a centuries-old art form that has evolved some very complicated and detailed rules for producing the most pleasing and readable print on a page. PDF is the only format that can be used to faithfully reproduce the pleasing quality of a professionally typeset page. All other e-reader formats take these time-honored and centuries-proven techniques for producing quality text and simply toss them out the window, producing ugly word and letter spacing, ragged margins, and just in general displaying basic text on a computer screen.

When I bought my Sony, it was with an aim to replace my printed library with a single reading source, but I in no way wanted to sacrifice the quality of the typeset page. I've experimented with LRF and EPUB, and there's just no way those formats are up to anything even remotely approaching typeset-quality print.

Ultimately, the final solution to this problem with ereaders is for someone to incorporate TeX as a core display engine. The text of the book would exist on the reader as a basic TeX file with emphasis markings and any other special typesetting instructions, and when the user selects that book to read, the TeX engine generates typeset text on the fly. If you want to zoom, TeX simply regenerates the typeset with a larger font size, thus preserving all of the professional quality typesetting TeX is known for while producing a larger output.

Until someone manages to do this (which actually wouldn't be difficult at all - the source for TeX could even be modified and recompiled to handle DRM), PDF is the only way to go if you want genuinely pleasing typeset text on the reader. I can't even imagine reading something like War and Peace or The Count of Monte Cristo as epub. Yuck.