[frabjous]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

The whole point is you're pushing a fixed layout on me, and I don't want a fixed layout. I agree it's utterly ridiculous!

The point we've made over and over again is that TeX does not have a fixed layout. The only reason you think this is that you're used to PDFs produced by TeX. PDFs have fixed layouts. TeX source doesn't. It's scarcely different from HTML.

I understand precisely what TeX is designed to accomplish. and why it's developed as it has.

Not if you think TeX has a fixed layout, you don't.

And once more I'd rather have a designed-for-ebook standard using XHTML - ePuB - rather than the designed-for-print, legally-problematical TeX, which would add to the costs of creating ebooks because it uses a different markup language than those familar to anyone with web-design and layout experience. (Barriers. Every one a barrier to making ebooks)

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. TeX software is free. How could it drive up costs? Neither TeX nor XHTML was not designed for ebooks, but TeX was designed for something closer to an ebook than XHTML was.

Anyone who understands HTML can make the transition to TeX fairly smoothly. Unless you know both mark-up languages (which I do), don't pretend to understand what you don't.

Anyone who can understand <i>...</i> tags can understand \textit{...} tags.

I've actually created ebooks both with HTML source and with TeX source. The process of doing the markup is almost indistinguishable. If anything, TeX is a little easier for books, since it was meant for books. There are special tags for creating tables of contents and index and footnotes and bibliographies. Not so with HTML, though with a little effort you can do it there too. But those differences are not important. The difference that is important is that I get better results with the same effort with TeX.

The whole point is I do not want a typesetting direction forced on me by the creator of my e-reader. That's print-book thinking, and forcing a fixed format onto the user regardless of their wishes will certainly, as you note, make it take decades for any sort of takeoff of ebooks, when you're ignoring every advantage of the format!

Again, you clearly do not understand what TeX is if you think it's about fixed formats.

You've certainly managed to convine me to study the motives of anyone pushing TeX as an ebook renderer very closely!

My motive is that I'm someone who has done both, and TeX gives better results. What other motive could I have? No one can make money pushing TeX. Knuth designed it to be free.