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Originally Posted by ahi
The vast majority of books can be adequately typeset for probably a screen as small as 8" - 10".
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They can also be typeset for 6" screens. Since they need to be re-typeset anyway, because the print editions are never going to standardized sizes the way that e-screens are (even if there are several e-ink screens, that'll be "six different sizes," not "twenty-seven+ different sizes" the way that mmpbs, trade paperbacks, and hardcovers have), why not make them fit the most common size of portable ebook reader?
6" screens aren't such a huge jump down in content-fillable space that the typography would have to be re-invented to work. (IPhone & PDA screens are; whole different hassle.) Ebooks could be designed for them, and most people would stop asking for reflowable formats if they got PDFs that fit nicely on the screen to start with.
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And, like I said many times before, no automated solution can match the quality of human attention.
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It can't. Which is why we're getting more and more badly-formatted commercial ebooks, even the PDFs... typesetting has become an obscure art. Those who believe nothing will convince publishers to spend more time per book, would rather have a reflowable format.
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To me any suggestion to the contrary makes me wonder whether the arguer is oblivious of the existence of large print books, or, for that matter, the fact that hardcovers and paperbacks are often different sizes If it can be done for paper books... why is it so inconceivable that it will be done for eBooks in the future?
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Not inconceivable. Just unlikely.
Who will give publishers the feedback they need to make these upgrades in their production processes? And which publishers are going to pay attention? Last I heard, the Lord of the Rings series still had obvious typos.
Do you really think publishers who release promotional materials with metadata that says "Title: 120307_FINAL.qxd" and "Author: mrg" are going to suddenly decide that someone in their editing department needs to learn typography-for-200dpi-screens?
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And tagged PDFs already reflow well enough, I understand... so there's your solution to people reading on devices that aren't worth reading on.
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Auto-generated tagged PDFs run short lines of dialogue, and lines of poetry, together as one paragraph. This can be fixed--by editing the tags in the PDF itself, not in the generating software.
I've done it. I'd do it again. My rates start at $23/hour, and it's slow work.
Reflow also loses much of the formatting, the margins & indents. It can set initial capitals on a separate line. Why should readers put up with that, when there are formats that show up fairly well on the screens they have?