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Old 09-02-2009, 12:27 PM   #495
ahi
Wizard
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WillAdams View Post
The bottom line here is there will be a continuum of formats:

plain text - reflows fine, little formatting

html / epub &c. - reflows, a reasonable amount of formatting, text display rife w/ poorly spaced lines and bad breaks and disconcertingly large empty spaces at the bottom of the display in multi-screen texts.

pdf - while reflow is possible (w/ limitations as pointed out here previously by others), strength of the format is total controllability over the formatted page and the possibility of good typography

William
In such a case, I see down the road a burgeoning and perpetual underground distribution of PDFs of books that the publisher's could only be bothered to release as HTML/ePub.

The other possibility I see as possible and that I personally favour (despite being firmly of the opinion that read eBooks on anything and everything that has a charger is a passing fad) is a conglomerate file-format that includes both fixed and dynamic layout versions of the book, with each maximized for the potential of its approach.

- Ahi
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