Quote:
Originally Posted by Superlucky
I think that importance has been completely overstated. Ebooks and p-books look the same (if you're not a typesetter).
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Beautiful layout, or even functional layout, is one of those things that you don't notice until it is missing.
I'm not talking about super-subtle things like individual character kerning on every line of text. I'm talking about things like associating images with text, choosing appropriate fonts and sizing, table layout, book structure, how and when to break pages, drop-caps, spine vs. total content, TOC, TOI, pull-quotes, etc.
All that stuff makes it easy to flip through a book and identify what you're looking for using visual cues that are usually not thought about consciously. It also gives sub-textual information about importance or the relationship between ideas as you read the book.
E-books largely fail on this level; aside from the current limits of interaction of e-books (p-books are physical and offer a high level of "play"), the major issue is that very few e-books are actually created with the attention to detail and commitment to design and beauty that have been achieved with p-books.
This is not to say that there are not a lot of p-books made that are ugly and badly edited. There are more so now, I expect, than ever.
Simple, line-broken text files can be read. But the pleasure of reading something that has had some care and imagination applied to it is far superior.
To return to your assertion about books looking the same: even within the e-book world, unzip and compare
this with (just click to read)
this.
A lot is possible.
m a r