Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
What formats don't you need special software for?
You need a text editor/program to read text files. Notepad will do that.
You need a web browser to read HTML/CSS and Internet Explorer will do that.
You need special software to read just about any format other than text or HTML. By special software, I mean software that does not come with the operating system.
|
Macs don't come with Notepad or Internet Explorer. Neither do Linux boxes.
All ebook formats need "special software" to read them; a few types are readable by software that comes with most operating systems, but that doesn't mean it's not separate from the OS itself. EPub is no less accessible than mobi or PDF or RTF. (More accessible than mobi; there's no mobi plugin for Firefox.)
Epub, being HTML in a wrapper, is set to become the worldwide dominant ebook format because the nonDRM'd form is easy to edit with software that almost everyone has, and it's (relatively) easy to create new software to read or edit it.
PDF could be a strong contender--but only if ebook publishers start formatting PDFs for different sized screens and make sure to advertise them that way. As long as they're insisting on the PDF looking like the print version, it'll only view properly on large screens (with a lot of extra wasted space), and most people won't be able make the jump to treating it like a real book: something that lets a reader enjoy absorbing the content and ignoring the container.
TXT is a lousy ebook format; it doesn't have enough formatting options to allow that to happen. HTML has the formatting options, but without a wrapper like epub, can't contain pictures or custom fonts or some aspects of CSS unless a whole set of files are transferred at once. Raw, single-file HTML suffers from lack of control: you can't know what the reader's default settings are so you can't format the book to look right on their screen. (Full-width text on a full-size monitor is hard to read. A narrower reading area is good for full screen; problem for smaller readers. EPub reading programs get around that problem in ways that standard HTML readers just don't.) Word-processing files, whether DOC or RTF or WPD, need special software to open, and while there's plenty of free, open-source software, it's all *editing* as well as viewing software; the cat walks on your keyboard and half your book vanishes.
EPub looks like its winning the format wars; the DRM wars are likely to smash around for a while until customers get annoyed enough for mass bootlegging, like they did with music DRM, and publishers have to remove it. (I expect this to take longer than it did with music; people don't read as much as they listen to music. And book publishers, unlike music publishers, have never thought of two weeks as long enough to overturn a top title's popularity; they're used to having more time to think about market trends.)