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mdmorrissey · 07-01-2010, 05:38 AM

@kacir, I understand what you're saying, and all that fine tuning is nice if it doesn't cause problems and is easy to do. But obviously there is a lot of work to do on both counts. I don't want to have to do anything to a book that I download to read, except maybe change the font size. Even Calibre is too much trouble. The last thing I tried to read in epub lost the rest of the paragraph after anything in italics. The PDF doesn't do that. I just experimented with my own book, creating a PDF 3x4 inches with Open Office, and ran it through Calibre. The PDF looked fine, but the epub result was a mess, and I have not learned enough to know how to fix it.

The people here may be interested in the tweaking capabilities, but I think the general public wants simplicity. Again, my analogy is the computer. The ereader that can put onto its screen the text (I'm not even considering graphics and color, I don't need that in an e-reader) as simply and easily as on the computer will be the winner, in my opinion. Why fight the format battle? Why not just create PDFs of different sizes -- or just in a small size for ereaders, since it is probably (?) easier to blow up the small PDF on the computer if you need to print it out. (And why else would you need to view the PDF on the computer?) Furthermore, since apparently (?) PDFs can't be changed, the author's integrity is better preserved, is it not?

I am talking primarily about public domain and free books. Commercial publishers have completely different interests. They will make everything as difficult as necessary to make us pay for what we get, and unfortunately it's probably hard for the ereader manufacturers to resist the temptation to make common cause with them (e.g., Sony, Nook, Kindle). But the public domain is huge, basically encompassing everything you can view online, and if I were an ereader-maker my goal would be to make it as easy as possible for somebody like me who doesn't like to read for long periods at the computer to transfer stuff onto my e-ink reader. Period. That is difficult enough, obviously, considering the problems I have had just getting a device to work properly (e.g., turn pages without conking out). I don't know, but maybe those problems are compounded every time they try to work in "better" software. Why not stick with what works, and make it sure does?

07-01-2010, 05:38 AM	#22
mdmorrissey Addict Posts: 232 Karma: 262 Join Date: May 2010 Device: PocketBook 360	@kacir, I understand what you're saying, and all that fine tuning is nice if it doesn't cause problems and is easy to do. But obviously there is a lot of work to do on both counts. I don't want to have to do anything to a book that I download to read, except maybe change the font size. Even Calibre is too much trouble. The last thing I tried to read in epub lost the rest of the paragraph after anything in italics. The PDF doesn't do that. I just experimented with my own book, creating a PDF 3x4 inches with Open Office, and ran it through Calibre. The PDF looked fine, but the epub result was a mess, and I have not learned enough to know how to fix it. The people here may be interested in the tweaking capabilities, but I think the general public wants simplicity. Again, my analogy is the computer. The ereader that can put onto its screen the text (I'm not even considering graphics and color, I don't need that in an e-reader) as simply and easily as on the computer will be the winner, in my opinion. Why fight the format battle? Why not just create PDFs of different sizes -- or just in a small size for ereaders, since it is probably (?) easier to blow up the small PDF on the computer if you need to print it out. (And why else would you need to view the PDF on the computer?) Furthermore, since apparently (?) PDFs can't be changed, the author's integrity is better preserved, is it not? I am talking primarily about public domain and free books. Commercial publishers have completely different interests. They will make everything as difficult as necessary to make us pay for what we get, and unfortunately it's probably hard for the ereader manufacturers to resist the temptation to make common cause with them (e.g., Sony, Nook, Kindle). But the public domain is huge, basically encompassing everything you can view online, and if I were an ereader-maker my goal would be to make it as easy as possible for somebody like me who doesn't like to read for long periods at the computer to transfer stuff onto my e-ink reader. Period. That is difficult enough, obviously, considering the problems I have had just getting a device to work properly (e.g., turn pages without conking out). I don't know, but maybe those problems are compounded every time they try to work in "better" software. Why not stick with what works, and make it sure does? Last edited by mdmorrissey; 07-01-2010 at 05:53 AM.