Quote:
Originally Posted by balok
This poll, and the replies posted, show the different problems associated with multiple formats:
- The most popular format, BBeB, is only used by a single device
- Formats come and go, so when you get rid of your device you're stuck with books you can no longer read
- Conversion tools are far from perfect
Here's another less than ideal solution, but it may be promising. Even if conversion tools aren't perfect, there could be a way to improve them by using an xml source format specifically designed for conversion. By analogy, we could refer to Java's "compile once, run anywhere" idea. The end user would take the source text, plug it into a conversion program, and have it come out exactly the way it should look on his device, no tweaking.
I think it's a pity that all those BBeB and Mobipocket files in the Mobileread ebook listing will probably become obsolete soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony completely abandoned BBeB in favour of ePub.
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If they do abandon BBeB/LRF (which I doubt at the moment, check back tomorrow for another view) then we will republish the ebooks in ePub.
You are correct in that the recent history of ebooks has been format-of-the-month. One year ago I did not care about BBeB/LRF, I had not even heard of it. Then all I read books in was PRC through PalmReader on my cell phone.
With the widespread support and being owned by Amazon, MobiPocket stands a great chance of being around in five years. I don't see support for that format going the way of RocketBook.
As for the tools, they get better all the time. In the BBeB area we have almost a thousand books here mostly formatted with BookDesigner and Fictionwise has over 7,000 offerings formatted with libprs500. Steve Jordan Books (
www.stevejordanbooks.com) makes all of his books available in many formats.