Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
"Sales will be low" is not the same as "there's no need to support this filetype."
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I didn't say that there was no need to support the filetype. All scientific articles are pdf files, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. But we were talking about books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
The noncommercial uses for PDFs are huge (or at least, the use of unsellable PDFs), and the combination of that, and the few markets that won't work without them, will demand that devices support them unless something else with a fixed layout replaces PDF.
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The graph was in reply to this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
"Unified ebook format" is a nice idea; it's not going to happen. I believe that ePub will eventually drive mobi out of the market--but PDF is here to stay. Some publications do well with reflowable formats (most novels, especially), but some really need fixed page layouts--children's books, art books, certain reference works. And PDF has a convenience far beyond its use for "books;" the ability to make consistently-printable business docs is going to keep it active.
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You were talking pdf as a book format when you said that it's here to stay and I showed that the sales are going down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
I'm not exactly sure how to interpret that chart, but it looks like each category has its sales normalized to 100% over the last three years, and it's showing the relative changes per year within that category.
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Based on the arguments of choosing pdf over any reflow format one would expect pdf to be the format of choice when it comes to digital books of the kind that O'Reilly has to offer. According to the graph they sold 10 times less pdf files in 2010 compared to 2008.