PDF is dead. Or is it not?

[TadW]

Interesting thought raised by this guy:

As you've probably already noticed, we have ourselves given up on releasing Free Software Magazine in PDF format. As far as we are concerned, PDF is gone—at least from our web site. We will probably still allow people to download the PDF files of the old issues. However, now we can focus more on the contents, and less on composition and distribution of big, clumsy files.

The world has changed significantly. Magazines used to be the cultural centre of every possible topic—and they used to sell well. Today, the internet is slowly but surely taking the place of magazines—and taking more and more advertising money away from paper publishing.

Paper—as well as PDF—is now a thing of the past. Web sites are gaining importance—at full throttle. Publishers need to adapt—and need to do it fast.

[jæd]

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Oh, the *irony*...!

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by TadW

Interesting thought raised by this guy:

Not really. PDF has always been a page-oriented format - intended to reproduce the look-and-feel of a paper book.

That works fine if you are electronically distributing a book intended to be printed.

But if you want people to read such a document on devices with wildly different screen sizes, PDF fails horribly.

Only recently did PDF get an update to correct this deficiency, but the number of readers that support it, as well as the number of documents that support it, is extremely low.

[yvanleterrible]

PDF will get life extension through Digital Editions.

[Laurens]

PDF is as dead as paper. Which is to say: not at all.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Not really. PDF has always been a page-oriented format - intended to reproduce the look-and-feel of a paper book.

That works fine if you are electronically distributing a book intended to be printed.

But if you want people to read such a document on devices with wildly different screen sizes, PDF fails horribly.

Only recently did PDF get an update to correct this deficiency, but the number of readers that support it, as well as the number of documents that support it, is extremely low.

Well, PDF fails if you don't make PDF files the right size for these devices. If the file is suited for the device, it'll look great and it's much easier to have for example hyphenation on such a file than on RTF or LRF for the Sony Reader. You just need to generate custom PDFs instead of storing a whole lot of them. There's advantages with reflowable format too, mostly the fact that the same file will work ok everywhere, but a page-oriented format will look better if you do it the right way.

Oh and PDF support is everywhere, I really doubt it'll die anytime soon...

[TadW]

Originally Posted by Laurens

PDF is as dead as paper. Which is to say: not at all.

Couldn't have said it better

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

If the file is suited for the device

That's a big "If".

So, let's say I am an author. I want to make my Great American Novel availble as an eBook. What size should I make it?

Well, obviously, I should make an 8.5x11" size for those who want to print it off to read.
Then there's the iLiad, which is 6x5" (I think).
Then there's the Sony, which is 4x5" (I think).
Then there's the Palm, which is 2x3" - oooohhh that's only the TX/T5. So I also have to make a 2x2" version for the "smart"phones and lower res Palms.

And that's just the devices I know of.

The point is that with PDF, I have to know the screen sizes of all the devices I intend to support before hand.

When you get a new device, you are out of luck if it's not close to a current device.

Add to that that most authors aren't going to know about more than the top 2 devices (authors usually being more focused on words than cool gadgets).

Originally Posted by Hadrien

There's advantages with reflowable format too, mostly the fact that the same file will work ok everywhere, but a page-oriented format will look better if you do it the right way.

For all intents and purposes, reflowable PDFs don't exist. Only the Windows version of the Reader support it and no one makes PDFs in that form.

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Oh and PDF support is everywhere, I really doubt it'll die anytime soon...

So is HTML, RTF, Text, and others that don't have PDFs problems with eBooks.

PDF is dead already. Adobe just hasn't realized it yet.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

PDF is dead already. Adobe just hasn't realized it yet.

Digital Editions suggests that maybe they have realized it, but just not admitted it.

[sic]

hi

I think paper is going away.
How long will it take? ... I don't know.
10-15 years I suppose.
Look at what happened in photography, now you cannot buy a fil camera any longer, it's gone digital.
Of course we'll need better resolution, colors, flexible display and what not... but it's coming.
As for Adobe I think they're well aware what this means to PDF.
They're smart folks, they'll figure it out.
I think it can be more than adding reflow capability... depends on how "live" books will become with shared annotations, updates etc.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by sic

Look at what happened in photography, now you cannot buy a fil camera any longer, it's gone digital.

Sure you can! You just have to know where to look.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by sic

hi

I think paper is going away.
How long will it take? ... I don't know.
10-15 years I suppose.
Look at what happened in photography, now you cannot buy a fil camera any longer, it's gone digital.
Of course we'll need better resolution, colors, flexible display and what not... but it's coming.
As for Adobe I think they're well aware what this means to PDF.
They're smart folks, they'll figure it out.
I think it can be more than adding reflow capability... depends on how "live" books will become with shared annotations, updates etc.

Paper will never go away. It's the back up.

With photography if you don't print your pictures they will not survive the test of time. Most people I know print their pictures.

We do need to get away from ebabel and get a fix on a more adapted e-text standard.

We should still have locked books. Just take the example of Wikipedia who's had to lock certain pages from vandals, notably that of the President's bio.

[sic]

hi yvanleterrible

I disagree.
Photos printed on paper do not stand the test of time. They fade.
It's better to archive the photos on CDs and then rewrite the disks every once in a while.

Books have actually better proved better as archives than photos... that's of course only until the library burns down.

Regarding understanding our own digital file format a few years later... I think it's just the same as understanding our alphabet.
See the trouble we had reading Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Inca khipus. and those were not some non-standard file formats

[nekokami]

Some kind of markup language, whether it's HTML, TeX, or something else, would be a better format to distribute than PDF. Formatting for the device should be something that happens automatically when you load the source file on the device. There's no reason a reader couldn't hyphenate (and handle ligatures, if you want them) on an HTML file. HTML software just doesn't usually bother.

There are very few situations in which the kind of tight control over formatting provided by PDF is valuable, and I think most could be handled using other means. For example, music transcription isn't currently handled well outside of strict page control software, but that's just because a good generic markup system hasn't been popularized yet.

The other thing people bring up is page numbering, which can be important, for example, in scholarly references. I think a new way to accomplish this, e.g. using word or character count, will become accepted within the next 5-10 years.

Maybe re-flowable PDF could eventually replace the current PDF, but my money is on something smaller and more open, with less emphasis on output format, which will become more display-dependent.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Some kind of markup language, whether it's HTML, TeX, or something else, would be a better format to distribute than PDF. Formatting for the device should be something that happens automatically when you load the source file on the device. There's no reason a reader couldn't hyphenate (and handle ligatures, if you want them) on an HTML file. HTML software just doesn't usually bother.

There are very few situations in which the kind of tight control over formatting provided by PDF is valuable, and I think most could be handled using other means. For example, music transcription isn't currently handled well outside of strict page control software, but that's just because a good generic markup system hasn't been popularized yet.

The other thing people bring up is page numbering, which can be important, for example, in scholarly references. I think a new way to accomplish this, e.g. using word or character count, will become accepted within the next 5-10 years.

Maybe re-flowable PDF could eventually replace the current PDF, but my money is on something smaller and more open, with less emphasis on output format, which will become more display-dependent.

I agree on some of these points. Hyphenation should be software based (but it's not that easy, you need to support a whole lot of languages for example and know which language each text is) or done when transferring to the system. I don't believe we'll see a universal markup language used by everyone anytime soon for these devices, handling the way it looks right when you transfer the file should do the trick in the meantime.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

That's a big "If".

So, let's say I am an author. I want to make my Great American Novel availble as an eBook. What size should I make it?

Well, obviously, I should make an 8.5x11" size for those who want to print it off to read.
Then there's the iLiad, which is 6x5" (I think).
Then there's the Sony, which is 4x5" (I think).
Then there's the Palm, which is 2x3" - oooohhh that's only the TX/T5. So I also have to make a 2x2" version for the "smart"phones and lower res Palms.

And that's just the devices I know of.

As for rlauzon, I guess you didn't understood a single word I said: the right choice is to make no file at all. Make the right file for the right user in an automatic way.

The best choice would be a good reflowable format with advanced formatting support, but there's no such thing: RTF is way too old and limited with very few features, HTML will never look as good as something formatted with LaTeX etc... The best choice would be XML based, yet support advance formatting features.