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Old 07-20-2011, 09:13 AM   #1
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the need for a new e-book format

I am in the process of creating my first e-book. I was shocked to find that behind the curtain of many e-book formats there is nothing more than html. I personally feel that html is a very poor choice. It does not give the typesetter enough control of the placement of type on the page. Symbols are also difficult to use. To obtain the result I desire I will end up creating the book from jpeg images.

The sad thing is that the problem of digital typesetting was all but solved more than thirty years ago by Donald Knuth with his TeX language. I doubt there is a version of TeX for an e-reader, but I thought I would ask.
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Old 07-20-2011, 09:18 AM   #2
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^For digital things you want the device to handle most of the layout freeform. Trying to force where it is will cause problems when a user tries to read the book in a larger font than the author thought of. A book from jpeg images is going to annoy a lot of people.

I do agree with that symbols are a problem. Right now certain books just don't translate as well into e-reader formats. Then again, there are some types of books that I wouldn't buy in a e-format yet. Yet. I'm hopeful that won't always be the case, but so far it is.
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Old 07-20-2011, 09:23 AM   #3
Steven Lyle Jordan
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Unfortunately for typesetting fans, ebooks are not designed to adhere to the old notions of "pretty type." Ebooks are designed to distill books down to their base content, the words, and to make them flexible on many platforms at once... not to lock them into one image that will look good on one device or printed page, but not another.

This is why HTML is (at this time) the best choice for ebooks: It is flexible across all digital platforms, when properly used.

Personally, there have been one or two times when I wished TeX had been better incorporated into HTML for daily use... but even in the limited ways that TeX-like HTML could be applied, it was rarely supported by browsers, making it pointless to apply it.

Out of curiosity, what type of books are you looking to convert to digital formats? Are they graphic novels? Are the symbols available within HTML, or not?

Last edited by Steven Lyle Jordan; 07-20-2011 at 09:32 AM.
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Old 07-20-2011, 11:19 AM   #4
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Not all books solely consist of words. There are picture books, music books, etc. I am in the process of publishing some music, and thus html is of no use to me. Mathematicians and chemists have the same problem with html.

Even something like MusicXML does not have the functionality that I need, as I do not always use standard modern notation. TeX and Metafont give me the flexibility that I need.
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Old 07-20-2011, 11:20 AM   #5
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You also forget that CSS is also supported in some of the ebook formats, which adds extra control to the creator, while still keeping it flexible. Also HTML by itself is more than just basic left, center and right justification. It can do more, if you know what to do with it.

Also, the ePub3 standard also supports HTML5, which can do a lot of incredible things. I've even seen epubs using HTML5 that had video built in, not to mention vector graphics.
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Old 07-20-2011, 11:36 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by petrucci View Post
Not all books solely consist of words...
True... and as I said, ebooks were never designed for much besides words and the occasional picture. Much the same can be said of original typesetting, before a way to add graphics, and then pictures, was developed.

Ebooks are a young medium. I'm sure that, over time, being able to add most non-standard markup languages will work its way into the HTML used by ebooks... maybe within HTML5.

In the meantime, you might want to look again at how you plan to develop your ebook. Maybe there are better ways of organizing and laying out your content within an ebook framework that will work better for your content, and for you.
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Old 07-20-2011, 11:36 AM   #7
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New standard?

Well, perhaps not.
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Old 07-20-2011, 11:46 AM   #8
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Well, perhaps not.
A timely reminder, indeed...
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Old 07-20-2011, 12:44 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by petrucci View Post
Not all books solely consist of words. There are picture books, music books, etc. I am in the process of publishing some music, and thus html is of no use to me. Mathematicians and chemists have the same problem with html.

Even something like MusicXML does not have the functionality that I need, as I do not always use standard modern notation. TeX and Metafont give me the flexibility that I need.
Aren't there any fonts that are composed of musical notes and similar symbols? You can embed fonts in epub, but not in mobi.
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Old 07-20-2011, 01:13 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by mr ploppy
Aren't there any fonts that are composed of musical notes and similar symbols? You can embed fonts in epub, but not in mobi.
Maybe... but that won't really help when there's no musical stave to give those symbols any meaning.
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Old 07-20-2011, 01:19 PM   #11
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If you want precise control over layout, then why not use PDF for the ebook? That way, you could even use pdfLaTeX to create it.
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Old 07-20-2011, 01:40 PM   #12
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The problem with PDF, is that it is size dependent for its layouts. It will only look good at the size you design it for. Make it for a 8.5"x11" page, and it will look like crap on a 6" eInk screen.
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Old 07-20-2011, 01:54 PM   #13
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Maybe... but that won't really help when there's no musical stave to give those symbols any meaning.
I was thinking that might be built into the font characters, but maybe it's more complicated than that.
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Old 07-20-2011, 03:38 PM   #14
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The problem with PDF, is that it is size dependent for its layouts. It will only look good at the size you design it for. Make it for a 8.5"x11" page, and it will look like crap on a 6" eInk screen.
That's an issue with text, but it's actually exactly what you want with music. You probably don't want different sized devices changing the layout of your sheet music.
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Old 07-20-2011, 04:33 PM   #15
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That's an issue with text, but it's actually exactly what you want with music. You probably don't want different sized devices changing the layout of your sheet music.
Sure you do. Just like with printed music books - music printed on 5.5"x8.5" sheets isn't always just shrunk 50% from an 8.5"x11" version. Often as not, if it isn't an exact reprint of a larger format book, you'll want the smaller version to show fewer measures per line on more pages so that the music is still readable. eInk sheet music should take advantage of this even more, letting people choose the staff size, and the resulting trade-off with size and number of pages.
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