PDF is not an eBook format

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

You forget to mention that these devices also have the battery life of a normal laptop - which makes them poor devices for reading eBooks.

My PDA lasts for over 5 hours' continuous use... reading.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Adobe Acrobat, Framemaker, or ActiveSync. those are the best ones. The last one is free but you need a PPC to sync to and Windows XP or earlier. those are the only ones I have tested.

Adobe Acrobat - $450
Framemaker - $900
Plus $150 for the Microsoft license.

Sorry, but those tools are extremely poor value. Try again.

ActiveSync - useful only if you use useless WinCE devices. Again, poor value.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

You can probably also use InDesign to create tagged PDFs.

At $700 it's just as poor a value as the other tools.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

My PDA lasts for over 5 hours' continuous use... reading.

Mine lasts at least 12 hours. Normal use requires a recharge only every 2-3 days. 5 hours for an eBook reader is unacceptable.

[ProfJulie]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Adobe Acrobat - $450
Framemaker - $900
Plus $150 for the Microsoft license.

Sorry, but those tools are extremely poor value. Try again.

ActiveSync - useful only if you use useless WinCE devices. Again, poor value.

I don't think you looked very hard:

http://www.baselinesoftware.com/inde...FQPJsgodXljS4g

I haven't timed it, but I can read a book all day on my Pocket PC and still have battery left over at the end of the day. However, we are not debating the suitability of a Pocket PC as a reading device. I think we all prefer to read our books on the electronic readers we've purchased (for me the Cybook), but since I can't read my PDF books on the Cybook, I am happy I can read them on my Pocket PC.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by ProfJulie

I don't think you looked very hard:

$130 for the software, plus $150 for the Microsoft license.

Still a poor deal over OpenOffice.org which is free.

Originally Posted by ProfJulie

I think we all prefer to read our books on the electronic readers we've purchased (for me the Cybook), but since I can't read my PDF books on the Cybook, I am happy I can read them on my Pocket PC.

PDFs display just fine on the Cybook. I have several on there right now and they display just fine.

But this little difference between my experience and yours demonstrates the problems with PDF. PDFs simply do not live up to their promise of displaying nicely on every device.

[hidari]

ON the contrary quite a few on this site are happy with a PPC for reading their ebooks I am one ..so is Steve Jordan.

Originally Posted by ProfJulie

I don't think you looked very hard:

http://www.baselinesoftware.com/inde...FQPJsgodXljS4g

I haven't timed it, but I can read a book all day on my Pocket PC and still have battery left over at the end of the day. However, we are not debating the suitability of a Pocket PC as a reading device. I think we all prefer to read our books on the electronic readers we've purchased (for me the Cybook), but since I can't read my PDF books on the Cybook, I am happy I can read them on my Pocket PC.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

@rlauzon, you can pick at these prices all day long, but if the software creates proper tagged PDFs, they are doing their job. If your cheaper software doesn't create proper tagged PDFs, it is not doing a good job. That's not the fault of the format, that's the fault of your cheaper software.

Why don't you just say that using PDFs properly is too expensive for your tastes, instead of calling PDFs the format from Hell, and leave it at that? (I can readily understand that, as I wouldn't mind using InDesign for PDF creation, but the overall cost--I'd have to update my PC to run it--has kept me clear of it, too.)

Also, since my time negates reading for more than 5 hours at a time, there's absolutely nothing wrong with my being able to read for 5 hours on a PDA.

Why don't you just say you sit around reading for 20-30 hours straight, away from any conceivable source of power, making a PDA unacceptable for you, and leave it at that?

These are not good enough reasons to attack PDFs. They just amount to your personal preference against PDF (and, I suspect, Adobe).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

@rlauzon, you can pick at these prices all day long, but if the software creates proper tagged PDFs, they are doing their job. If your cheaper software doesn't create proper tagged PDFs, it is not doing a good job. That's not the fault of the format, that's the fault of your cheaper software.

If useful things are expensive to do then it is mostly the fault of the format. Yes, there are things that always are hard to do but they are rare. If you need expensive tools to handle a format it nearly always is because the format is not well designed (or from the point of the people selling expensive tools it is well designed).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

If useful things are expensive to do then it is mostly the fault of the format. Yes, there are things that always are hard to do but they are rare. If you need expensive tools to handle a format it nearly always is because the format is not well designed (or from the point of the people selling expensive tools it is well designed).

Expense in the marketplace has nothing to do with how well a format is designed. That's a business issue, not a "format fault." It has no bearing on the quality of the format, or its usefulness as an e-book format.

[JSWolf]

Is there any software that can convert a text based PDF so it is perfect in that no run on words, no paragraph splits, no joined paragraphs, no issues with fi and fl, no constant headers/footers to have to remove and anything else that normally can go wrong with a PDF conversion? Also the conversion has to keep all the styles as well.

Does such software exist? if not, then using PDF thinking that since it's unprotected it will be easy to convert then would be poor thinking since it's would always have the risk of a conversion that may contain mistakes due to the conversion process.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does such software exist? if not, then using PDF thinking that since it's unprotected it will be easy to convert then would be poor thinking since it's would always have the risk of a conversion that may contain mistakes due to the conversion process.

Maybe... but PDF isn't designed to be converted. It's just designed to be read. Lack of easy hacking opportunities is not a good reason to criticize the format.

If you want something you can convert, get an RTF file.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

$130 for the software, plus $150 for the Microsoft license.

Still a poor deal over OpenOffice.org which is free.

What is the $150 license for? I have never paid for a special license.

Dale

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Expense in the marketplace has nothing to do with how well a format is designed. That's a business issue, not a "format fault." It has no bearing on the quality of the format, or its usefulness as an e-book format.

A well designed format like XML does not lead to expensive tool like for example SGML that is not well designed for the kind of tasks that XML is used for.

If the format is hard to implement or hard to understand and hard to validate tools for then tools will be expensive.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

A well designed format like XML does not lead to expensive tool like for example SGML that is not well designed for the kind of tasks that XML is used for.

If the format is hard to implement or hard to understand and hard to validate tools for then tools will be expensive.

More likely a bunch of cheap tools done poorly. Even simple formats can have expensive tools so I don't think that is the reason. Openoffice certainly did a poor job of adding tags if adding tags doubled the size. I suspect they don't really understand the issue. Someone should write a bug against openoffice and get it fixed. This is a serious bug IMHO. Personally I don't use Openoffice.

Dale