Ebook reader survey on preferred format(s)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by astra

PDF is unreadable on 6" ebook reader, thus do not represent a useable ebook format.

I'm sorry... but with all due respect, you're plainly wrong.

There's about 3-5 pages of discussion in this very thread explaining in excruciating detail why this is not the case.

- Ahi

[astra]

Originally Posted by ahi

I'm sorry... but with all due respect, you're plainly wrong.

There's about 3-5 pages of discussion in this very thread explaining in excruciating detail why this is not the case.

- Ahi

I am sorry but I have yet to see a PDF ebook that would be as nice as my LRF files. Perfectly formatted on 6" screen, perfectly re-flowable when increasing font size, exatly like LRF. Also, it should behave as good if I decide to read the same ebook on 8" screen or 10" screen.

If it is possible, then I will agree with you and say - I am wrong.

[ahi]

I hope I did not offend you, Astra. I did not mean to.

Most people reacted positively to my custom eBook device targeted PDFs of Sun Tzu's "Art of War":

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...39&postcount=1

I'd be curious to know what you think.

Although I would also suggest that you might find reading some of the earlier back-and-forths interesting (whether or not you ultimately agree).

- Ahi



P.s.: Perfect reflowability doesn't exist. It shouldn't either. Reflow degrades quality objectively, quantifiably, and ALWAYS. (Even if it makes it easier to read on account of blatant stuff like font-size.)

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by ahi

Do you accept, by the way, that people whose living depends on making good looking and readable books are going to be better at that tasks than random eBook device enthusiasts or software automation? Or does our disagreement start on this very fundamental point?

Of course I want dedicated professionals to take care of the typesetting. No disagreement there.

What I do disagree with you is how much better the end result will be if done in PDF vs. those SAME people doing it in, say, in XHTML. With a proper kerning, justification, soft-hyphen assisted hyphenation... I don't see any problems.

Originally Posted by ahi

It is a mistake to extrapolate stop-gap measures and practices currently in place to make up for the extreme short-comings of the technology indefinitely into the future.

I disagree with that.

1. Technology will continue to evolve, the processing power built into electronic reader devices, increase of the resolution (with or without increase of the size), RAM, permanent storage, wireless access... It never stops.

2. Re-flowable formats and capability of the renderers will continue to evolve, not so much because of ebooks, but primarily because of Web.

The only permanent thing is change itself. That's a cornerstone of my reasoning, hence I favour re-flowable formats. Their rendering WILL improve, there is no doubt about that.

[ahi]

It is *literally* impossible for reflowable formats to maintain the standard of quality non-reflowable formats can offer. Period.

Proper typesetting--for the thousandths time--requires human attention and human intervention. Automated software reflow hands the wheel over to non-human processes that will necessarily and (for anything worth typesetting) always be substandard.

HTML + CSS will never be able to reach the degree of typographic sophistication and quality a well prepared PDF can offer for this and many other reasons already discussed to death in this very thread.

- Ahi


Ps.: And the mantra of "good enough" must be repeated with the tacit understanding that "good enough" in reflow formats is necessarily worse than the $5 - $50 paper books that don't require fragile $300+ computers to read.

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by ahi

I hope I did not offend you, Astra. I did not mean to.

Most people reacted positively to my custom eBook device targeted PDFs of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" ... I'd be curious to know what you think.

Although I would also suggest that you might find reading some of the earlier back-and-forths interesting (whether or not you ultimately agree).

- Ahi

P.s.: Perfect reflowability doesn't exist. It shouldn't either. Reflow degrades quality objectively, quantifiably, and ALWAYS. (Even if it makes it easier to read on account of blatant stuff like font-size.)

You missed Astra's point. There is no standard reading device you can design for. One of the major selling points for ebooks is that I can transport the information without the dead tree to a variety of readers. I personally use a 2.8", a 3.5", an 13", a 15", a 17", and a 19" screen for reading at various times of the day. I read the same book on all of those. If the only format available for ebook reading is PDF without tagging, I don't buy your product*, so I never see your beautiful layout.

Most people aren't interested in either perfect layout or perfect reflowability. "Good enough" at a reasonable cost is just fine. When you come up with a way of accomodating my 2.8" smartphone and my 19" desktop screen with one compact purchase, you'll have a valid argument that your PDFs are "superior" to simpler, less pretty renderings. I haven't seen it in PDF format in any of the myriad files I've bought and used. And by the way, yes, some ignorant publishers release and sell to the public camera ready copy complete with 2" margins, crop marks and registration targets. Try reading that on a 2.8" screen.

You might have a valid argument if you say PDF could be a good ebook format if everyone was good at making PDFs. You'll have an easier time finding examples of poor PDFs, and a difficult time finding good ones for sale to the general public.

*Barring extreme need which makes me willing to read on some large, immobile screen.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[astra]

Originally Posted by ahi

I hope I did not offend you, Astra. I did not mean to.

Most people reacted positively to my custom eBook device targeted PDFs of Sun Tzu's "Art of War":

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...39&postcount=1

I'd be curious to know what you think.

Although I would also suggest that you might find reading some of the earlier back-and-forths interesting (whether or not you ultimately agree).

- Ahi



P.s.: Perfect reflowability doesn't exist. It shouldn't either. Reflow degrades quality objectively, quantifiably, and ALWAYS. (Even if it makes it easier to read on account of blatant stuff like font-size.)

No worries. You didn't offend me. Not at all. I would be happy to be proven wrong. Before Sony Reader I knew nothing about ebook formats and used PDF only....for technical books.

Perfect reflowability doesn't exist

Don't know. A perfect, that is how LRF looks like for me. Well, RTF on Sony Reader as well. Maybe there are flaws but they stay invisible for me

I am off for holidays. I will have a look at your ebook when I am back in 5 days. Thanks!

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by ahi

It is *literally* impossible for reflowable formats to maintain the standard of quality non-reflowable formats can offer. Period.

Who cares? When I buy new reader, I do not want to pay that perfection by re-downloading (even if they do exist) all my books again. It is a hassle, and for what? Fine details? I'm not professional, i do not pay attention to these details.

If I care about a certain book, if I want to have it "just so", if I want a physical object to pass to my children... I'll buy hardcover, and I'll pay for luxurious edition. The works.

This is different medium, with different limitations and even different way how it is consumed. The presence of electronic dictionary breaks my tempo, I use these diversions to think about the content... It is not pbook.

[ahi]

Typography is irrelevant to the non-professional the same way that sewing and colour consistency of clothing is irrelevant to the non-tailor.

Nothing is stopping you from forever swearing off professional quality books and professional quality clothes... but you shouldn't expect to convince any sizeable portion of humanity that doing either is in their best interest.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

You missed Astra's point. There is no standard reading device you can design for.

I didn't, Jack.

The current immature state of the technology will not forever be a limitation, and, in fact, 3 display sizes cover the overwhelming majority of 2nd generation eInk devices... particularly since cell phones are not really eBook readers, even if they can be bludgeoned into that role.

But this, along with the great likelihood (personally, I think virtual certainty, actually) of eBook reader device display size standardization, has been discussed at considerable length earlier in the thread.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Ankh

This is different medium, with different limitations and even different way how it is consumed. The presence of electronic dictionary breaks my tempo, I use these diversions to think about the content... It is not pbook.

What you perceive as fundamental characteristics of the medium are in fact all about the fact that the technology and the market are both so immature as to be fundamentally untenable for wide adoption in their current state.

If eBooks cannot even meet the quality of pBooks, all the gimmicks layered onto them won't make them into a viable and serious medium that enjoys even semi-universal appeal. Once they can meet the quality of pBooks, by all means gimmick away... just in a way that does not degrade them prior to "making them better".

- Ahi

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by astra

Well.
Maybe people still read on the PCs/laptops/netbooks whatever.

PDF is unreadable on 6"(8" with 3-4 fonts size changes etc. for comfort) ebook reader, thus do not represent a useable ebook format.

I voted for epub because I hope it has a chance to be a good format in the future but as of now, my quite big ebook library consists mostly of HTML(sometimes LIT/RTF) books that can be converted into any(hopefully) format my current and future reader will support.

According to a market research survey of 36,000 book buyers last year, 48% of ebook consumers "still" read on a PC or laptop. PDFs read on a laptop are the norm. How they display on devices designed for reflowable formats is not the measure for whether they're "a useable ebook format." While efforts will probably continue to make them more workable on dedicated devices, the issue isn't that PDFs are a bad format for ebooks, but that existing devices are ill-suited to displaying actual books.

Even for straight-text novels, a lot of readers prefer the fidelity of PDFs to the print sources, and have more confidence in the quality of an ebook that directly emulates the print edition. I suspect the market will stay divided between those for whom adjustable print and low maintenance are priorities and those who find fidelity and being able to display the widest range of texts are more important. Lifestyle and workflow are also going to vary and have a big impact on whether a dedicated but limited device makes sense.

[ahi]

And, further to taosaur and already stated elsewhere, I fully expect ePub to stay around... just not as the format of primary choice for professionally produced/published eBooks.

- Ahi

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by ahi

I didn't, Jack.

The current immature state of the technology will not forever be a limitation, and, in fact, 3 display sizes cover the overwhelming majority of 2nd generation eInk devices... particularly since cell phones are not really eBook readers, even if they can be bludgeoned into that role.

But this, along with the great likelihood (personally, I think virtual certainty, actually) of eBook reader device display size standardization, has been discussed at considerable length earlier in the thread.

- Ahi

Again, you miss the point. ebooks are not paper books read on a book-sized screen. They're a more generalized means of transmitting information. One of their virtues is that generalization. If I read an ebook on a smartphone, then the smartphone is an ebook reader. (Supposedly, even dumb phones are a very popular method of reading serialized novels in Japan.) This flexibility is why I buy ebooks, rather than the dead tree version. If you make them inflexible, I'll save my $300 on a reading device, and buy the mass market paperback version.

As it happens, I've never bought a dedicated reading device, since I own far too many devices which can read a variety of ebooks in a Babel of formats. All that is a feature, not a bug. If you don't accomodate that feature, you won't be selling a lot of ebooks. PDF, as currently implemented and used, is horrible at exploiting that feature.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

Again, you miss the point. ebooks are not paper books read on a book-sized screen. They're a more generalized means of transmitting information. One of their virtues is that generalization.

What you describe is a niche curiosity that will never gain wide adoption for general reading of books, because comfortable and pleasant (as opposed to merely viable) reading is best facilitated by reasonably book page sized displays.

eBooks *AS* pBook equivalents (with possibly additional [not compensatory] features) is the only way for eBooks to ever be taken seriously either by publishers or by the majority of the book reading public.

If you feel otherwise, what do you base your assumption on?

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

All that is a feature, not a bug. If you don't accomodate that feature, you won't be selling a lot of ebooks. PDF, as currently implemented and used, is horrible at exploiting that feature.

3000 downloads of my free non-eBook-device PDF over 4 months vs. mobileread.com's 700 downloads of their free non-PDF eBooks over 18 months. (same title, of course: Sun Tzu's "The Art of War")

You can consider reflowing and text-resizing a feature... but they really are primarily compensation for poorly produced eBooks.

- Ahi