A silly question: what is the advantage of ePub for a reader?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ahi

You are right, AMJB. But for electronic books, reflow formats are definitely and objectively the wrong choice... unless of course we restrict the definition of eBooks, as people presumably do here, to novels with uncomplicated layouts.

Books are supposed to be able to convey information with far greater complexity (not to mention elegance) than reflow formats will ever be able to handle. Why? Because typesetting/bookmaking is not a machine-solvable problem and thus necessarily requires human intervention/assistance.

The above are facts that I am yet to see credibly disputed by anyone, or for that matter by somebody that that seemed to understand and acknowledge the full range of issues.

None of this changes the fact that most PDFs available today are unusable on eBook devices. But, in turn, the fact that most PDFs available today are unusable doesn't change the fact that only PDFs and similarly static solutions can solve all the problems of bookmaking (electronic or otherwise) and dynamic formats will not foreseeably be able to do so until computers have basically human-equivalent level intelligence (seeing as how that is exactly what is required for typesetting/bookmaking).

Ahi, I'd like to know what in your opinion is needed to be added to ePub to make it better typographically? I know it needs kerning and hyphenation. But what else would it need?

[WillAdams]

igorsk, nifty sample --- is up the technique used to make it documented somewhere?

It's a LaTeX document, no?

William

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

igorsk, nifty sample --- is up the technique used to make it documented somewhere?

It's a LaTeX document, no?

The file is produced by Hindawi. I don't think they describe the technique anywhere.
http://www.hindawi.com/epub.html

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Ahi, I'd like to know what in your opinion is needed to be added to ePub to make it better typographically? I know it needs kerning and hyphenation. But what else would it need?

I'd like to know what Ahi thinks too. But note that kerning and hyphenation are additions to the ePub renderers (e.g. display programs like Adobe Digital Editions, etc.), rather than additions to the document format.

Xenophon

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

I'd like to know what Ahi thinks too. But note that kerning and hyphenation are additions to the ePub renderers (e.g. display programs like Adobe Digital Editions, etc.), rather than additions to the document format.

Xenophon

True that kerning and hyphenation are features of the renderer. But if ADE had them, then some of the objection to ePub might go away.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

True that kerning and hyphenation are features of the renderer. But if ADE had them, then some of the objection to ePub might go away.

I am curious, can EPUB reproduce the attached faithfully, and searchable and navigable?

(PDF, of course, can.)

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[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I am curious, can EPUB reproduce the attached faithfully, and searchable and navigable?

(PDF, of course, can.)

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My question is

"Eww.. why would you want to?"

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

My question is

"Eww.. why would you want to?"

...to teach people never to wear plaid hats in public....

...and because, if EPUB can't faithfully represent the above cover, then it is a rather limited, possibly harmful to e-publishing, and ultimately useless, "standard."

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sonist

...to teach people never to wear plaid hats in public....

...and because, if EPUB can't faithfully represent the above cover, then it is a rather limited, possibly harmful to e-publishing, and ultimately useless, "standard."

You mean it is useless for magazines I suppose. That doesn't mean it is useless. And even here a cover could just be an image. ePUB is a very poor format for faithfully making an image of a fixed size for a printable publishable book. PDF is good for that. You forgot to show the crop marks.

Dale

[JSWolf]

yes, ePub could render that cover.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by Sonist

...to teach people never to wear plaid hats in public....
"

You oughta see my colletion of hats....

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

yes, ePub could render that cover.

Wow! So, this whole magazine can be faithfully reproduced in EPUB. And be searchable, and navigable through hyperlinks?

I assume there is an example of this, somewhere. Can someone post it here, or point me to it?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Wow! So, this whole magazine can be faithfully reproduced in EPUB. And be searchable, and navigable through hyperlinks?

I assume there is an example of this, somewhere. Can someone post it here, or point me to it?

No, there isn't an example. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

No, there isn't an example. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

Huh?! Is this a round-and-about way of saying, it really CANNOT be done?

If not, then EPUB is of limited use to much of publishing and the public.

[Abecedary]

Jon, could you explain how you'd place an image so that it partially covers the text (as in the title)? If not, then it's very clear that you're talking out of your ass (which wouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone).