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

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Before ebooks become mainstream, there must be format standardization. And whatever the format is, it must be capable of dealing perfectly with publications such as magazines, as well a trash novels. And the visual quality of the products must improve.

But PDF doesn't deal perfectly with trash novels. It shows them like the printed version, but that's not easy to read on ebook readers, and often not even on computers. Often, the screen resolution makes the fonts look odd--some serifs vanish, and some words get misaligned to fit the low screen resolution.

No digital format can re-create printed forms exactly. A PDF of a magazine can't be rolled up into your back pocket, and pulled out to read at bus stops; a PDF of a textbook can't be held open with fingers so that you can flip between three different sections; a PDF of a novel can't be signed by the author. A PDF of a newspaper can't have fillable crossword puzzles and word scrambles* (nor can it be cut up for art projects, nor used to fill space in boxes for shipping).

*(PDFs can have these things--but only those people who have Acrobat Pro installed can effectively use them. I consider this comparable to saying "HTML pages are editable, if you save them out and use your own editor to change them.")

Choosing "cover image similarity" as the only important feature of a printed publication that PDF needs to match is biased--"Color cover with fancy typography" is not the only reason people buy paper instead of ebooks.

And vice-versa... print has plenty of limitations that digital formats don't share. I can't carry 300 printed novels in my purse; I can't force paper magazines to show me their text in larger font sizes; I can't make 100 bookmarks in the same pbook without damaging the spine; I can't annotate and remove annotations without damaging the original; I can't display a paper book on a 24" screen so three people can read it at once. I can't edit my paper books to change the covers or fix the spelling errors.

With all those differences between paper and e publications, it seems ridiculous to bring up "magazine cover" as the ultimate and only important comparison point.

The ebook format that "wins" the format wars (if any one format ever does) will not be the one that best imitates any one aspect of print--it'll be the one that best exploits all the possible aspects and advantages of digital media.

[Xenophon]

Speaking as an expert programmer with modest (but not expert) knowledge of typography and layout, I see no reason why reflowable layout can't improve to the level of "pretty good" hand-optimized typography and layout. I definitely expect that doing better than LaTeX should be well within reach. (Assuming more R&D, of course.)

That said, I don't expect automated typography and layout to surpass the best hand-optimized typography, layout, page design, etc. Rather, I expect automation to take care of all the ordinary cases -- probably achieving the level of "non-offensive" even for Ahi. Eventually. Not right away -- LaTeX isn't there yet, and the various web browser and ePub renderers are worse.

In the short term, I'd just like to see an ePub renderer that hyphenates as well as LaTex (they could just use the LaTeX algorithms -- it is open source, after all!) and gives the user some choice on things like in-line display of line numbers (as in "let me make those &^%$&^%$ things go AWAY!) and left/right/full justification. That still wouldn't satisfy someone like Ahi, but would reach "non-offensive" for my needs (specifically, reading fiction on devices with different screen sizes).

I also wish that the "PDF is the only thing that's good enough" zealots and the "reflowable formats are the greatest thing since sliced bread" zealots would recognize that they disagree exactly because they value different things. Please, oh please, folks: Let the other guys say "I want X because it matters to me for reasons Y and Z." And then respond with, "OK, I can see that. But I want A because B and C matter more to me than Y and Z do." That would let us provide lots more light with a whole bunch less heat.

Xenophon
(You're both right. It's a floor wax AND a desert topping!!)

[corinthian]

Just a couple of observations, although I feel that it's pretty well all been said already.
I've just been staring at my main bookcase and thinking about all this. I've got some huge glossy photography and art books, some small books with nothing but text where the formatting is not as important (either to the reader's enjoyment or to the author's vision), books which require user input (school text books, report books), books which are designed for being taken from one place to another and others which clearly are not. I have no urge whatsoever to have a single device that faithfully reproduces all these media, just because they are all books.

With regard to the magazine cover and the idea that we should be able to reproduce the look and formatting while adding indexing, why not? People will want that, publishers will want to be able to do it, and soon enough the hardware will be able to do it. But why should they have to do it on the same hardware that others will only have purchased to read novels and news on? And more importantly why should the file itself have to be in the same format?

PDF is a wonderful format for a wide range of uses, including ebooks in some cases. As a teacher, translator and photographer I use pdfs every day. But they're not the ideal format for reading the type of document most people are reading on today's devices. And for the time being the formats have to adapt to the documents being sold, not the wish-list of tech-savvy early adopters who are willing to fiddle about with their files.

One more thing, devices with smaller screens are definitely here to stay. I will never want a larger device for reading, while others will never want a smaller device for their uses. There's room in the market for both, but there's only room in my pocket—and my budget—for one.

[PhishStyx]

Originally Posted by Sonist

IMO, EPUB is a little more than just another format, which will only serve to further confuse the average consumer.

Yes, it does a few things better than mobi, etc., but ultimately it is still inadequate to faithfully represent complex layouts.

I tried to be more open-minded, but after due consideration, I now wish all of these formats would die a quiet death, before they totally turn off the public from ebooks.

PDF is by far the most popular current format, on screen, as well as web, and it can represent the most complex layout faithfully. If I have, say a Vogue Magazine file, I can read it today on something like an iRex (in grayscale), on my Mac laptop, on my Windows HTPC, or on my iMac.

Oh, and when full color, large screen e-readers show up a couple of years from now, that PDF file most likely will still be readable, in its full color glory, on them.

P.S. For the "plain-text" subscribers, text PDFs can now reflow on miniature screens, or if unhappy with that, why not just use plain old text...?

I agree with nearly everything you said except that I don't need or even want PDF's that reflow for 6" screens. I'm very happy with reading PDF's at full size.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by PhishStyx

I agree with nearly everything you said except that I don't need or even want PDF's that reflow for 6" screens. I'm very happy with reading PDF's at full size.

I'm not; I want a portable reader that fits in my purse, that I can read comfortably with one hand on a crowded train, and anything that shows full-size letter/A4 PDFs won't do that.

And this is why I don't expect we'll settle on a single size of reader, and why PDF won't win the format wars--for the same reason that computer screens never settled on a single size and websites never settled on a single layout: different people have different needs & wants from their tech.

21" screens for business use; 15" screens for portable laptops; 3" screens for phones, all trying to access the same websites.

We're going to have the same issues with ebooks: letter-size screens for full-page PDFs for business or school, 5" or 6" screens for novel readers, 3" screens for occasional readers who need the phone-and-apps options more than the ebook options. And that's a minimum range; there'll be other options as well. 10" netbook screens, optimized for web & light word processing, and incidental ebook support.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

21" screens for business use; 15" screens for portable laptops; 3" screens for phones, all trying to access the same websites.

We're going to have the same issues with ebooks: letter-size screens for full-page PDFs for business or school, 5" or 6" screens for novel readers, 3" screens for occasional readers who need the phone-and-apps options more than the ebook options. And that's a minimum range; there'll be other options as well. 10" netbook screens, optimized for web & light word processing, and incidental ebook support.

Don't forget the 48" diagonal rollable flexi screens for architects and contractors!!

[Syniurge]

Originally Posted by Jellby

And note that ePUB is SVG too.

You're right, actually SVG being equivalent to PDF all this discussion is really non-sense.
So if ahi -or others, want some static layout unreadable on 6 inches screens, they can have it with ePub

[astra]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Until DRM is removed from the equation there isn't a real advantage to the end user. It's just another proprietary format.

[macr0t0r]

I thought CSS was the major driving factor for ePub? It inherently allows you to override default formatting so as to fit the document to your device and/or personal tastes.

PDF, conversely, is meant to allow the author to dictate exactly how the information will be displayed.

The two formats have completely different goals in mind, so I really doubt anybody here is going to change their mind of which they prefer, nor will we find a decent middle ground.

Here's an idea...just follow Fictionwise's example and give us a choice of formats for the same book!

As for me, I still prefer the eReader format for my portable devices. Small, simple, scalable, and available on multiple platforms. However, it's lack of table and monospace font support is annoying, so I'll welcome the ePub format when reader software becomes widely available.

And of course...I prefer PDFs on my computer.

Explain to me again why I need to chose one over the other?

- Jim

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by macr0t0r

Explain to me again why I need to chose one over the other?

- Jim

You don't. But many publishers won't take the time, invest the effort (and training skills, and software money) to make more than one version of an ebook, unless they can click a button and make it happen.

Hence the plethora of no-bookmarks, bad-metadata PDFs, even for ebooks that have other formats available.

The ePub crowd doesn't mind the idea of PDFs being available; they're worried that if publishers focus on PDF as "the" ebook format, they won't release other versions--especially if the publishers have to pay for each format's DRM licensing. The PDF crowd is worried about the same thing: if ePub dominates, they'll lose access to nicely-formatted pages in favor of reflow formats, and publishers may not bother to make/release a commercial PDF version.

On a forum like Mobileread, most books are offered in several formats, often with slightly different features to take advantage of the format's strengths. But many commercial ebooks from DRM-using sites are only offered in one, sometimes in two formats, and the choice of which formats is never based on what best displays the content of the books.

Certainly, the buyers are never told the pros and cons of the different formats--and that's a lot of the purpose of the PDF vs ePub debate: to make sure that as many people as possible are aware that the different formats work best for different content, so that people can decide which one(s) work best for them.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

... The ePub crowd doesn't mind the idea of PDFs being available....

Are you sure this is true for all 19 of them?