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Old 08-28-2009, 07:32 PM   #256
Elfwreck
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"The public" doesn't know that filetypes exist.
The Stop. You are depressing me. You're probably right, but at least now while the technology is new, a disproportionate number of technophiles are using ebooks; all the more reasons we put the pressure on now.
Technophiles are indeed using ebooks.

The publishing industry does not particularly cater to technophiles. In fact, it's pretty solidly entrenched in providing content to technophobes. And right now, the ebook industry is dominated by print publishers, who have no idea how to deal with ebooks, so they stick to print-ready PDFs as an attempt to convince everyone that an ebook is very much like a printed book--see, same fonts, same pages, same cover art; it just shows up on your screen.

They shy away from utilizing the features that ebooks offer that don't exist in pbooks. They don't tag. They don't bookmark. They're sloppy with metadata--either they have a program that manages that, or they ignore it entirely. They certainly don't provide an extra page at the end with links to the publisher's/author's website and more books.

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You're depressing me again... But I don't think it's quite that bad. I imagine most people who have a reader will know about the zoom function; and if ebook sellers sold different sizes, they'd have to have them clearly marked.
Of course, those who have readers know about the zoom function. It's those that don't have them, who hear about those ebook things, and decide to try one out on their computer, who are the problem.

They download one, after twenty minutes of bizarre software installation and info-gathering, and they read it, and it looks odd. Then they hear you can put ebooks on your Blackberry, so they try that... but the ebook they bought doesn't work because the B'berry doesn't read .lit files. But they're diligent, so they look for another ebook that does work on their phone, and after another half-hour of weird software hassles, they have installed BeamReader and opened one of their sales proposals...

And decide very quickly that ebooks are not their thing, because the type is too small and the zoom is too much hassle, and how does anyone read this stuff? Wow, those technogeeks must really like reading on a little screen. Good for them; I'll stick to paperbacks.

I work in litigation support--scanning, printing & copying documents for law firms. (I'd say "for lawyers," but I never deal with lawyers; I deal with people two or three steps down from them.)
Some of the Q&A I've dealt with:

ME: Do you want that in TIFF or PDF format?
A: Ummm... I don't know what that is. Let me check with [person]; I'll have to get back to you about that.

ME: How do you want these files named?
A: Oh, don't name them anything. Just scan them onto the CD.

ME: What format do you want these in?
A: I want searchable tiffs.
ME: There are no searchable tiffs. There are tiffs with OCR text, either in a database load file, or separate text file; which would you...
A: No, I want searchable tiffs, just like I got from [rival company] last time.

Publishers will not go broke by underestimating people's interest in the technical aspects of ebooks.

(I think I like the idea of a TeX rendering ebook reader, but agree with the people who think it's too complex and potentially too much of a resource drain to be practical. One could be created; it's not going to overtake the current ebook formats. Especially not without a do-it-yourself converter program.)
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Old 08-28-2009, 07:41 PM   #257
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Originally Posted by frabjous View Post
I misunderstood what you had in mind. PNGs for every page? That would result in a huge file size, comparatively. And you'd have the same problem as with PDFs that you couldn't reflow. Plus, you'd lose dictionary support and searchability -- or at least greatly complicate these things.

Why do you say that the size of the publication is not an issue?
The only PDF optimized for Sony Reader that I have is Ahi's "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu. I loaded the first page covered with text into GIMP, just switched image attributes to "grayscale" and exported that page as PNG. The result is attached to this message.

The size of the resulting PNG image is 38918 Bytes. Although not all pages in the publication are full of text (chapter headings, for example, leave lots of white space, which compresses better) an "average" publication will cost you:

40 KB * 500 pages = 20000 KB.

How many 20 MB files fit on 2GB SD stick ($10)?

The size of publication is not an issue.
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Old 08-28-2009, 08:04 PM   #258
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck View Post
...
Publishers will not go broke by underestimating people's interest in the technical aspects of ebooks....
And this is the reason, why ereaders will likely not become ubiquitous, until standardization, large screens, and color come to be, at reasonable prices.

I am really starting to think, that an Apple tablet may usher all these things, and bring a new era for publishing. Just like the iPhone did for smart phones.

If they partner with magazine/newspaper publishers, and a few booksellers (remember the iPAD survey item), and get full-color, large format content on the screen of a slim, easy to use device, then it will be all over for the Kindles and Sonys. And such a tablet will also do movies, and web, and photos, etc..

I personally like e-ink, but it's current limitations are just too numerous for mass consumption.

So, how does this rant relate to PDFs? If Apple brings out a large screen tablet, all those PDFs people are used to viewing on their laptops and desktops, will also be viewable on their iPADs (or whatever.) And all this talk of .mobi and ePub will die off.
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Old 08-28-2009, 08:17 PM   #259
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I don't sure about the ambiguity in the TeX license,
Yea, well, you're not a major book publisher or hardware device maker with millions to lose if you're wrong. I know it's been veto'd from a tool it would of been useful in at least one place I've worked over the liscence issue.

You can make assumptions about what's needed, but you've just made a dangerous assumption there - that books should be allowed to embed code. Can't you see the potential for security problems there? You have to start making huge assumptions about which parts to leave out, and you're going to force people to use specalists to get their book laid out in TeX, it's effectively asking them to code rather than script, as WISYWIG editors provide.

And... I don't want the "quality" of TeX. It's aimed at the print book market, and has very little relevance to what I want in an ebook. The goals of rendering an ebook are very different. How does TeX markup reflow?


Sonist - Large screens defeat the whole reason a lot of people want ebooks in the first place, because they're portable. They're not all going to be large, unless you come up with a foldable screen, and even there there are major useability issues. And a 2-hour battery life tablet is going to do away with the PRS's and Kindle's?
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Old 08-28-2009, 09:31 PM   #260
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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon View Post
... Large screens defeat the whole reason a lot of people want ebooks in the first place, because they're portable. They're not all going to be large, unless you come up with a foldable screen, and even there there are major useability issues. And a 2-hour battery life tablet is going to do away with the PRS's and Kindle's?
Hm, most people tend to buy regular size books, rather than the various mini-sized novelty editions.

A regular size trade paperback is 7 x 9 inches (17.8 x 22.9 cm), which is the equivalent of a diagonal screen size of 11.5 inches (29.2 cm). Which is larger, than the 9.7 inches screen of the Kindle DX.

A tablet with a 10 inch screen would be likely a tad smaller than a trade paperback, and a 12 inch screen one a tad larger than a trade paperback. It is also likely, that either tablet will be thinner than an average trade paperback. So, portability will be about the same, as with a trade paperback.

As to battery life, Jobs has apparently killed the previous attempts at bringing a tablet to market, at least partially because of this issue. But the new Apple MacBooks do 7 hours on video, so I'd guess that some of this tech will find its way into the rumored tablet. If battery life is within reach of iRex's products, I think an Apple tablet will be usable for most.
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Old 08-28-2009, 09:48 PM   #261
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Um...

Very few paperbacks are that large here, they're far more typically A size (~8" diagonal) rather than "trade" size (which is 135 mm x 216mm (5.32" x 8.51") - a 10" diagonal), 7"x9" is a hardback size.

Even a trade paperback is too large for the size people are looking to carry arround as a small, pocketable e-reader. The 505 is on the upper margin for it, and the 300 will sell because it's the right size.


"But the new Apple MacBooks do 7 hours on video"

Knowing someone with one, I will quote his take on that: "If you're watching just the right format in a letterbox format". Okay, actually it was ruder than that, but that's the gist of it. And for the iRex, you mean 6-7 hours? Well, how does that compete again?

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Old 08-28-2009, 11:36 PM   #262
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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon View Post
And... I don't want the "quality" of TeX. It's aimed at the print book market, and has very little relevance to what I want in an ebook. The goals of rendering an ebook are very different. How does TeX markup reflow?
The bloody nonsense never stops, does it...
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Old 08-28-2009, 11:45 PM   #263
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck View Post
Technophiles are indeed using ebooks.

The publishing industry does not particularly cater to technophiles. ...

They shy away from utilizing the features that ebooks offer that don't exist in pbooks. They don't tag. They don't bookmark. They're sloppy with metadata--either they have a program that manages that, or they ignore it entirely. They certainly don't provide an extra page at the end with links to the publisher's/author's website and more books.
It's a new industry; people are adjusting. I think these are things that will iron themselves out as people become better trained.



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ME: Do you want that in TIFF or PDF format?
A: Ummm... I don't know what that is. Let me check with [person]; I'll have to get back to you about that.

ME: How do you want these files named?
A: Oh, don't name them anything. Just scan them onto the CD.

ME: What format do you want these in?
A: I want searchable tiffs.
ME: There are no searchable tiffs. There are tiffs with OCR text, either in a database load file, or separate text file; which would you...
A: No, I want searchable tiffs, just like I got from [rival company] last time.
I don't know if these make me want to laught or cry...

Quote:
(I think I like the idea of a TeX rendering ebook reader, but agree with the people who think it's too complex and potentially too much of a resource drain to be practical. One could be created; it's not going to overtake the current ebook formats. Especially not without a do-it-yourself converter program.)
Again, I'm not convinced that TeX is really that complicated or resource-dependent... it's a nearly 30-year old program, remember! If we're not there yet, we will be soon.

A do-it-yourself converter program doesn't sound too difficult to fashion using existing tools.

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Originally Posted by Ankh View Post
The size of the resulting PNG image is 38918 Bytes. Although not all pages in the publication are full of text (chapter headings, for example, leave lots of white space, which compresses better) an "average" publication will cost you:

40 KB * 500 pages = 20000 KB.

How many 20 MB files fit on 2GB SD stick ($10)?

The size of publication is not an issue.
The file size does more than take up space on your card: it takes longer to load into RAM, it takes up more RAM (very limited on readers), it takes longer to transfer, download, upload, etc. There's also the space your permanent library takes up, and while having thousands of books you'll never read permanently on your harddrive doesn't really make any practical sense, there are still those who will want to do it just out of principle.

But more importantly what does this offer that PDF doesn't?

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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon View Post
Yea, well, you're not a major book publisher or hardware device maker with millions to lose if you're wrong. I know it's been veto'd from a tool it would of been useful in at least one place I've worked over the liscence issue.
Local ignorance is all I can figure. Thousands of books and journals made by TeX have been sold commercially. Almost every math journal uses it. What exactly is the worry?

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You can make assumptions about what's needed, but you've just made a dangerous assumption there - that books should be allowed to embed code. Can't you see the potential for security problems there?
Not remotely. TeX code is no different than HTML code. How is embedded TeX code more dangerous than HTML code?

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You have to start making huge assumptions about which parts to leave out,...
You'll know what to include, because presumably you'll test it to make sure.

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and you're going to force people to use specalists to get their book laid out in TeX, it's effectively asking them to code rather than script, as WISYWIG editors provide.
There's absolutely no difference between TeX and HTML here either. WYSIWYG TeX editors exist, though you usually don't get as good output with them as you do writing the code yourself, but exactly the same is true of HTML/CSS.

Quote:
And... I don't want the "quality" of TeX. It's aimed at the print book market, and has very little relevance to what I want in an ebook. The goals of rendering an ebook are very different. How does TeX markup reflow?
I don't know what you mean by "mark reflow" but LaTeX code, like HTML code, is semantic. It codes things like paragraph breaks and chapter breaks. Line breaks and page breaks are typically not in the code at all. It's the renderer, when the file is processed and displayed, that decides how lines are broken up, and thereby, which words need to be hyphenated. Typically, the TeX file itself contains information about the page size and font size, but turning these into variables that can be changed globally, and re-rendering the document at a push of a button is certainly possible, which is exactly what your reader is doing with an ePub file. The only difference is that TeX's algorithm is more sophisticated since it knows how to hyphenate most words, it does widow and orphan control, it does font kerning, rubber lengths, etc.

Last edited by frabjous; 08-28-2009 at 11:49 PM.
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Old 08-29-2009, 08:14 AM   #264
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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon View Post
You can make assumptions about what's needed, but you've just made a dangerous assumption there - that books should be allowed to embed code. Can't you see the potential for security problems there? You have to start making huge assumptions about which parts to leave out, and you're going to force people to use specalists to get their book laid out in TeX, it's effectively asking them to code rather than script, as WISYWIG editors provide.

And... I don't want the "quality" of TeX. It's aimed at the print book market, and has very little relevance to what I want in an ebook. The goals of rendering an ebook are very different. How does TeX markup reflow?
I don't think you really understand what TeX is or how it works. You seem to think it's something vastly different from ePub. It's just a text markup language with a VERY good engine for rendering the typesetting. It is exactly the same thing as ePub, except ePub uses HTML for its markup language and uses a HTML-renderer to layout its typesetting. It just doesn't do that job nearly as well as TeX.
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Old 08-29-2009, 10:02 AM   #265
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Disclosure: I know nothing about TeX.

However, from what various people have been saying it certainly sounds like it could be a viable way to mark-up ebooks.

The big issue I see here is that the degree of typographic excellence some posters are looking for requires a fixed page layout: and that is the one thing that other posters are most opposed to.

No one fixed page layout will fit every person's need or every device, so you either need sub-optimal rendering on certain devices or different files or render paths for different devices - and the former kills the idea of a universal standard file-type.

Reflow is one of the single most important features for many people - removing that defeats the point.
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Old 08-29-2009, 10:21 AM   #266
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The bloody nonsense never stops, does it...
Nope, as long as you're trying to pushn the rigidity and inflexability of print books onto e-readers, people are going to keep telling you that it's not what they want. The one-size-fits-all view is, as you note, nonsense.


frabjous - The problem is not with using TeX to create the book, it's with including a TeX rendering engine. The problem related to it being "conditional public domain", which legally is problematical (because, and only because, of the American 35-year rule. Let's not go there...).

And the sort of embedding being talked about was /code/ defining additional tags. Allowing book-embedded code...yea.


cmdahler - I know what TeX is. It's a markup language aimed at the print book market, especially technical books. I'd rather get away from the restrictions of print books than impose them on ebooks.

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Old 08-29-2009, 11:03 AM   #267
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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon View Post
Nope, as long as you're trying to pushn the rigidity and inflexability of print books onto e-readers, people are going to keep telling you that it's not what they want. The one-size-fits-all view is, as you note, nonsense.
No one, except maybe ahi, is pushing for that.

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frabjous - The problem is not with using TeX to create the book, it's with including a TeX rendering engine. The problem related to it being "conditional public domain", which legally is problematical (because, and only because, of the American 35-year rule. Let's not go there...).
I just don't see the problem. Machines are now being sold with Linux OSes that come with a TeX system preinstalled; I don't see why readers are any more problematic. It just needs to be made plain that you're paying for the hardware, not the software. And if approached, I'm sure Knuth would clarify matters. Surely the fact that they don't have to pay anyone for the software isn't going to be a turn-off for reader makers, it's going to be an attraction.

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And the sort of embedding being talked about was /code/ defining additional tags. Allowing book-embedded code...yea.
You can define new tags in a normal tex document, and most style files, which is what we're talking about, just pre-package more tex code that could be used in the document but is convenient to have simpler if you want it to apply to multiple documents. In that way, it's precisely the same as embedding a CSS file in an ePub, which is routine. CSS in effect allows you to define new tags in HTML too -- none of that poses a security risk. If you want TeX to output to alter any file other than a PDF, DVI or the auxiliary files it uses to create the ToC and bibliography, you need to use special settings when you run, which obviously, wouldn't be allowed on the reader. As most readers run on a linux system, and obviously don't run as root, protecting the core system is trivial. There just is no risk (at least not anything greater than with ePub).

Quote:
cmdahler - I know what TeX is. It's a markup language aimed at the print book market, especially technical books. I'd rather get away from the restrictions of print books than impose them on ebooks.
But you don't seem to have much experience with it. The code is very similar to HTML; it doesn't have to be geared towards creation of the print book market any more than HTML can only be used to produce webpages for viewing on a full sized monitor. Changing the font and page size and recompiling takes seconds. A reader page is more similar to a paper page than it is to a full size website display, and so using TeX is no odder a choice than HTML is.
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Old 08-29-2009, 11:14 AM   #268
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frabjous - "Surely the fact that they don't have to pay anyone for the software isn't going to be a turn-off for reader makers, it's going to be an attraction."

Uh. Have you never worked with a large company* on software projects, right? If you haven't, take it from me: No, they often think value is something you have to pay for. Also, legal departments are paid to be paranoid about these things, and it's a valid issue in this case.

(*large enough to have non-technical managers)

There also seems to be no reason why you'd need to embed TeX itself, as I've said before - it can output PDF's, which can allready be read. And there are still issues with reflow on TeX-created PDF's, which would be no different if you ran a TeX rendering engine directly.

ePuB has some major advantages, which are only very partially related to the fact they're XHTML - it's a standard. It's aimed directly at a reflow text standard, and will improve over time. You don't need to make the assumptions and guesses you would with a cut-down TeX renderer.

More, no, a reader page is far, far closer to a web page - it does not need to have a fixed aspect regardless of the user's wishes. The user cand and will change things like font size, and expect the text to be readable - and the text has to be readable on multiple devices, it's not laid down in a set size...
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Old 08-29-2009, 11:32 AM   #269
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And this is the reason, why ereaders will likely not become ubiquitous, until standardization, large screens, and color come to be, at reasonable prices.
The reason i have an e-reader is because it's small and light. Large scren would make it useless.
The only reason i'm considering a larger sceen reader is because of pdf. But i'll rather have the publisher use ePub and spare me the expence.
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Old 08-29-2009, 11:41 AM   #270
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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon View Post
Uh. Have you never worked with a large company* on software projects, right? If you haven't, take it from me: No, they often think value is something you have to pay for. Also, legal departments are paid to be paranoid about these things, and it's a valid issue in this case.
You may be right about current practice, that'll change. What we're discussing in this thread is what should be done. The fact that the stupidity of many companies is widespread is not a reason for endorsing their stupidity.

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There also seems to be no reason why you'd need to embed TeX itself, as I've said before - it can output PDF's, which can allready be read. And there are still issues with reflow on TeX-created PDF's, which would be no different if you ran a TeX rendering engine directly.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for TeX-created PDFs being used on readers. I do it all the time, and I hope it catches on.

There is work in progress to make TeX output tagged PDF, which should partially help with the reflow. (Look at the proceedings of the latest TUG conference for evidence--there was also a session on TeX as an ebook reader there).

Still, it's not entirely true that there would be no advantage to having the TeX engine on the reader itself. You can program TeX graphics e.g., to take up a certain percentage of the screen size, or alter its widow and orphan rules according to screen size, "float" tables to where they fit best, and a number of similar things that would be greatly complicated even with a reflowable PDF.

Your claim that that there would be issues with reflow with the TeX engine on the reader is just false. I'm sorry, but it is. TeX has no trouble adjusting to new font sizes and new page sizes when given to it. I do this all the time. Check out the link above if you don't believe and look at the six different sized PDFs I made with LaTeX for the same book with precisely the same code.

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ePuB has some major advantages, which are only very partially related to the fact they're XHTML - it's a standard. It's aimed directly at a reflow text standard, and will improve over time. You don't need to make the assumptions and guesses you would with a cut-down TeX renderer.
I'm all for having a standard. It just should be the best one available. I have no problems with that standard being XHTML based. XHTML and TeX code is barely distinguishable. It just needs to get a better renderer -- and since one is already available for TeX what's the point in starting from scratch?

What assumptions and guesses are you talking about? You seem to be making this stuff up.

TeX is improving over time, too, as I noted in a previous message. The difference is that it has a nearly 20 year head start.

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More, no, a reader page is far, far closer to a web page - it does not need to have a fixed aspect regardless of the user's wishes. The user cand and will change things like font size, and expect the text to be readable - and the text has to be readable on multiple devices, it's not laid down in a set size...
Ugh. TeX can do that too. That was the whole point of having the renderer on the machine. TeX code is not limited to particular font size or page size or aspect ratio. Why do you persist in thinking that it does?

A e-ink screen is geometrically much more similar to a book page than a web site page. That was my point.

Last edited by frabjous; 08-29-2009 at 11:52 AM.
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