E-book long term prospects. Format?

[no.guru]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given the triviality of converting Mobi books to ePub, if they are DRM-free, that's rather a specious argument. And if they are not DRM-free, ePub DRM is every bit as proprietary as Mobi DRM is.

When I purchase items with DRM, it lasts only as long as it takes me to strip it. I figure my signature is clear about DRM of any kind.

I convert between formats as little as possible, after running into real problems using calibre a couple of years ago. I don't remember the input and output formats, but it was probably PDF and LRF to EPUB. I imagine PDF especially would be problematic.

After several initial experiences with calibre's conversion output I wasn't happy with it and I gave it up as impractical, but that was in 2009. (In fact, I had horrible results using calibre at all with my 505 - although it works fine with the 350 and the T-1 now, and the 505 works fine without calibre - but that's OT.)

To test now, I've just converted an EPUB I purchased and stripped clean of DRM. Using fbreader on my desktop, the text is rich in the mobi it output. Formatting is preserved but all the figures are missing. Is there a way around this?

It worked better than I expected, but it's little things like this that could add up to a big problem if an entire library is being converted. Some content would probably be lost, but it would work fine if it's text.

I had forgotten how freely I used to work with RTF files with the Sony 505. It's a pity we have all of these other format fiefdoms.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by PaulAuster

... the Ipod is a great product with great user experience but never purchased one , don't like the idea of syncronize with only one computer....

For the record, I have an iPad, a iMac, and a PC. I sync the iPad with my PC. You're not really limited in that respect.

EDIT: Opps! I see you wrote iPod. I have one of those also, and you can sync them with either an iMac or a PC; just not both.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by no.guru

To test now, I've just converted an EPUB I purchased and stripped clean of DRM. Using fbreader on my desktop, the text is rich in the mobi it output. Formatting is preserved but all the figures are missing. Is there a way around this?

Perhaps an issue with FBReader. Images should convert absolutely fine between ePub and Mobi. Take a look at the some of the illustrated books I've uploaded to the MR library.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you remove DRM as soon as you purchase, you're safe with either ePub or Mobi; they can trivially be converted from one to the other.

To be fair, Mobi can be converted to ePub with little to no loss of formatting.

Converting ePub to Mobi is more likely to lose some formatting - fonts, wrapped illustrations, drop caps, proper indents, etc.

But this will become less of a problem with time as Amazon is moving towards KF8 which is much closer in capabilities to ePub than the older mobi format.

[no.guru]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Perhaps an issue with FBReader. Images should convert absolutely fine between ePub and Mobi. Take a look at the some of the illustrated books I've uploaded to the MR library.

OK, will do. I appreciate it.