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#16 | |
Banned
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: South of the Border
Device: Coffin
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#17 |
Wizard
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Karma: 1121709
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle 1
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A lot of it is probably just laziness. I've not dealt with an PDF ebooks yet, but I deal with PDFs of scholarly journal articles all the time, and it seems the bulk of them are just scanned images of the printed pages. Of course a lot of them are older articles that the publishers probably didn't have an electronic copy of to make into a more e-reader friendly format and just had to scan the old journal.
I just print them out as I mark the hell out of them and find it easier to do on paper. Maybe some day when there's an A4 sized reader out with a touch screen that you can write on with a stylus just as easily and lag free as you can with a printout and a pin I'll give electronic versions of them another go. |
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#18 |
Member Retired
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Karma: 4446
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Florida
Device: PRS-350-SC: Sony Reader Pocket Edition
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#19 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
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I voted "Other"--I prefer Word or HTML, and then I can convert it to whatever device I'm reading on at the time.
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#20 | |
Wizard
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Join Date: May 2009
Device: none
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I suspect the reasons are: - Many do just "print to PDF". - Few publishers have competent staff to handle the generation of eBooks--most of said staff may well have less understanding and know-how than your average mobileread.com member. (Which does not mean to be a swipe--merely pointing out a paid professional should be more knowledge and capable than an enthusiastic amateur.) - Plus, if the PDF is not from a eBook reader specific/targeted website, it may have intentionally been aimed at people either reading on their computers or printing to letter/A4 size paper sheets. My "Art of War" (original book size) PDF saw more than 3000 downloads since February. I hope, but I am not convinced, it will get as many downloads of the eBook reader targeted versions (PDF or Mobipocket or ePub) anywhere near as quickly. If a publisher is using the PDF as a promotional tool for their dead-tree book, targeting people unlikely to buy that paperback book might not seem that attractive. I think once publishers start taking eBook reader devices seriously, the quality of books will rise considerably. |
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#21 | |||||
Wizard
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Device: Galaxy S, Nook w/CM7
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But there is always the marketing side that tries to manipulate data to their favor. Quote:
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My comment is more targeted to you comment that PDF will die. I don't think PDF will die. I think ePUB will bite greatly into the PDF market share but PDF will still be a prominent format. Quote:
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PDF strength is it's weakness and this is where reflowable formats like MOBI and ePUB come in. Personally I see PDF losing more market share to these formats. What I see is PDF will mostly dominate the complex layout eBooks like text books and ePUB/MOBI will dominate chapter books. But just think right now screens are expensive so they are small. This makes reflowable PDF extremely important. But say somewhere in the near future you can pickup an eBook reader that is 10" for about $10-$20. Will reflowable be important? =X= |
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#22 | |
Wizard
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Join Date: May 2009
Device: none
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For profile (as opposed to landscape) reading, I think 6 inch by 9 inch is workable for just about any type of book. Not too wide for single column text, but wide enough for two thin columns (like in dictionaries) as well as inset pictures and other typographic complexities. Also, 6x9 is the sort of medium size for books... so books are either a little bigger or a little smaller (unless they're huge photo coffee-table books) and ought to be adjustable to a slightly different paper/screen size without too much pain. |
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#23 |
Wizard
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Device: Amazon Kindle 1
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Yeah, for books I'd probably always want a kindle sized reader as portability is key.
Some type of A4 (or close) touch screen tablet device I'd solely use for Academic PDFs where I don't care at all about the typesetting etc. I just need the text, and more importantly, the tables and figures to display as intended and to have the ability to underline/highlight things and jot notes in the margins just as quickly and easily as I can with printouts. Anything less, and I just continue to stick with printouts. |
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#24 | |
Banned
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Location: South of the Border
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I suppose I'm just trying to get my head around the whole PDF being 'crappy' angle. Why didn't the major publishers push for PDF (sized correctly) when ereaders were first introduced? Why would Sony back ePub if they could just as easliy license and affix DRM to PDF (an already marketible and known format)? Where are Adobe in all this and why haven't they been more agressive in placing PDF as the format for ebooks? There's a lot of questions in my mind, and not nearly enough answers. |
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#25 | |
Wizard
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Ok. Now where's my million dollars? ![]() |
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#26 | |
Apeist
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: The sunny part of California
Device: Generic virtual reality story-experiential device
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![]() My whole point is, that as larger screens become standard, and color enters the market, a format that can handle very complex static layouts, such as magazines, will become dominant. And it will have to handle reflow for simple text on smaller screens. The only reason I am arguing for PDF is, that the earlier a single format is established, the sooner the general public will embrace it, and publishers will be more apt to spend the resources to output to it. But it has to be a format which supports everything, from the very simple, to the very complex. And PDF is the only one I currently know of, that can handle all of it. You can tag it, you can embed video and links into it, you can embed fonts, you can search within it, you can set the layout, or make it reflowable.... It supports both Mac and PC (stuff like DRM-ed .mobi doesn't.) I wish there was something open-source like it, but there isn't. Last edited by Sonist; 05-21-2009 at 04:31 PM. |
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#27 | |
Wizard
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Device: Amazon Kindle 1
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It could be an LCD or OLED screen or something, I don't need e-ink in such a device as I'd rarely ever read anything on it for more than an hour. So I'm intrigued by the rumored Apple tablet device and any subsequent devices from the competition. I'd love some kind of multimedia table that I could carry around in place of laptop. |
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#28 | |
Wizard
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The 2 hours required to create half a dozen custom PDFs may well be 2 hours more than they want to spend on a title that has (by their estimate) already run its course (i.e.: most of their titles). They are too often near-constantly chasing the next Harry Potter to give a damn about how professional looking their backlist titles are on devices owned by a negligible percentage of their target audience. Why would Sony support ePubs instead of pushing PDF files? I am guessing because they realize publisher will not make the proper effort, and their sales (particularly that of their hardware) does more greatly depend on how tolerable the reading experience is. Sony sees that getting publishers to make eBooks great is not possible, so it's trying to facilitate their being made good enough that people like us keep evangelizing the hardware. |
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#29 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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If your Netbook runs Windows, then you too can prefer ePub as it will run actually better then PDF.
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#30 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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When larger screens do hit the market, I think ePub will be even more important. So even if your current format of choice is not ePub, vote for ePub anyway. It will help get possibly better formatted eBooks then is possible with Mobipocket.
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