PDF is not an eBook format

[ahi]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Heh. I've had articles on websites pass 1 million uniques. Quite a few of them.

Simply because you have a single, not-very-popular book out there dosn't translate in any way to your ability to give ebook readers the layouts they're looking for.

20,000+ downloads in six months. Not merely that many visits, unique or otherwise.

And it seems you are oblivious to the fact that people with eBook reading devices are a minority of eBook readers. The majority read PDF eBooks on their computers.

But I don't see how any of this nonsense is relevant to this thread. Surely you can belittle me in some way that is more on topic than suggestions that I am an incompetent failure as a purveyor of eBooks. (Well, just one, as noted.)

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ahi

We are in close enough agreement that I do not feel the need to argue. Though I do not agree with your assumption that eBooks are somehow oh so different from paperbooks.

Not oh-so-different, just somewhat different... and mainstream publishers are ignoring those differences entirely. They are trying to produce for screen as if it were exactly like paper.

Since there's no obvious way to change that, the next step is to allow end users to customize their reading for their own needs--and ePub is much better for that. The end user shouldn't need to, but the publishers aren't doing it for them. And while that means ignoring many of the nuances of typography, the publishers are doing that now anyway. They work to make good typographical design for print, but not for screens.

I strongly disagree that ebook readers will eventually standardize at 8-10" screens. That's too big for a pocket or small purse, which is where many people carry their reading, whether that's an electronic or an actual book. Ebook readers need to draw from the casual paperback reading crowd to be successful, and those people aren't going to go for a large, fragile device.

Don't forget the BlackBerry/iPhone readers. There are lots of them, and their numbers are growing. The ebook industry needs to cater to them. (Or, well, they can just ignore those millions of potential customers. But someone is going to provide them with paid content. It can be ebook makers, or games app designers.)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Not oh-so-different, just somewhat different... and mainstream publishers are ignoring those differences entirely. They are trying to produce for screen as if it were exactly like paper.

Since there's no obvious way to change that, the next step is to allow end users to customize their reading for their own needs--and ePub is much better for that. The end user shouldn't need to, but the publishers aren't doing it for them. And while that means ignoring many of the nuances of typography, the publishers are doing that now anyway. They work to make good typographical design for print, but not for screens.

I strongly disagree that ebook readers will eventually standardize at 8-10" screens. That's too big for a pocket or small purse, which is where many people carry their reading, whether that's an electronic or an actual book. Ebook readers need to draw from the casual paperback reading crowd to be successful, and those people aren't going to go for a large, fragile device.

Don't forget the BlackBerry/iPhone readers. There are lots of them, and their numbers are growing. The ebook industry needs to cater to them. (Or, well, they can just ignore those millions of potential customers. But someone is going to provide them with paid content. It can be ebook makers, or games app designers.)

8-10" screens (assuming the device is [almost] all screen) need be no bigger than standard books. Standard books do not fit into pockets... unless it is a large coat pocket we are talking about, and people carry books all the same.

The fragility should also be a temporary issue that ceases with time.

And lastly, I see the current situation as wholly due to publishers' disinterest in the eBook market. It would be a travesty if the future of eBooks was set in stone by stop-gap measures required to compensate for publishers' neglect of their customers.

Personally though I don't see that as any more likely than blackberries and other variable size devices becoming people's primary way of reading, or cellphones becoming the average person's primary way of playing music.

Just because it's technologically feasible doesn't mean it's a good idea, or that there is even a realistic demand for it.

And demand as secondary entertainment device is not the same as demand as a primary entertainment device. People will continue to read stuff on blackberries and listen to music on their cellphones as long as the respective technologies endure... on the subway, on the bus, and in places where they have insufficient ability to opt for what they really want: their larger eBook device, their home stereo system, their honking paper book encylopedia of funny walks, et cetera.

People that can afford it, will continue to play music on home stereo systems, and books on paper or via dedicated devices specially made for that task.

Adobe's already existent PDF reflow will accommodate the people who think (some of the time) that a 2"-3" screen is an adequate reading area. But for standardized screen-sizes that are not optional, if eBook readers are ever to read books that aren't just gently flowing paragraphs, eBooks will need to have fixed layouts defined for specific screen-sizes with specific font-sizes (probably using fonts that indie DRM-free ePub makers are not legally allowed to include anyways).

Mediocre typography may not equal bad typography for novels; but it cannot but do so for anything with greater typographic or layout complexity.

Look at 48 Laws of Power. You will never see an ePub that accurately reflects the full glory of this book... not one that works on variable size screens at any rate. You also couldn't do a PDF for a small screen. But for an 8" - 10" standard size screen, you could remake this book without having to dumb it right down to nothing but straight-and-plain paragraphs.

Of course... with regards to predictions about the future... it's all up in the air until it no longer is!

- Ahi

[ahi]

Actually, now that I check the Amazon preview shows nothing really...

48 Laws of Power is typographically heavy like few other books.

Marginal notes up the wazoo, shaped paragraphs, et cetera.

- Ahi

[EowynCarter]

Good point. e-pub and footnote and stuff like this would be a problem.

The point the not about typography really. Everyone would agree that properly formated book is better.
The point is, ePub, when properly used, will do the job in most cases. The rest of it is not worth the inconveignance pdf brings.

A book that has been professionally prepared, feels nice to read. A book that hasn't, doesn't..

Yeap. No mater ePub, mobi, pdf, what really makes the quality is the publisher's works.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

The point is, ePub, when properly used, will do the job in most cases. The rest of it is not worth the inconveignance pdf brings.

Those two sentences are where we disagree... and I am of the thinking that without having professional knowledge of bookmaking, it is harder to appreciate why you are (I believe) incorrect.

I will yield to agree though that for plainly formatted (i.e.: all but unformatted) novels, even ePub and any other reflow formats can be good enough.

- Ahi

[EowynCarter]

I will yield to agree though that for plainly formatted (i.e.: all but unformatted) novels, even ePub and any other reflow formats can be good enough.

Exatly, And that the vast majority of books.
And why, in france at least, the only publishers stiking to pdf are the one doing technical e-books. Much to my dismay, because i would like to read these. But, sad fact is, neither pdf nor ePub would render these ok on a 5". Or maybe ePub in landscape mode would do. Or a 5" landscape formated pdf (but oh the mess !)
That's also true for 48 Laws of Power, landscape mode is probably the best way to render it on a small screen.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

And that the vast majority of books.

Yes, but many of the worlds most important books are not included in this category... and most of the worst-selling and insignificant books in the world are. Quantity is not a sufficient argument in this case... unless novels are to cease to be considered books... as such.

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

And why, in france at least, the only publishers stiking to pdf are the one doing technical e-books. Much to my dismay, because i would like to read these.

If I were a betting man--and alas, I am not--I would bet that the first ePub of a technical book you purchase would also be your last.

Such books might not even be feasible to make as PDFs for 6" screen size... and they are certainly not realistic to make in HTML in a way to render well on screens of such size.

Even here on MobileRead, any PG books that have the simplest of tables seem to be ePub-ized/Mobi-ized with those tables cleverly gotten around (or omitted?)... or so it seemed to me in the past. I do not recall the specific titles I noticed this with though.

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ahi

Actually, now that I check the Amazon preview shows nothing really...
48 Laws of Power is typographically heavy like few other books.
Marginal notes up the wazoo, shaped paragraphs, et cetera.

S'okay; I don't need to see that one to know that some books have typography that isn't going to translate to reflowable formats. House of Leaves is never going to be an ebook (worth reading), either. There are things you can do on the printed page that just don't translate to screen. (The children's book industry is never going to transfer to pixels, not even if we start teaching in Kindergarten with an e-ink tablet per child.)

OTOH, screen tech can let us do things that the printed page doesn't allow. The most obvious is multimedia, followed by animated images; those have been co-opted by advertisers so strongly that people flinch from them without thinking how they could enhance books. But there are page-linking possibilities that are a hassle on paper--the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series would make excellent ebooks.

References that link to other books in your library are (theoretically) possible: download a "Critical Analysis of Shakespeare's Rhymes" book, and attached is a free Gutenberg copy of the sonnets and several plays, and the reader can bounce between them. (A print book could easily include all 150 sonnets, but not six or seven plays, without drastically increasing the price.)

Keyword bookmarking is possible, so you could click to show a list of all passages you've tagged as "political theory." Dictionary support and annotations are already common features. "Puzzle" books are possible, where clues in the text lead to clicking on certain words in certain orders, to get more clues, to eventually lead to a hidden prize.

There's so much that could be done with ebooks that it seems odd to focus on getting them to look more like printed books. (Especially considering the drop in typgraphic quality that's happened to print since word processors became common.)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

S'okay; I don't need to see that one to know that some books have typography that isn't going to translate to reflowable formats. House of Leaves is never going to be an ebook (worth reading), either. There are things you can do on the printed page that just don't translate to screen. (The children's book industry is never going to transfer to pixels, not even if we start teaching in Kindergarten with an e-ink tablet per child.)

OTOH, screen tech can let us do things that the printed page doesn't allow. The most obvious is multimedia, followed by animated images; those have been co-opted by advertisers so strongly that people flinch from them without thinking how they could enhance books. But there are page-linking possibilities that are a hassle on paper--the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series would make excellent ebooks.

References that link to other books in your library are (theoretically) possible: download a "Critical Analysis of Shakespeare's Rhymes" book, and attached is a free Gutenberg copy of the sonnets and several plays, and the reader can bounce between them. (A print book could easily include all 150 sonnets, but not six or seven plays, without drastically increasing the price.)

Keyword bookmarking is possible, so you could click to show a list of all passages you've tagged as "political theory." Dictionary support and annotations are already common features. "Puzzle" books are possible, where clues in the text lead to clicking on certain words in certain orders, to get more clues, to eventually lead to a hidden prize.

There's so much that could be done with ebooks that it seems odd to focus on getting them to look more like printed books. (Especially considering the drop in typgraphic quality that's happened to print since word processors became common.)

Ok... and again, I agree with a lot of things you say.

But I emphatically do not believe that the new possibilities either need to come at the detriment of what can already be done with paper books, or that those new possibilities are worth the quality-drop of such a discarding.

If professional typography is the price of moving pictures in books (or "books") then I will be returning to paper books... or, rather, more likely I will continue to typeset my own books and enjoy a reading experience qualitatively comparable to paper books.

But my patience is limited, and the day will come when I decide to never again pay a single cent for an eBook that is more poorly formatted than the paper book equivalent.

- Ahi

[EowynCarter]

But there are page-linking possibilities that are a hassle on paper--the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series would make excellent ebooks.

Cool idea

Ahi, read my edit

[ahi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Cool idea

Ahi, read my edit

Read it. There can exist sane discourse in this thread... who knew?!

On that cool idea... I have a Hungarian CYO style book that I personally typeset and linked in a 6" sized PDF. It's beautiful, it's functional. It is by no means 100% the same as the paper version... but it gives the same visual "atmosphere" and is as delightful to read as the original paper edition was back when I was a child.

Any format with no strict sense of "pages" could not do an equally sharp-looking version. Hell... LaTeX couldn't do it either... not without me going in to manually fix things up after I saw what was wrong with the originally auto-generated PDF.

Which is ever my point about why reflow cannot but be substandard. When the layout or the font-size changes, typographic and layout errors are born and it takes a human being to fix them--neither software nor hardware will ever be able to do so authoritatively, until it is fully on par with a human mind... which I do not expect even in my grandchildrens' lifetime.

Again, I agree that this doesn't always makes a huge difference with plain fiction... but books are, as I emphasized earlier, neither just nor even primarily fiction (even if the majority of books are fiction).

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ahi

Ok... and again, I agree with a lot of things you say.

But I emphatically do not believe that the new possibilities either need to come at the detriment of what can already be done with paper books, or that those new possibilities are worth the quality-drop of such a discarding.

We're already lacking some of the abilities of paper; the low-res screens take care of that. Fonts that are gorgeous on a printed page can look spotty and unstable on a 166 dpi screen. Kerning, leading, and justification are all affected by the dpi count and screen size. Coffee-table sized books, and many textbooks, are too big to read full-size on most computer screens unless blown up to pixelated views. (Can't show a full page on most laptops; the screen's just not tall enough.)

Other screen limitations affect images--cover art with iridescent or metallic sections doesn't translate to screens; two-inch-tall author photos on hardcover jackets look lose their fine detail when set at screen resolutions. And the color issues are huge, and not limited to images; some books use color text. (I know color is just e-ink related, but the tradeoff of color for battery life is a serious issue.)

Already, typographical science at its best can't give us ebooks that match pbooks. The best typographical settings for ebooks--even PDF--haven't yet been developed.

It's possible the eventual answer will be "here's your ePub file; throw it into your PDF converter with your choice of settings to get the PDF that best works for your screen." Because there certainly isn't going to be a single layout that works well on desktops, laptops, netbooks, portable readers, and cellphones--and people are going to want ebooks that move smoothly between all of those devices. They're certainly not going to want to have to decide before they buy which one they'll be reading with.

[ahi]

The vast majority of books can be adequately typeset for probably a screen as small as 8" - 10". Coffee-table books, atlases, they are novelty books that--with zoom--can be transferred to smaller screens but will likely always have a place in print form due to their nature.

As a result, I don't think not being able to do coffee-table sized books for eBook readers is quite analogous to not being able to do most any book that is typesetting heavy for eBook readers.

And, like I said many times before, no automated solution can match the quality of human attention. To me it seems silly to suggest that software will process ePubs into PDFs sized for your specific device... if it has a screen large enough to be worth using PDFs, there will be enough devices with the same size screen for the publisher to bother typesetting it properly for that size.

To me any suggestion to the contrary makes me wonder whether the arguer is oblivious of the existence of large print books, or, for that matter, the fact that hardcovers and paperbacks are often different sizes If it can be done for paper books... why is it so inconceivable that it will be done for eBooks in the future?

And tagged PDFs already reflow well enough, I understand... so there's your solution to people reading on devices that aren't worth reading on. All without ePub... to the horror of everyone.

- Ahi

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by ahi

Those two sentences are where we disagree... and I am of the thinking that without having professional knowledge of bookmaking, it is harder to appreciate why you are (I believe) incorrect.

Professional knowledge of print book making. This is like claiming that because you know how to produce for TV, people making commercial podcasts should be hiring the same amount of staff as TV studio. They are not the same thing, although they can cover the same content.

Tagged PDF's are bulky and CPU intensive and still miss basic options avaliable for other ebook formats. On top of the allready far higher page rendering cost of the PDF format...do explain how you're going to fix that while you're about it.



Elfwreck - Actually, I was actually thinking about CYOA books last night. There's some very interesting possiblities there.

But the real advantage afaik is non-static formatting. Think about a dynamic website, it has sections of text you can click to reveal, it has pop-up text boxes and so on. All this is perfectly possible, and with a wifi link it's even possible to change these things dynamically - there are paper books which link to ARG's, and you could have an interative ebook linking to an ARG.