Microsoft is getting back into ebooks!

[WillAdams]

Elfwreck said:
>It's more than a bit late to insist that "ebook" doesn't include reflow,
>esp. since Gutenberg got started with .txt files. Reflowable text for
>ebooks has been standard, although not universal....

In other words, book files which don't reflow, i.e., .pdfs are ebooks.

And of course, .pdfs can be made to re-flow using internal tagging structures (w/ a few minor glitches).

William

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're a "fan" of PDF, are you not? You are aware that ePub files can contain embedded PDF for display of complex pages?

Really ? How would that work ?

And of course, .pdfs can be made to re-flow using internal tagging structures (w/ a few minor glitches).

But it's not flawless.
pdf was meant for fixed stuff, trying to reflow goes against the very goal of pdf, thus don't really work that well.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by Gary J

I do not yet own a portable reader. I do all my e-reading on a desktop. I read MS REader, Mobi, Palm eReader and Adope (sorry, Adobe) but more than any other format I read HTML. Good old, non-DRM'd reflowable, resizable, HTML. Which portable readers properly render those files?

HTML is great for a browser, but, it lacks certain features that eBook formats need. For example, there is no pagination concept in html at all. You can have lots of documents that link together but it's not pagination. Emulating that feature is trivial, sure, but it needs to be standard. The other big one is that there is no standard package for a single file to contain many html documents that then link together.

So, ePub is an eBook format that is based on the same sort of web technologies as HTML, but provides the missing parts that are important for electronic text packages like books or what have you.

Using the right tool, such as calibre or some of the others referenced on this page, it is trivial to take an html file and convert it to html. It shouldn't be much of a stretch to do the same to a set of html files as some online texts are distributed.

If I was just getting into this portable eReader market I'd look for ePub support then look at the various tools that are dedicated to conversion because I believe that will provide you the best experience in the end.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Really ? How would that work ?

You include both a PDF and an HTML (say) file for the same content, and define the PDF as the "main" file (i.e., as you would do normally with HTML files in an ePUB), with the HTML as a "fallback". I did some test with with that, it should be somewhere in the ePUB forum.

The idea is a reader would show the PDF if it can do that, and the HTML otherwise. The ePUB spec doesn't say the user should be able to choose which version to use, though. Another option is including the PDF as yet another normal file inside the ePUB, and offer the user a link to it in the text, the user could then either continue reading the HTML version or follow the link to the PDF.

Most of the flaws of ePUB people point out are in fact only flaws of ePUB rendering software. Good typography is the responsibility of the reader, not of the book (at least in the current ebook paradigm).

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Most of the flaws of ePUB people point out are in fact only flaws of ePUB rendering software. Good typography is the responsibility of the reader, not of the book (at least in the current ebook paradigm).

At least mostly, and its pointless to blame the reader when the result is the same. I still have to make PDFs. In the future, I may not need to do so for every book, and that day will be nice. I'm not going the whole nine yards and manually kerning everything, but things like competent paragraph composition and hyphenation and basic kerning would make things much more tolerable. I am not thinking about the potential of it one day when someone actually supports it in a reading device. On a computer today, there's no reason for me to bother with epub, and on an ebook device today, it looks like the work of a damaged toddler (especially on my Sony).

I'm all for the future, yay. When it's good, I'll use it. Until then, I won't.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

I am not thinking about the potential of it one day when someone actually supports it in a reading device. On a computer today, there's no reason for me to bother with epub, and on an ebook device today, it looks like the work of a damaged toddler (especially on my Sony).

Well, you can convert ePUB to PDF with Prince XML, and it has hyphenation, ligatures, TeX-like linebreaking...

My point is, ePUB is a format, not a program, you can use ePUB without using ADE.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Well, you can convert ePUB to PDF with Prince XML, and it has hyphenation, ligatures, TeX-like linebreaking...

My point is, ePUB is a format, not a program, you can use ePUB without using ADE.

I haven't seen a hack that puts a superior epub renderer on a PRS-505, but perhaps I'm just not looking hard enough. On my computer, there's no point as I can view PDFs of even A4 size quite comfortably.

I believe I would be more personally tolerant and accepting if I used mobile phones or watch faces to read my books. Since I stick to PCs, books, and my Sony, I've no reason to bother with those others, and I'm not so very desperate to constantly read that I must have [mediocre] reading functionality on all my gadgets.

As far as your script...I don't plan to play with it much, since I can just make PDFs from scratch and be sure of the output. It's a hassle, but compared with the alternative of rummaging through and fixing the CSS files, then running a script and hoping for the best, it's not too bad.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Jellby

You include both a PDF and an HTML (say) file for the same content, and define the PDF as the "main" file (i.e., as you would do normally with HTML files in an ePUB), with the HTML as a "fallback". I did some test with with that, it should be somewhere in the ePUB forum.

The idea is a reader would show the PDF if it can do that, and the HTML otherwise. The ePUB spec doesn't say the user should be able to choose which version to use, though. Another option is including the PDF as yet another normal file inside the ePUB, and offer the user a link to it in the text, the user could then either continue reading the HTML version or follow the link to the PDF.

Most of the flaws of ePUB people point out are in fact only flaws of ePUB rendering software. Good typography is the responsibility of the reader, not of the book (at least in the current ebook paradigm).

Do any of these PDF *and* HTML in ePub solutions work in practice on any eBook reading devices? They didn't the last time you checked, as I recall...

- Ahi

[fugazied]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

What the ...?!?? A new format? Don't they ever learn anything?!

Instead of sticking to and developing MS Reader, if at all ...

It's microsoft, new proprietary formats is what they do. They hate open source they hate standards. The only time they will buy into a standard (like html or css) is when they are backs to the wall.

I don't like some of the policies of MS, but Windows 7 was a comeback for them (it's 75% as good as OS X imo), and this reader is also a step forward for them. They may be years behind the creative cultures at Apple or Google, but they may be staging a comeback!