Ebook reader survey on preferred format(s)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Darqref

It's not that I need or want a copy of the file that has been typeset for my eyes - it must support me *changing* that typeset, depending on how I feel at the moment. For this very specific reason, when I read fiction I want a reflow-able format. If I can't get that, then the value of my ebook reader is lower, when compared to a dead-tree book.

So is paper really not an appropriate format for books for you either, for lack of font-size adjustment? Are you sure you don't just want the choice of regular or large print in your eBooks? Or--given the minimal additional effort required to provide a variety of point sizes--simply a reasonable choice of font sizes?

Changing the typeset/font size causes degradation of typographic quality in an entirely objective sense of the word. Given that most people do not know (nor consciously care) about typography, this is (as my lunatic rantings show) difficult to convince people of... but take any text, at any display size, at any font size... even with any font face... and a properly typeset version of it as opposed to a software reflowed one will always look better to the average person (in fact, probably to most people) in a double-blind test... because it is.

This doesn't mean that you're supposed to like a PDF eBook that you cannot comfortably read because of font-size issues, or because of legitimate complaints like an unnecessarily large margin on an already small display. It means that if a publisher or eBook maker takes the time to create a quality PDF for your device at a font size that is acceptable to you, reading that will be a more pleasant reading experience than something (however seemingly imperceptibly) butchered by software.

If you really truly *need* to arbitrarily go back and forth between different font sizes within a single book... then true enough, perhaps PDF is the wrong format for you. But be aware, PDF is the only format that can offer the same quality reading experience as a paper book generally does these days. That's a fact.

So you can either reflow, or you can get eBooks that aren't visibly poorer quality than the dead-tree version your neighbour has that doesn't require a fragile $300+ computer to read.

---

Alrighty... sleepy ahi is sleepy.

Thanks for the great debate and discussion, all!

- Ahi

[thibaulthalpern]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I'm really interested in how you think it might go with PDF. At the moment it annoys me to no end when I get hold of an A4 sized PDF and try to read it on my Sony.

Do you think there might be a time when PDF's, no matter the size of the original document, will have a true reflow capability across the board? (without the original layout being messed up). Is there a possibility that PDF will become the 'only' format for various types of electronic documents? What do you think the future holds for PDF as say compared to ePub and other formats?

I only ask because I don't know enough about PDF and the possibilities of that format.

From my experience and understanding, PDF reflow already exists. But, it is highly dependent on how it was authored. If it wasn't authored correctly, the PDF won't reflow well for various screen sizes. If it was, then it's fine. Check the PDF entry in Wikipedia.

[thibaulthalpern]

Originally Posted by ahi

When PDF fails for people with eBook readers, it fails not because it isn't the right format (unless, of course, their reading device altogether does not support it) but because proper care was not taken by the publisher or eBook maker to customize it for their display device. Or because the person needs what is essentially a large print edition, and, again, the person making the PDF did not take the additional 2-20 minutes to create it. (Yesterday I created 8 custom PDFs that cover most 2nd generation devices in about 2 hours, with a workflow figured out as I went: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47316 )

My 0.02€.

- Ahi

Nicely said! Nicely said!

[thibaulthalpern]

Originally Posted by ahi

A4 is actually too large for a nicely typeset book. Too wide, mostly. On such a device fully typeset books would either have to be viewed landscape (two conceptual pages, facing one another, on one "physical page") or would be multicolumn (which is still suboptimal because of not wide enough but overly long columns).

Well, depending on what kind of book content you're working with A4 can be adequate or even a larger size preferred. But, in general what you said is well said.

What I find interesting is how easily people associate PDF with A4 or US Letter size when in fact, most books if they are digitally in PDF format are NOT in A4 or US Letter size because...guess what...the actual books themselves are NOT using A4 or US Letter size paper! DUH! They're usually smaller in size.

Even our Wiki on this website makes that erroneous remark over and over again. The remark being that most PDFs are made for A4 or US Letter size. Eh...no, not really. Even academic journals don't typically print on A4 or US Letter size.

And furthermore, our Wiki here has the erroneous remark that PDFs don't reflow properly. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It often doesn't reflow properly not because of the digital format but because whoever authored it didn't work it properly.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ahi

(And, again, I am talking about properly done PDFs--not well nigh or literally unreadable crap that there is so much of in these dark times of eBooks.)

That's one of the key issues you're missing--who's going to create these "properly done" PDFs? Right now, publishers don't even consistently release PDFs without crop marks. They release print-ready PDFs with 300dpi full-color artwork, that would look just fine at 150dpi grayscale, and probably would be fine at 72 dpi. They don't put bookmarks or metadata in the PDFs, an average of 2 minutes or less work for an experienced PDF editor, and you think they're going to start adding reflow-sensitive formatting?

There's been some acknowledgment that yes, PDFs could be a reasonably good ebook format... IF they were done correctly. If Acrobat's full array of options were used. If features like tags were activated. If color & design features were adapted to look good in ebook readers.

But they're not. And there's no sign at all that publishers will start paying attention to these details... the people who most notice them and care, are already convinced that other ebook formats are better. (And they are. Because you can't remove the reflow ability from ePubs or Mobi books; you can't scramble the kerning and initial-letter positioning without deliberate effort.)

And if publishers won't listen to avid ebook readers who say, "give us stuff w/o DRM so that it works for us; we'd be willing to pay for that" or "give us formats that work on our readers" or "give us the option of buying an ebook for a friend," why would they listen when those readers say, "give us PDFs with tags and good fonts for a mobile device and bookmarks and good metadata?"

They're convinced that the ebook fanatics are the lunatic fringe, and they're going to ignore *everything* that comes out of places like Mobileread. They have a marketing department that tells them what the public really wants, and it's never "better metadata and linked TOCs!" Because "the public" doesn't know those things exist... they just know that they tried an ebook demo at a store, and they didn't like it.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

That's one of the key issues you're missing--who's going to create these "properly done" PDFs? Right now, publishers don't even consistently release PDFs without crop marks. They release print-ready PDFs with 300dpi full-color artwork, that would look just fine at 150dpi grayscale, and probably would be fine at 72 dpi. ....

I think the key point you are missing is, that PDF is most likely the easiest format for most publishers to output.

If you think they will not output PDF correctly, when their staff is generally well-trained on how to do it, what makes you assume, that they will output EPUB correctly, with all the code tweaking it may need?

As for publishers releasing "print-ready" PDFs, it just doesn't make any sense. You think they'll kick and scream to embed DRM into the file, but will want to saddle you with a huge PDF, which will tax the seller's servers, and will be great for producing high quality bootleg print-runs in India or China?

But even if they did, Adobe Acrobat can optimize a PDF to a much smaller size with one click, and cheap third-party apps can shrink it further yet.

Me thinks, Ahi is in fact very knowledgeable, and very sensibly makes some very good points.

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I think what you're missing is that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

The experts may make a book that's better on the eyes for mass market, but that doesn't mean someone like Jon doesn't have his own preferences on how his books should look, what font he prefers to read etc. So customization is better for such people--it's not a matter of which is better in some aggregate sense, but just what is better to his eyes.

So I get his point. I just think it's irrelevant in the mainstream. Mainstream readers and e-book formats aren't going to have that kind of legal customization built in as publishers want to make their materials look a certain way. As with any kind of customization/hacking, people like Jon will just have to find a reader and software that allows them to do what they want with their books as it will never be something explicitly built in.

Overall, I feel this way too. I understand the need for individual preferences for changing fonts, margins, line-spacing, etc. I also believe the ability for a format to be reflowable on any device is a great thing such as is the case with epub. Physical books doesn't have this flexibility. The fact that they don't shouldn't mean that ebooks shouldn't have this flexibility if it's indeed possible to do.

Generally, I don't necessarily embrace the notion that a particular typesetting that a publisher provides will satisfy all and I will argue that it won't. However, in the same way that I can view a magazine and it's visual appeal (e.g. Zinio formatted magazines) is the same way I want to view my reading material.

If all one reads are novels, then epub is more than adequate. But if we want to evolve past novels, we need something better than epub and, today, that's pdf. I'm not blindly loyal to pdf but it's the best that we have today. If a new format comes out or a current format evolves into something that rivals the benefits of epub and pdf, I will be the first in line to support it.

[ahi]

[QUOTE=Elfwreck;466497]That's one of the key issues you're missing--who's going to create these "properly done" PDFs?

Originally Posted by Sonist

I think the key point you are missing is, that PDF is most likely the easiest format for most publishers to output.

Increasingly, I am with Sonist. Particularly when he compliments that handsome yongue rogue, Ahi! (A swell fella that one!)

The day (after) a publisher decides to take eBooks seriously, they will get competent members of their staff to generate the necessary PDFs after some cursory research that informs what display sizes and peculiarities they ought to take into account... instead of having whoever they presently punished with the added responsibility of creating eBooks that nobody at the publisher will ever quality check.

Since publishers' primary activity is generate great quality PDFs, they will manage better than most of us will with making ePubs even... as soon as they feel its a market worth caring about.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

Generally, I don't necessarily embrace the notion that a particular typesetting that a publisher provides will satisfy all and I will argue that it won't.

The subjective personal satisfaction of some does not preclude a thing from being objectively and quantifiable poorer than another thing that (sensibly enough) likely leaves more people with that same or greater subjective personal satisfaction.

Good typesetting won't make everyone love a given piece--but do we agree that it (good typesetting) exists, and its presence or absence is (however imprecisely) quantifiable, and even testable, and its impact is primarily on readability or ease/pleasantness of reading (considerations that ought to be chief for a person who does a lot of reading)?

Because to me these all feel pretty fundamental points... and I get the sense with some regularity, that others disbelieve at least some of them.

- Ahi

[astra]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Oh Gawd, that is awful! 52% prefer PDF????? Who are they surveying, people who work at Adobe or something?

I wonder who is actually voting there?
Do they really read ebooks?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by astra

I wonder who is actually voting there?
Do they really read ebooks?

People who want to download and print a book. People who want to have a faithful version of their favourite printed book in electronic form. People who want to preview a book before buying (I'm thinking of textbooks, reference works, roleplaying books, etc., not the common novel).

There is a real "market" for PDF books, even if they are not in general a good format for dedicated ebook readers.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

But it's a useless feature for most folks who just want to buy a book, have it look good and readable without having to waste any time in their busy life to learn how to re-format it themselves.

It might be "a useless feature" with the current generation of ePub reading software. However, when and if Adobe and others implement defaults and overrides in the UI of the ePub reading software (not much different than the capabilities of average web browser these days) things like user-defined font size, font family, margins, indentation, etc. could be set once and used for every book, without any waste of time.

You can't do that with PDF, while ePub reading software has just started to evolve.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by astra

I wonder who is actually voting there?
Do they really read ebooks?

The two versions of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" I found on mobileread.com have had 210 and 501 one views respectively:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...hlight=sun+tzu
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...hlight=sun+tzu

The first document has been available for a year, the second for a year and a half.

In contrast to these 700 or so downloads, my (non-eBook-reader-customized) PDF of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" was downloaded well over 3000 times since February.

I'll leave interpretation of these numbers up to the reader.

- Ahi

[astra]

Well.
Maybe people still read on the PCs/laptops/netbooks whatever.

PDF is unreadable on 6"(8" with 3-4 fonts size changes etc. for comfort) ebook reader, thus do not represent a useable ebook format.

I voted for epub because I hope it has a chance to be a good format in the future but as of now, my quite big ebook library consists mostly of HTML(sometimes LIT/RTF) books that can be converted into any(hopefully) format my current and future reader will support.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Ankh

It might be "a useless feature" with the current generation of ePub reading software. However, when and if Adobe and others implement defaults and overrides in the UI of the ePub reading software (not much different than the capabilities of average web browser these days) things like user-defined font size, font family, margins, indentation, etc. could be set once and used for every book, without any waste of time.

You can't do that with PDF, while ePub reading software has just started to evolve.

Yes, ePub will no doubt be able to turn any handheld device into a fine HTML viewer. But it will never be able to turn them into a device that displays professionally made books, textbooks, and magazines as they were intended to be viewed.

It is a mistake to extrapolate stop-gap measures and practices currently in place to make up for the extreme short-comings of the technology indefinitely into the future.

Do you accept, by the way, that people whose living depends on making good looking and readable books are going to be better at that tasks than random eBook device enthusiasts or software automation? Or does our disagreement start on this very fundamental point?