which format will win?

[BillSmithBooks]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Macs don't come with Notepad or Internet Explorer. Neither do Linux boxes.

All ebook formats need "special software" to read them; a few types are readable by software that comes with most operating systems, but that doesn't mean it's not separate from the OS itself. EPub is no less accessible than mobi or PDF or RTF. (More accessible than mobi; there's no mobi plugin for Firefox.)

Epub, being HTML in a wrapper, is set to become the worldwide dominant ebook format because the nonDRM'd form is easy to edit with software that almost everyone has, and it's (relatively) easy to create new software to read or edit it.

PDF could be a strong contender--but only if ebook publishers start formatting PDFs for different sized screens and make sure to advertise them that way. As long as they're insisting on the PDF looking like the print version, it'll only view properly on large screens (with a lot of extra wasted space), and most people won't be able make the jump to treating it like a real book: something that lets a reader enjoy absorbing the content and ignoring the container.

TXT is a lousy ebook format; it doesn't have enough formatting options to allow that to happen. HTML has the formatting options, but without a wrapper like epub, can't contain pictures or custom fonts or some aspects of CSS unless a whole set of files are transferred at once. Raw, single-file HTML suffers from lack of control: you can't know what the reader's default settings are so you can't format the book to look right on their screen. (Full-width text on a full-size monitor is hard to read. A narrower reading area is good for full screen; problem for smaller readers. EPub reading programs get around that problem in ways that standard HTML readers just don't.) Word-processing files, whether DOC or RTF or WPD, need special software to open, and while there's plenty of free, open-source software, it's all *editing* as well as viewing software; the cat walks on your keyboard and half your book vanishes.

EPub looks like its winning the format wars; the DRM wars are likely to smash around for a while until customers get annoyed enough for mass bootlegging, like they did with music DRM, and publishers have to remove it. (I expect this to take longer than it did with music; people don't read as much as they listen to music. And book publishers, unlike music publishers, have never thought of two weeks as long enough to overturn a top title's popularity; they're used to having more time to think about market trends.)

I largely agree with much of what you wrote above, but just wanted to clarify an early point:

EVERY currently shipping OS (Mac, Linux or Win) comes with a web browser, whether it's IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. They can read HTML ebooks as a single file right out of the box.

MOST OSes ship with a Zip utility built in, so most can read multiple-file ebooks or ones with embedded images right out of the box.

How many PCs (Win, Linux or Mac) will ship with a dedicated ebook reader program? A handful.

How many PCs ship with dedicated ebook reading software that can handle DRMd Epub? ZERO.

Every PC shipped with an OS in the past 15 years has shipped with a browser pre-installed and most have come with zip pre-installed.

Most DRM'd ebook readers can't run on anything older than an XP machine, but there are still millions of them in use. But all of these older PCs--which are more likely to be owned by people of limited income or which are probably backup machines for kids, etc.--CAN read HTML ebooks...as can previously mentioned XBoxes, Wiis, Playstation 3, Win CE devices, the ITablet/IPhone/IPodTouch and the Kindle (which both have built in web browsers), as can smart phones, Blackberries and...well, it'd be quicker to list the devices that can't read HTML.

I am a Linux user. To the best of my knowledge (which is admitted limited ) there is no software that allows me to read DRMd ebooks without WINE. Granted, I know that Linux is a tiny percentage of the market and publishers need not accommodate everyone, but I think it backs up my point, especially as Linux derivates will become more and more common (which it will as cheap netbooks and smartbooks proliferate).

We are a couple of years away from $100 netbooks (actually, they're already here, but a year, maybe two from mainstream $100 netbooks). At most 3-4 years from $50 netbooks you buy at RiteAid right next to the cheap digital cameras. Almost all of them will run Chrome, Android, Linux or some other Linux variant...none of which are supported by a DRMd ebook reader and so none of which will be accessible to the B&N, Amazon or SONY stores.

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I believe this is a very significant issue affecting accessibility for these ebooks and their widespread acceptance...and issues that will play a huge issue in the future of ebook publishing.

[frabjous]

Bill, again, please separate the format from the DRM. DRM sucks. We all know that. But none of that will affect the viability of the ePub format generally.

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Some people have *strange* tastes. I'm more interested in making sure the story is readable and enjoyable-when the typography becomes more important than the story... Well, let's just say that PDF has it's place but as a standard for electronic novels is *not* 'it'.

What do you mean? PDFs are in general much more readable than ePubs are. It's important to have good typography mainly because bad typgraphy detracts from readability -- I find it very distracting trying to read something in ADE, for example, which makes even well made ePubs look atrocious.

PDF only has a bad reputation in the ebook crowd because most PDFs currently in existence were made for A4 or letter sized paper, which doesn't fit on their ebook reader. Of course, a file not made with ereading in mind isn't going to good for ereading. But that's not a problem with the format. PDFs actually made to be ebooks, formatted for device screens, are awesome.

No, they're not as portable, which is why I hope in the future ePub renderers get better typography.

[K-Thom]

PDFs are in general much more readable than ePubs are. It's important to have good typography mainly because bad typgraphy detracts from readability

No they're not. THE most important to qualify as a "good" eBook format is readability. Not typography! On any screen, in any given resolution, with any given font. And PDF sure does not qualify.

If you're into typography buy them printed books.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by frabjous

Bill, again, please separate the format from the DRM. DRM sucks. We all know that. But none of that will affect the viability of the ePub format generally.



What do you mean? PDFs are in general much more readable than ePubs are. It's important to have good typography mainly because bad typgraphy detracts from readability -- I find it very distracting trying to read something in ADE, for example, which makes even well made ePubs look atrocious.

PDF only has a bad reputation in the ebook crowd because most PDFs currently in existence were made for A4 or letter sized paper, which doesn't fit on their ebook reader. Of course, a file not made with ereading in mind isn't going to good for ereading. But that's not a problem with the format. PDFs actually made to be ebooks, formatted for device screens, are awesome.

No, they're not as portable, which is why I hope in the future ePub renderers get better typography.

Design a PDF-formatted ebook that I can download and read on a 240x240 pixel mono-LCD display, a 640x480 3.5" color-LCD display, a 600x800 6" grayscale e-ink display and a 21" flat-panel monitor at 1650X1050 pixels - AND have it be an enjoyable experience (all as a single file - no cheating by forcing me to download multiple files, nor by choosing a single font size that displays HUGE on the 21" and microscopic on the 240x240 display) and I'll agree with you. Can't be done.

Derek

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

No they're not. THE most important to qualify as a "good" eBook format is readability.

Good typography and readability are the same thing. The key to good typography is to make the eyes flow, and eliminate distracting inconsistent whitespaces, and so on.

Compare this (mobi on a Kindle):



To this (ePub in ADE):



To this (PDF):



If you're telling me that you prefer one of the former two, and think it is more "readable", I can only think you're being disingenuous.

And the source used to create that PDF could be used to produce multiple PDFs of various sizes formatted for various devices. In fact, I made that PDF, and made six different versions, for different sized paper/devices.

What I want is an ePub rendered that can make shot #2 look like shot #3 on the fly, which is certainly possible.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by frabjous

I hope in the future ePub renderers get better typography.

It's XHTML. There's no difference between what you can do with any web page and ePub. Blame publishers lazyness, not "ePub". (Or blame how hard it is to do proper layouts in XHTML, which is entirely down to the W3C...)

Frabjous, looks like you need to embed the appropriate font. Or use MathML, which some ePub readers already support, and looks to be standardised fairly soon.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

No they're not. THE most important to qualify as a "good" eBook format is readability. Not typography! On any screen, in any given resolution, with any given font. And PDF sure does not qualify.

If you're into typography buy them printed books.

Agreed. I avoid pdfs like the plague.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

It's XHTML. There's no difference between what you can do with any web page and ePub. Blame publishers lazyness, not "ePub". (Or blame how hard it is to do proper layouts in XHTML, which is entirely down to the W3C...)

Frabjous, looks like you need to embed the appropriate font. Or use MathML, which some ePub readers already support, and looks to be standardised fairly soon.

Dawn, who the heck are you talking to? Please read my posts.

Originally Posted by frabjous

As of now, PDF is still my preferred format, since it's the only way to get proper typography in ebooks, like kerning and ligatures and end-of-line hyphenation, or to properly typeset mathematics or other formal symbolisms in a robust way. But in principle, I think once ePub supports MathML, SVG images, and gets typographically richer rendering software, it'll eventually match or surpass PDF in my estimation.

Originally Posted by frabjous

... don't confuse the file format with the engine that renders it. There's nothing about the HTML format that prohibits getting output as nice as one gets from running latex on its mark-up language. ... The fact that we don't get [good typography] from the ePub software on our readers isn't a fault of the ePub format, it's the fault of the software used to render it ...

Originally Posted by frabjous

What I want is an ePub rendered that can make shot #2 look like shot #3 on the fly, which is certainly possible.

The point I was making was about typography, not about the ePub format. Everything I've said so far has been pro-ePub. I just mentioned that currently my favorite format is PDF, but that once ePub gets better support for MathML and typographically superior rendering it may surpass PDF in my estimation.

I just get tired of hearing people who don't know what they're talking about bash PDF, when it's unquestionably true that right now PDF offers things ePub doesn't. I hope in the future that changes.

But I should say that just embedding fonts won't do the trick, since you still won't get the kinds of features I was talking about. And comparing the possibilities to websites is hardly relevant. Most websites have worse typography than ADE. (Indeed I worry it's lowering people's standards.)

But which ePub renderers already support MathML, out of curiosity? I don't know of any offhand.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Agreed. I avoid pdfs like the plague.

Given the increased portability of ePub, I can see why you'd want to acquire an ePub originally, but that's no reason to avoid PDF. You do realize that you can make a PDF with any font, any sized font, any justification, anything else? Indeed, I think it would be great if booksellers sold ePubs, and that the software on your home computer would take that ePub and convert it to a nice PDF using your customized settings before loading it onto your reader. In fact, only DRM prevents that now, in light of, e.g. jellby's wonderful epub2pdf script.

[DawnFalcon]

I was making the point that you're basically looking a web page. You can do all sorts of pretty things which are going to help some books lay things out properly. Of course, that does require you move away from print layouts.

And Bookworm supports MathML, I believe. Along with things like flash embedding for videos and so on.

Consider this, actually, for future potential: <canvas> tags in eBooks. It'd be possible to, for instance, embed math problems in the book text (And show text based on the current state of the problem - explaining common errors, for example, as well as say "click here for hint" areas, etc. etc.).

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

They've yet to really acknowledge that their books are being read on computers, much less that screen sizes are different from print book sizes.

Yes, I'm aware, that's why I said "not that it's going to happen." In a perfect world...

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

No they're not. THE most important to qualify as a "good" eBook format is readability. Not typography!

Wow, that's just a pretty darn silly thing to say. You're obviously unaware of what typography is for. It's not to create pretty-looking art. You must be thinking about hand-drawn parchment pages from a monastery with gold-painted drawings in the margins. Good typography is what makes text readable, silly. Good typography is completely unnoticeable - that's the whole point to it. If it weren't important at all, then why aren't you reading your books on your reader in a monospaced typewriter font? You may not be aware of the fact, but you are reading text that has been typeset even when you're just reading this post: you're just not reading text that has been typeset well. But even done as poorly as a web browser renders it, it's still better than reading monospaced 12 pt. Courier in ALL CAPS, right? And if you're going to read a book, which is obviously something in which text is the whole point, you might as well do the typesetting as well as possible, which is not something most of today's portable standards handle with panache. Using PDF-generated output from a well-designed typesetting engine is the only way currently to get typeset text that approaches professional quality. You're confusing reading a PDF that was generated for a 8.5x11 page on your tiny ereader (and of course that's not going to look good) with a PDF that was generated for your particular screen size from InDesign or TeX: and there the difference between even a well-crafted ePub and the PDF is going to be stark and clear. It's like going from an old TV to HD on a 52" flat panel in one step. Obviously PDF doesn't work for portability, and hopefully the HTML rendering engines in readers will eventually catch up to what InDesign and TeX can produce in a PDF. Until then, however, you won't catch me putting some crappy ePub on my reader: I'd rather spend a couple hours pouring the text into a InDesign template and outputting a very nice book, thank you very much. If you're happy reading your ePub or Mobi crap, good on ya.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

DRM IS very significant to the disucssion since it prevents users from backing up their booksbe.

I'm sorry - how does DRM "prevent you from backing up your books"? An eBook is just a file; it can be backed up, regardless of what it contains.

[AlexBell]

For what it is worth I also think that ePub is the format for the future. But (at least on my ECO Reader) there are still some things that I'd like to do with ePub books but can't and yet can do with mobipocket books - change font and change between justified and right aligned text for example.

Perhaps other ePub readers can do them, but I'd still very much like to see these capabilities on my ECO Reader for ePub books.

Regards, Alex

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

For what it is worth I also think that ePub is the format for the future. But (at least on my ECO Reader) there are still some things that I'd like to do with ePub books but can't and yet can do with mobipocket books - change font and change between justified and right aligned text for example.

That's a feature of your reader, not of the format. The CyBook Opus, for example, allows you to switch between left and full justification, and to choose your font for an ePub file (provided that the file doesn't "hard code" these items). Don't confuse what the format can do with the limitations of a particular reading application!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sorry - how does DRM "prevent you from backing up your books"? An eBook is just a file; it can be backed up, regardless of what it contains.

A backup is no good if it can't be read. With DRM, if the device the ebook is authorised for breaks, and the authorisation server is no more, no amount of backups will do you any good.

Two instances recently spring to mind:

• Overdrive dropping Fictionwise
• Adobe dropping support of older DRM servers