Do you consider PDF to be a legitimate "e-book" format? Why or why not?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

But forget about poems and stanzas. Say you're using your reader on a train and you enter a dimly lit tunnel, this makes the words on the screen harder to read so you want to increase the font size. PDF no can do, a semantic format, easy.

Sure, you can... if it is tagged. I do it on my PDA all the time, no big.

I don't see why the insistence that PDF is so limited. You can set up a PDF to be searchable. You can index a PDF. You can bookmark a PDF. You can tag a PDF, so it becomes reflowable. Why does the "end user" need more than that out of their e-book?

If you have a device that can't handle those features, well, that's the fault of the device/software, not of PDFs. Get a device that will properly run Acrobat, and you'll be good to go.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

I think it's dumb to argue that PDF is not a "legitimate" format just because you don't like it.

That's not quite the question we're exploring, SpiderMatt. We're more looking at whether PDF's feature set make it a viable format for e-books. Naturally this is inherently a matter of opinion and tastes, so even not liking it enters in to the mix.

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Is PDF a legitimate ebook format? What a silly question. Is PDF electronic? Yes. Do PDF docs contain books? Yes. So is it a legitimate ebook format? Absolutely.

I mean no disrespect, but I find that summation a bit ... over-simple.

For example, that logic equally 'demonstrates' that JPG is a legitimate e-book format. I can pull up an e-book in whatever, copy/paste it into a JPG file via screen captures, and I've got an e-book in a JPG file, or a series of them. But I decline to consider JPG to be a legitimate e-book format.

Just as I don't think that the simple fact that clothing will go inside a Pringles can means that Pringles cans are suitcases. (50 karma points to the first one who can guess that reference!)

[akiburis]

Well, I've had the experience of reading on the subway when the lights in my car went off. I don't think being able to increase the font size would do any more good than muttering a curse against the MTA, which is all one actually does in those circumstances.

I don't play cut-and-paste games with Web-published poetry. They're fine, I suppose, for those who like them---but is it really outrageous that anyone should choose to publish in a form that you can't play cool games with?

My idea of "the big picture" allows for multiple points of view. Including the point of view that distinguishes between the means of production and the product. The end product isn't a dead end to me just because it doesn't embody every possibility of manipulation within itself. I know that PDFs are convertible or reformattable only to a very limited extent. I don't have to do that with the PDFs I make for my own use. I just make changes in the .tex file and recompile it, or in the .rtf file and reconvert it---it's very easily and efficiently done.

As for the producer or buyer of commercial ebooks---perhaps I should say the potential producer or buyer, since there are so few actual ones---I think the same distinction would make perfect sense to most them.

I'm not fixated on PDF or dead set against other formats. I've experimented recently with
converting one of my .tex files to HTML and converting to .lrf, mobi, and .epub formats. The results have been pretty good---pretty much as good, anyway, as most of the .lrf, mobi, and .epub docs I've seen. And, for my taste and purposes, not good enough to make me think of giving up PDF.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Sure, you can... if it is tagged. I do it on my PDA all the time, no big.

I don't see why the insistence that PDF is so limited. You can set up a PDF to be searchable. You can index a PDF. You can bookmark a PDF. You can tag a PDF, so it becomes reflowable. Why does the "end user" need more than that out of their e-book?

If you have a device that can't handle those features, well, that's the fault of the device/software, not of PDFs. Get a device that will properly run Acrobat, and you'll be good to go.

None of the current eBook Readers support reflow using tagged PDF files so PDF is problematic for them. As I said earlier this is really a software problem, not a format problem. However, some PDF's cannot be reflowed since there really consist of sets of images and it is sometimes hard for the user to know which kind they have.

Dale

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

None of the current eBook Readers support reflow using tagged PDF files so PDF is problematic for them. As I said earlier this is really a software problem, not a format problem. However, some PDF's cannot be reflowed since there really consist of sets of images and it is sometimes hard for the user to know which kind they have.

That is the big problem. You need another extension for these kind of files that are suitable for a reader. So they are not pdf files anymore in that case. They are a subset of all possible pdf files.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Sure, you can... if it is tagged. I do it on my PDA all the time, no big.

If a PDF is tagged (i.e. it is reflowable) that means it's basically two documents. A "rendered" version that has all the typographical niceties of PDF and a tagged version that supports reflow and has a subset of the features of HTML. The tagged or reflowable version will not support the nice features of rendered or untagged PDF. In fact, it will not even support the features of HTML+CSS. So with a tagged PDF what you get is a file that is inferior in terms of "rendered layout" to an untagged PDF and that is inferior to HTML+CSS as a reflowable format. So why bother with tagged PDFs?

[kovidgoyal]

Let me try to generalize this debate a little. There are two "paradigms" in ebook formats. Rendered and reflowable. Examples of rendered formats are PDF, PS, DJVU, DVI, TXT, any collection of image files like CBR/CBZ. Examples of reflowable formats include (HTML+CSS, LRF, FB2, RTF, any XML based ebook format). Within reflowable formats there is the concept of semantic information. Some formats support more semantic information, some less.
Within reflowable formats, a format that supports fmore semantic information is superior to one that does not, so for example this makes HTML+CSS > LRF. To get an idea of what semantic information is, read my previous posts.

Now for me, this thread is fundamentally about the suitability of rendered ebook formats as a general purpose ebook format. PDF being the prime example of a rendered ebook format.

My position is basically that, for general ebooks, one can achieve enough typographical control using reflowable formats that the advantages of having semantic information make them superior to rendered formats.

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I mean no disrespect, but I find that summation a bit over-simple.

For example, that logic equally 'demonstrates' that JPG is a legitimate e-book format. I can pull up an e-book in whatever, copy/paste it into a JPG file via screen captures, and I've got an e-book in a JPG file, or a series of them. But I decline to consider JPG to be a legitimate e-book format.

It was meant to be simple. That's the simple definition of an ebook. My point was that the question was poorly phrased. PDF is certainly a "valid" and "legitimate" ebook format because it is used as such. There are no standards that decide what formats are "valid." This is not the debate on this thread, as kovidgoyal has just pointed out. It is, however, the question at the top of it. The question of PDF's legitimacy is a much less subjective question than one on "the suitability of rendered ebook formats as a general purpose ebook format," which is the primary debate of this thread. I mostly just wanted people to look at the word choice in the topic question. Just because a person thinks PDF shouldn't be used as a primary ebook format, doesn't mean it isn't "legitimate."

As for jpg, it contains no text, only the picture of it. In that case I question whether it really can be called an ebook. Though I suppose if a series of jpg's are wrapped up into a PDF file, it is called such as it now actually resembles a book. And then it could be read on the Hanlin V9 when it comes out. I generally regard page images as useless, though. And generally... they are. So without any format to them, they can't be called ebooks at all. Electronic pages, maybe... haha.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

My point was that the question was poorly phrased.

Fair enough, but if you mean the question attached to the actual poll, that's pretty harshly limited in length, I tried to expand on it in the first post, and I think I got a bit closer, though nothing approaching Kovid's excellent phrasing.

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

The question of PDF's legitimacy is a much less subjective question than one on "the suitability of rendered ebook formats as a general purpose ebook format," which is the primary debate of this thread.

The original question was whether individual people consider PDF to be a legitimate e-book format. It's hard to get more subjective than people's opinions.

The discussion has taken rather a few twists and turns since then, however, and I'm perfectly happy with that, as it was kinda what I had in mind: to see where it would go.

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

I mostly just wanted people to look at the word choice in the topic question. Just because a person thinks PDF shouldn't be used as a primary ebook format, doesn't mean it isn't "legitimate."

And I guess my counter point is that just because something can be made to serve a particular function doesn't establish its legitimacy to serve that purpose.

If the definition of whether something is legitimately an e-book format is based solely upon whether it can be used that way ... then a hammer is a legitimate screw-driver (more people have done this than will likely admit to it ), and MacGyver was a legitimate nuclear engineer because he could fix a fission reactor with a chewing gum wrapper and a length of surgical tubing.

Legitimacy is more than just utility. I chose the word legitimate deliberately because it means what it means, as opposed to one like viable or usable.

The fact that PDF can be made to work as an e-book isn't the question, and was never disputed.

But I don't see that the fact that it can be used that way is really an answer to the question of whether it should be considered well suited for that purpose.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

My position is basically that, for general ebooks, one can achieve enough typographical control using reflowable formats that the advantages of having semantic information make them superior to rendered formats.

Okay, I'm good with that... reflowable formats are superior to rendered formats. But that doesn't negate rendered formats as "legitimate." By that reckoning, LRF is not legitimate because it is not reflowable. I don't buy that logic.

Reflowable or not (and sometimes it is), PDF is still a useful, functional format for delivering text and graphics content, and in terms of graphics it is in many ways superior to many reflowable e-book formats. Since it fits a niche that other formats do not fit as well, that makes it a legitimate format, at least for text and graphics applications.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

By that reckoning, LRF is not legitimate because it is not reflowable.

It's not?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by NatCh

It's not?

Sorry... brainfart. I was referring to Kovid's statement that LRF does not carry as much semantic information as HTML+CSS... I did not mean to say that it was not reflowable.

[akiburis]

And I guess my counter point is that just because something can be made to serve a particular function doesn't establish its legitimacy to serve that purpose.

If the definition of whether something is legitimately an e-book format is based solely upon whether it can be used that way ... then a hammer is a legitimate screw-driver (more people have done this than will likely admit to it ), and MacGyver was a legitimate nuclear engineer because he could fix a fission reactor with a chewing gum wrapper and a length of surgical tubing.

My counter point would be that PDF never had to be forced into service as an ebook format. It's an electronic document format, and an ebook is an electronic document.

The debate seems to be about the purpose of an ebook. Is PDF not a valid format because there are all sorts of things you can't do with it? There are all sorts of things you can't do, or do well, with anything that has a primary purpose. In my view, the comparison with using a hammer as a screwdriver misses that point. Using PDF for an ebook, an digital document, is using it precisely for what it's meant for and good for---to print a document---whether it's printing to paper or to screen---in the best, most readable format. I'm less satisfied with general-purpose formats that don't do that primary thing as well. What is a general-purpose ebook format, after all? Something like a hammer that you can also drive nails [edit---I mean, drive screws] with and who knows what else?

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by akiburis

My counter point would be that PDF never had to be forced into service as an ebook format. It's an electronic document format, and an ebook is an electronic document.

Heh, I wasn't trying to provide an answer to that question with that post, only trying to explain why I don't see the mere usability of PDF for the purpose as an answer to that question.

The hammer thing was intended to illustrate that point.

Originally Posted by akiburis

The debate seems to be about the purpose of an ebook.

I'd say that's the direction it's moved, with the auxillary question of examining how well the PDF format is suited to those purposes.

[nekokami]

Are we only counting text-based books here? I.e., what about manga? Anyone want to comment on whether PDF, CBZ/CBR, or some other format would be best for manga or graphic novels? I don't think they can be reflowable, since page layout is often a critical part of the presentation.