Is this new ADE support just a joke .... ?

Zevs · 07-26-2008, 01:18 PM

Hi!

Getting all fired up by the news about the new firmware for my PRS-505. I immediately updated all the software needed and bought a couple of books in the Adobe protected format. However, when I moved them to my Reader and looked them I was chocked! The small print version could possibly be read with a magnifier (so if one just always brings that along perhaps one can read a page or two), the medium size could be read OK, but then the side breaks didn't work at all, i.e. first page full page (ugly formatting also) second page 2 rows of text and the rest empty, third page full page (still ugly), 4 page 2 rows text and the rest empty. I didn't even want to go to the large text format, but can imagine how bad that must be!

So what is this?? Is it a joke Sony is playing on us or have I missed one simple way of getting the Adobe pages aligned or flowing with the Readers pages? Who want to use this kind of crappy format, I will just go back to buy my books from Connect (a cynic might say that is what Sony wanted all along of course) and ignore this supposedly "great" new firmware update.

Zevs

Hadrien · 07-26-2008, 01:42 PM

Try an ePub file instead: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2699.epub

Zevs · 07-26-2008, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Try an ePub file instead: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2699.epub

Yes Hadrien, thanks, these looks much better! Is it the same with all ePub files or just the ones on this site ? Why can't the ADE files look like this ?? It is clearly possible to get a good quality pdf file for reading.

Zevs

Hadrien · 07-26-2008, 02:51 PM

All the ePub files will look good. There's no ADE files: there's ePub or PDF. If you reflow a PDF, it'll always look a bit messy, because PDF isn't designed to be reflowed.

Zevs · 07-26-2008, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hadrien

All the ePub files will look good. There's no ADE files: there's ePub or PDF. If you reflow a PDF, it'll always look a bit messy, because PDF isn't designed to be reflowed.

Yes Hadrien I understand that ADE really is a pdf, but so are also the Sony reader files you can download from Feedbooks, so what is the difference ? Those pdf files and the epub files look to me very much the same in the Reader .. or ..

Hadrien · 07-26-2008, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zevs

Yes Hadrien I understand that ADE really is a pdf, but so are also the Sony reader files you can download from Feedbooks, so what is the difference ? Those pdf files and the epub files look to me very much the same in the Reader .. or ..

On Feedbooks, we tried to reproduce the same template for our PDF files and our ePub files but there's a few differences:
- ePub can be reflowed
- PDF can't, you need to set the size of the font before we generate the PDF for you. On our PDF files you'll notice support for hyphenation, something currently not possible with reflowable files.

Zevs · 07-26-2008, 03:25 PM

OK, thanks for the explanation! So for epub books then the Sony upgrade is fine, but why the big buzz about ADE and Adobe's secure digital pdf's. Really mostly useless for me anyhow! However, I would want to be able to buy books in that format also, if they were formated in a correct way. Public domain books are fine, but I still buy a lot of new books through Connect, and the good thing would have been if that could be expanded also to other sources, but not yet, so for some reason the upgrade will still give Sony my book buying money

Zevs

Hadrien · 07-26-2008, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zevs

OK, thanks for the explanation! So for epub books then the Sony upgrade is fine, but why the big buzz about ADE and Adobe's secure digital pdf's. Really mostly useless for me anyhow! However, I would want to be able to buy books in that format also, if they were formated in a correct way. Public domain books are fine, but I still buy a lot of new books through Connect, and the good thing would have been if that could be expanded also to other sources, but not yet, so for some reason the upgrade will still give Sony my book buying money

Zevs

Well in the upcoming months you can expect several websites to start selling ePub files. You'll have a much broader choice, and also access to libraries through Overdrive for example
The good thing is that those same ePub files will work on several other devices, not just the PRS-505 unlike LRF.

Zevs · 07-26-2008, 04:02 PM

...that sound great Hadrien, am looking forward to that!!!

Zevs

wallcraft · 07-26-2008, 04:09 PM

I can't find the thread, but I recall a discussion here a while ago about (pre-EPUB) Secure Adobe ebooks in which I was assured that these were not conventional PDFs but rather true reflowable ebooks. The fact that they don't reflow across page boundaries on the PRS-505 at a minimum indicates that they do contain page boundaries (i.e. they are standard PDF files after all). Fictionwise says that "Adobe Reader for Palm OS v3.0" can read Secure Adobe ebooks, can anyone confirm that the Palm version reflows across page boundaries? How about Adobe Reader 7.0 and/or Adobe Digital Editions for Windows - do they reflow Adobe ebooks if you run them in a small window?

The reflowing capability of DE on the PRS-505 for standard letter/A4 PDFs appears to be an improvement over alternative display options, but perhaps we just have not come across enough hard examples yet.

Hadrien · 07-26-2008, 04:10 PM

Keep in mind too that with CSS support and embedded fonts in ePub, publishers can create e-books that look much better too.

In some cases, technical documentations for example, it was almost impossible to recreate the book experience with formats such as Mobipocket or LRF. That's why a publisher like O'Reilly is one of the early adopter of the ePub format.

SeaWolf · 07-27-2008, 12:10 AM

There's no doubting that if ePub gets widely adopted it will be an enormous step forward, allowing you to easily take books from one reader to another and providing a much better experience. In fact it has almost convinced me to pony up the cash and get a PRS-505 shipped over from the US for me, now that I'll be able to buy books from a variety of sources on it.

I am curious though to see how it handles inline images and things like decorative first letters at the start of a chapter. These things are probably going to take a little while to find out while people start playing with the format more.

wallcraft · 07-27-2008, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeaWolf

I am curious though to see how it handles inline images and things like decorative first letters at the start of a chapter. These things are probably going to take a little while to find out while people start playing with the format more.

I have an example of text wrapping around an image in Sony's Windows ebook Reader. The ePubs I have seen so far often have a stylized chapter heading, but don't typically have a decorative first letter. A distinctive first letter is common in TOPAZ ebooks for the Kindle, which is Amazon's poor attempt at an alternative to ePub, and it can be quite distracting on a small screen.

Hadrien · 07-28-2008, 08:10 AM

Decorative first letter should be fairly easy to do in ePub, although I don't remember if the first-letter CSS pseudo-element is available in CSS2, or limited to CSS3.

07-26-2008, 01:18 PM	#1
Zevs Book lover!! Posts: 133 Karma: 182 Join Date: Jan 2007 Device: Sony Reader 505; Nowadays Stanza, Kindle, Txtr and Bluefire on iPhone	Is this new ADE support just a joke .... ? Hi! Getting all fired up by the news about the new firmware for my PRS-505. I immediately updated all the software needed and bought a couple of books in the Adobe protected format. However, when I moved them to my Reader and looked them I was chocked! The small print version could possibly be read with a magnifier (so if one just always brings that along perhaps one can read a page or two), the medium size could be read OK, but then the side breaks didn't work at all, i.e. first page full page (ugly formatting also) second page 2 rows of text and the rest empty, third page full page (still ugly), 4 page 2 rows text and the rest empty. I didn't even want to go to the large text format, but can imagine how bad that must be! So what is this?? Is it a joke Sony is playing on us or have I missed one simple way of getting the Adobe pages aligned or flowing with the Readers pages? Who want to use this kind of crappy format, I will just go back to buy my books from Connect (a cynic might say that is what Sony wanted all along of course) and ignore this supposedly "great" new firmware update. Zevs

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07-26-2008, 01:42 PM	#2
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	Try an ePub file instead: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2699.epub

07-26-2008, 02:51 PM	#4
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	All the ePub files will look good. There's no ADE files: there's ePub or PDF. If you reflow a PDF, it'll always look a bit messy, because PDF isn't designed to be reflowed.

07-26-2008, 03:25 PM	#7
Zevs Book lover!! Posts: 133 Karma: 182 Join Date: Jan 2007 Device: Sony Reader 505; Nowadays Stanza, Kindle, Txtr and Bluefire on iPhone	OK, thanks for the explanation! So for epub books then the Sony upgrade is fine, but why the big buzz about ADE and Adobe's secure digital pdf's. Really mostly useless for me anyhow! However, I would want to be able to buy books in that format also, if they were formated in a correct way. Public domain books are fine, but I still buy a lot of new books through Connect, and the good thing would have been if that could be expanded also to other sources, but not yet, so for some reason the upgrade will still give Sony my book buying money Zevs

07-26-2008, 04:02 PM	#9
Zevs Book lover!! Posts: 133 Karma: 182 Join Date: Jan 2007 Device: Sony Reader 505; Nowadays Stanza, Kindle, Txtr and Bluefire on iPhone	...that sound great Hadrien, am looking forward to that!!! Zevs

07-26-2008, 04:09 PM	#10
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,975 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	I can't find the thread, but I recall a discussion here a while ago about (pre-EPUB) Secure Adobe ebooks in which I was assured that these were not conventional PDFs but rather true reflowable ebooks. The fact that they don't reflow across page boundaries on the PRS-505 at a minimum indicates that they do contain page boundaries (i.e. they are standard PDF files after all). Fictionwise says that "Adobe Reader for Palm OS v3.0" can read Secure Adobe ebooks, can anyone confirm that the Palm version reflows across page boundaries? How about Adobe Reader 7.0 and/or Adobe Digital Editions for Windows - do they reflow Adobe ebooks if you run them in a small window? The reflowing capability of DE on the PRS-505 for standard letter/A4 PDFs appears to be an improvement over alternative display options, but perhaps we just have not come across enough hard examples yet.

07-26-2008, 04:10 PM	#11
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	Keep in mind too that with CSS support and embedded fonts in ePub, publishers can create e-books that look much better too. In some cases, technical documentations for example, it was almost impossible to recreate the book experience with formats such as Mobipocket or LRF. That's why a publisher like O'Reilly is one of the early adopter of the ePub format.

07-27-2008, 12:10 AM	#12
SeaWolf Connoisseur Posts: 63 Karma: 65091 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kindle Paperwhite WiFi	There's no doubting that if ePub gets widely adopted it will be an enormous step forward, allowing you to easily take books from one reader to another and providing a much better experience. In fact it has almost convinced me to pony up the cash and get a PRS-505 shipped over from the US for me, now that I'll be able to buy books from a variety of sources on it. I am curious though to see how it handles inline images and things like decorative first letters at the start of a chapter. These things are probably going to take a little while to find out while people start playing with the format more.

07-28-2008, 08:10 AM	#14
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	Decorative first letter should be fairly easy to do in ePub, although I don't remember if the first-letter CSS pseudo-element is available in CSS2, or limited to CSS3.