which format will win?

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by frabjous

Sorry, but this makes no sense.

You can't read any format without the appropriate software installed. What do you mean by "special"? Do you mean that your operating system comes with the software you need pre-bundled? Surely, what comes prebundled is just a matter of demand. Once books catch on in general, chances are your OS will come with a epub reader. And actually, since your OS comes with a webbrowser and an unzip program, the very simplest of script or plugin is all that needs to be added. You can find scripts or plugins on this website easily enough. (At least barring DRM.)

There aren't some formats that are easier to put DRM on than others. The DRM scheme to PDFs/ePubs are completely unrelated to the part that actually contains the contents of the book. The fact that Adobe's ADEPT DRM is only applied to ePubs and PDFs just reflects that these are the formats they've chosen to use; it could easily be migrated to any other format.

ePub is definitely a better format than most of the competitors out there -- .mobi/kindle format is very inflexible and limited by comparison (as anyone who has ever tried to do anything complex in the format knows), and ePub make use of html and xhtml that a lot of people use for other purposes anyway, so it makes sense to make it a standard.

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.

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'.

Derek

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Ummm... right. So the Adobe PDF epub format is just html??? Think not. Epub is the wrapper and while most *sane* publishers use html, there are other data formats that can be stuffed inside - and don't even get me started on the wide range of DRM one can use on the contents of the epub container!

Derek

We're talking about formats, not DRM in any case. And epub IS html, just like I said. Yeah, it's a zip file but so what.

Did you go off your meds again?

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by kennyc

We're talking about formats, not DRM in any case. And epub IS html, just like I said. Yeah, it's a zip file but so what.

Did you go off your meds again?

Um, no, I don't *need* meds. (Not like some people around here. ) And while DRM is not a format, it *must* be considered in the question. Or do you really want to have to deal with FAIRPLAY DRM on any ePub purchase?

Derek

[BillSmithBooks]

The original point of the thread was "which format is going to win,"which format is going to be the dominant format in the future.

DRM IS very significant to the disucssion since it prevents users from backing up their books and locks them in to a specific device or vendor. People who have bought DRM'd books in the past have been stranded when the DRM servers were turned off or the vendor went out of business, for example. (Microsoft "Plays for Sure" anyone.)

So much as Epub may be a viable format for the future, anything with DRM is at risk.

Because of the lack of DRM and the fact that almost every device now already comes equipped with a web browser, I maintain that HTML is still the most likely candidate to last in the long run, unpopular though that opinion may be.

[Soulcatcher]

it won't 'win', but i like RTF.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

Why Epub?

Because its relatively easy to put DRM on it? Same for PDF?

You can't open it on a pc without first loading special software for it.
Which is not true of several other formats.

What formats don't you need special software for?

You need a text editor/program to read text files. Notepad will do that.

You need a web browser to read HTML/CSS and Internet Explorer will do that.

You need special software to read just about any format other than text or HTML. By special software, I mean software that does not come with the operating system.

[kennyc]

I've already said I don't like drm and I don't expect it to survive any more than it has for MP3s. That said, the most likely format is one that is clearly identified as a book format. Epub is it. Only time will tell.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

In Your Dreams!

Derek

Sorry, but ePub already HAS become the defacto standard.

Yes there are two different (and soon to be a third) forms of DRM, but every device out there that supports ePub with DRM supports the same adept DRM. And the iPad may very well support adept if the txtr app is allowed on board.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Ummm... right. So the Adobe PDF epub format

So what is the Adobe PDF epub format?

[JSWolf]

Apple's eBook store will be using Fairplay DRM and B&N use eReader DRM. But every other eBook store that sell ePub with DRM use the standard Adobe Adept. Even Overdrive uses it. So if any device wants to allow users to read library borrowed ePub, they HAVE to support Adept DRM. And so far, the iPad is the only device that will support ePub that's an unknown as to Adept DRM. But, the iPod Touch and iPhone both have the txtr app that supports Adept DRM.

So it seems to me that ePub with Adept DRM has clearly won the format wars. Mobipocket could have won had they allowed Sony to use it along side BBeB on the 505.

[kennyc]

Mobi, did seem to have the lead, particularly when Amazon acquired it and morphed it into azm. Even a few months ago my local library had mostly mobi books but now mostly epub.

[cmdahler]

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'.

Derek

It's all in what level of typography you prefer. If you get the formatting too screwed up, it's not enjoyable for anyone. Truly professional typography that obeys the conventions which have evolved over the last few hundred years is pleasurable precisely because it gets out of the way: you don't notice it at all, but it makes your eye flow across the words effortlessly. Imagine trying to read a book on a 8.5"-wide paper with 0.25" margins and a 10-pt font. Your eye has to move around too much, it tires you quickly, plus the brain is presented with a morass of text that is overwhelming.

Whether text is presented to you in print or electronic form is meaningless: your eye and brain function the same way regardless. So the ideal electronic format for a book is one that ... looks like a book, astonishingly enough. The screen should be large enough and the pixels dense and small enough such that, at least at one font point size, the electronic form of the book is crafted as closely as possible to the conventions of professional typography. If the user needs to depart from that font size and reflow the document, the algorithm controlling the reflow should at least attempt to maintain those standards as much as feasible. Right now epub doesn't even come close to doing that. Hopefully at some point in the coming years it will.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What formats don't you need special software for?

You need a text editor/program to read text files. Notepad will do that.

You need a web browser to read HTML/CSS and Internet Explorer will do that.

You need special software to read just about any format other than text or HTML. By special software, I mean software that does not come with the operating system.

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.)

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

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.

The way Adobe could really get a lock on the whole market would be to rewrite the PDF standard so one file could include multiple versions of the same document. Then a single PDF file could have the document crafted with three different point sizes, and magnifying the book would just leap you to the same place in the document at a larger font size. Of course, publishers would have to also craft different PDFs for the various screen sizes, but really, that's not that much work. Anyone with a good working knowledge of InDesign or TeX could do all that in a day or two and make everything look quite nice. Not that this idea is going to happen, of course, but it would be a good way of controlling typography while still leaving the user with choices in text size.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

Of course, publishers would have to also craft different PDFs for the various screen sizes, but really, that's not that much work.

You are aware you're talking about the publishers who release ebooks with metadata indicating the title is "0689865384_INT" or "Microsoft Word - Sc_Sc_SpareParts.rtf" (that's a PDF; the title was apparently grabbed from the original during conversion) or "mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template," right?

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.