Any reason for Lrf?

[GlenBarrington]

I notice several eBook vendors still offer books in the LRF format. Why is that? I was under the impression that Sony offered firmware upgrades for their pre-ePub readers.

As a relative newcomer to serious eBook reading and a PRS-300 user, is there some benefit to LRF that I don't know about? I've been reluctant to PAY for any books in LRF format, but I have downloaded a few freebies and converted some to LRF and I don't see any difference between the 2 formats. Although I have noticed that some LRF files seem to take FOREVER to change text size and to initialize upon first loading to the PRS-300. (But curiously, not ALL)

Is there any reason, at this point in time, to consider LRF eBooks if something else is available?

[mediax]

The Sony Reader implementation of epub (on my PRS505, at least) doesn't support full justification; its implementation of lrf does.

That's the main reason I use lrf - otherwise it would be epub all the way.

[shanghaichica]

Yes, I have also found that some LRF files take a long time to load on my PRS-300. They take a long time to change font sizes and some of them crash the reader!!!

I think I might have to start converting my LRF files to PDF or epub as my reader has no problems with those type of files.

[KayakerNC]

I have the 300, and the differences between the 3 font sizes is the main reason that I prefer the lrf format.
In my epubs the small is too small and the medium is too big. In the lrf version of the same book, the small is just about perfect for my eyes.
Effectively, the 2 different formats give me 6 size choices instead of the puny 3 built into the reader.

[shanghaichica]

I prefer the formatting on epubs and the font sizes on PDFs. I always use medium though on all book formats. it seems to be the most agreeable to my eyes.

[Ziguezon]

Perhaps one of the reasons why lrf books are still sold is that there may be a good amount of PRS-500 and PRS-505 owners out there who, for whatever reason, did not upgrade their firmware in order to enable epub support (or maybe they did upgrade, but didn't care for the way epub was displayed on their readers compared lrf).

I really like the way lrf books are displayed on my 505. I don't think I would choose to purchase a new lrf book, but for the public domain books I download from the MR library, I will always choose lrf over epub. That probably wouldn't be the case if my 505 had better epub suport.

[banjobama]

I don't really care too much about it. The main thing for me on my PRS-600 is that for LRF, one screen = one page, none of this "5-6 of 110" stuff like with epubs. I usually try to download epubs to prepare for a day in the future where I don't use a Sony reader any more. I'll just have that many fewer to convert.

Does anyone know what LRF stands for?

EDIT: Just in case anyone gets asked on Jeopardy!, LRS stands for Librie Reader Source. I'm guessing the F stands for File. Also, BBeB is Broadband eBook.

[wolfing]

I also prefer the LRF format because of full justification. The "one page per page" is also nice

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by banjobama

Does anyone know what LRF stands for?

Most likely "Librie format" or "Librie file" (it first appeared in Sony Librie).

[John F]

I like the full justification of LRF on the 505.

Also, on the 505, LRF can display headers, I don't think ePub can.

I also seem to have better results (formatting that I like) converting to LRF using Calibre.

[pendragginp]

really like the way lrf books are displayed on my 505.

Yes, I agree with this.

I also seem to have better results (formatting that I like) converting to LRF using Calibre.

And with this.

[emonti8384]

I think lrf looks better than epubs, and so I convert all of my ebooks.I buy epub and after I liberate them I save them to my SD card.

[pepak]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I notice several eBook vendors still offer books in the LRF format. Why is that? I was under the impression that Sony offered firmware upgrades for their pre-ePub readers.

I don't know about vendors.

But as a user, I prefer LRF because:
- full justification
- speed (especially with intra-document links)
- stability

On the other hand, I build my own e-books, I don't buy them, so I am not really concerned about DRM or conversions to other formats (it makes no difference to me whether I convert my HTML book to LRF or to EPUB).

[rudyt]

Originally Posted by KayakerNC

I have the 300, and the differences between the 3 font sizes is the main reason that I prefer the lrf format.
In my epubs the small is too small and the medium is too big.

You an easily fix that by reflashing your 300 and installing your own fonts. Info is here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87332

Start with a font-size of 1.0em and a line-height of 115% and tweak accordingly. The 0.9em/130% listed in the URL above is too small/too widely spaced for my tastes. YMMV.