Re: Need advice on software to create an Ebook

On Sun, 27 May 2007 10:16:22 GMT, Andrew Stephenson wrote:

In article <kjbi53tlopgnqrv5ncdlgvo70b1fmf6ceo@xxxxxxx>
cylise@xxxxxxxxx "Cyli" writes:

[...] I hate PDF. I just hate it. I'm sure that if you want
to do long diagrams and things or if you want to print things
out, it's the tops. But a lot of electronic readers seem to
agree that it sucks for reading off a screen.

Truly, that puzzles me. PDF is simply a way of conveying layout
specifications to the renderer, and so to the reader. PDF could
convey a MS page looking just like that page sent to the printer
by the original WP program. Maybe you have only seen sloppy PDF
and/or bad renderers? (SCRATCHES HEAD, AS COOL CHARACTERS DO)

Well, that's just the problem. The "P" in "PDF" stands for "Procrustean".

The only reason there isn't an infinite variety of screens, printers, and
other displays is that the designers don't have infinite imagination.
They're certainly trying hard enough to achieve "product differentiation."
A format that insists on looking just like the original looks very nice
indeed on a display that matches the original, but gets into trouble on
anything that /doesn't/ match. When you add in the fact that it's quite
bulky for the amount of information contained, and Adobe's insistence on
providing "features" such as locking out printing or access for screen
readers, you get something very poorly adapted to a flexible world. It's
especially vile when the originator has an employer-provided display with
32Kx28Kx16T capability, and you're trying to read it at 800x600x4.

PDF is a format that caters to egotists who insist that /their/ design is
perfect and without flaw or blemish, such that any rearrangement will spoil
it. You can achieve the same effect with HTML and CSS, but you have to work
at it, and (as seen on many web pages) many do. The saving grace of Java is
that it's almost impossible to write non-buggy code in it, so when you get
something that takes forever to load and won't render you can assume the
b*ds didn't want your business anyway, and skip it with a clear conscience.

Regards,
Ric

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

.

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