E-books Vs PDF?

[Razgon]

Does anyone has any ideas on what format to publish electronically in?
How many of us haven't used foul language when trying to scroll down to the bottom of a PDF file page, to discover you'r suddenly at page 17 instead?
E-books should work much better, and if one íncludes a reader at ones site, there really shouldnt be any problems with this.

Whats your thoughts on this?

[Patrick Chipman]

PDF is an e-book format, but I prefer compiled HTML Help (CHM).

Beyond that, I don't understand your question. ;)

[Razgon]

Like the microsoft E-book format, is an alternative to PDF files.

Adobe has made readers for this format as well.

[Patrick Chipman]

Oh, you mean Reader. Well, here's how I generally break it down.

PDF: Great for printing, very bad for screen-reading. (It should be noted that Adobe's so-called "e-Book" format is just a lightly modified form of PDF.) It supports bookmarking and hyperlinks and supposedly can do full-text search, but I've never seen a PDF implement it. Most people have the reader already, but it's a fairly hefty download if they don't. It's fully cross-platform compatible. The format is based on PostScript.

Reader: Pretty good for screen-reading, not so hot for printing (I don't recall if the viewer even allows printing in this version). The format is based on HTML, so it supports bookmarking, hyperlinks, and full-text search natively. Very few people have the reader, although it is smaller than Acrobat Reader. Reader only works on the Windows platform.

CHM (Compiled Help): Good for screen-reading, okay for printing. The format is HTML. The reader, which comes on every modern Microsoft OS and with every piece of Microsoft software, supports bookmarking, hyperlinks, and full-text search natively. You are required to produce a hierarchical table of contents, and you can embed other types of objects (MP3s, Flash, etc.) easily. It does, however, only work on the Windows platform but the underlying HTML and index files can be accessed on other platforms through a Java applet. If you want to see CHM in action, hit F1 in Internet Explorer. ;)

LaTeX: This is a print-based format popular on Unix. Screen-reading is possible, but you have to convert it to PostScript first. The format is complex, but supposedly "elegant," so say the mathematicians who write books in it. No embedding is possible.

XML: The advantage to using an XML eBook format is that it can transform into plaintext or any of the above formats using a custom XSLT script.

Generally speaking, if you want something that works with your page layout programs, you're going to need to go with PDF. If readability on the screen is more important, you might want to try Reader, but CHM is usually easier to create (although CHM is less book-like and more manual-like in paradigm). The tools for it are more accessible, as well. CHM, LaTeX, and XML are also two-way formats: you can go back and edit the output file later without having to regenerate it. LaTeX is old, but very popular on Unix; most Unix-heads already know how to use it. XML is very, very new, and unless you want to use my schema, you'll need to write your own, along with an appropriate translator or viewer. You'll most likely have to acquire parsers for each platform, and write code around them, due to the youth of the standard.

[Razgon]

Thanx for the breakdown.
My problem is, that we will at first offer the rulesbook as a free download, and then later make printed version, so it should both be easy to read and then later to adapt to printing.

The format Microsoft has released, where they included Moby Dick and other books for free, looked ok, but I don't know the format for that. Is that one of the ones you mentioned?
It works more or less like a book (A5 format it looks like) and looked quite inviting.

[NPC Chris D]

Originally posted by Razgon
Does anyone has any ideas on what format to publish electronically in?
How many of us haven't used foul language when trying to scroll down to the bottom of a PDF file page, to discover you'r suddenly at page 17 instead?


Never had that problem; then again, I generally don't heavily read print-formatted PDFs on screen, I skim them on screen, and print them out for heavy use.

Then again, since PDF supports any page size and format you want to give it, only an idiot would produce a document formatted for 8.5x11 print if they wanted people to primarily read it onscreen.

PDF is a great format, but you need to think before using it.

Chris Dicely

[Patrick Chipman]

Originally posted by Razgon
Thanx for the breakdown.
My problem is, that we will at first offer the rulesbook as a free download, and then later make printed version, so it should both be easy to read and then later to adapt to printing.

You'd most likely want to go with PDF or LaTeX, then, with PDF most likely being your choice. ;) HTML is printable, but the layout features are extremely limited, and doing anything weird in it to improve the layout will sacrifice the printability.

The format Microsoft has released, where they included Moby Dick and other books for free, looked ok, but I don't know the format for that. Is that one of the ones you mentioned?
It works more or less like a book (A5 format it looks like) and looked quite inviting.

That's Reader, yes. Microsoft has stated that it isn't designed for printing, but rather for screen-reading. The underlying format is a subset of HTML.

[NPC TooEarlyToRegister]

PDF is best - at least the fonts don't hurt my eyes, and there are more
viewers than Adobe's for my platform of choice (Linux).

HTML is *not* a layout tool - it was designed to be an information tool,
not a publishing tool. At least that is what the designer of the web
intended. Compiled HTML has the same limitation, but the bonus of
locking you into Microsoft products (which may well start costing at
some point - see MS' latest tantrum where they threaten to stop selling
their OS if the court cases don't go their way ;).

Chipman mentioned LaTeX not supporting embedding, or something.
Exactly what does that mean? Using the wonderful editor LyX, I can
produce *TeX output containing hyperlinks, images and fancy math.
Was something else meant?

[Briggsy]

Hey Flemming ol' buddy,
Drop me a line some time...

apbriggs@kooee.com.au

Take care mate

[CrazyIvan]

If nothing else, PDF and HTML are cross-platform systems...Mac users only represent something like 3% of the market in computers (which is still a huge number), but from my experience its significantly higher amount gamers...especially pen-and-paper gamers. Please keep us in mind, Microsoft isn't very good at it.