When will PDFs be over?

[Jeff Wilder]

(This is a broad topic, but I'm bringing it up here because it impacts me most when it comes to roleplaying games.)

I hate reading PDFs and I simply don't understand how or why they've become the de facto standard for e-books.

The PDF format was created to standardize format and pagination across multiple platforms. This it does well.

Where it fails is in those areas where precise format and pagination are less important than content and text flow. For example, reading on a small screen -- such as an iPhone or deliberately small GUI window. For this, a hyperlinked, searchable format that will dynamically re-flow is ideal.

Such formats exist. So, again, why have PDFs become the de facto standard?

If I were able to buy RPG material in a format other than PDFs, I would be willing to spend probably two orders of magnitude more than I do on electronic gaming stuff. Sure, I can read PDFs on my Centro, but it's a serious PITA. Sure, I can read PDFs in Windows, but again it's a PITA unless I'm willing to devote all or most of a monitor to it.

It may be too late. PDF may have reached the point where the fact that it's not ideal for the job is too heavily outweighed by familiarity and (to mix physics metaphors) inertia.

But I really hope not.

 

[wedgeski]

I think PDF's had exactly the right penetration and feature-set at exactly the right time, plus you have to think about the intangible qualities of a RPG book. Art and layout have been shown time and again to be highly valued by your average RPG punter. Smaller iPhone or PDA viewports don't mesh well with that selling-point, and until gamers make the philosophical shift from paper to electronic media (and just look at how many people Wizards apparently alienated with their move to e-mags) and start expecting different things from their 'books', I can't see other formats being worth the money supporting.

 

[jdrakeh]

Well, the first big advantage that a PDF has over a hyperlinked HTML archive that I can think of is that it's a single document. Most linked HTML archives are just that. Archives. Archives of dozens (if not hundreds) of files that make actual file organization a total pain in the ass on the same handheld devices you argue such a file format is perfect for.

I've been using handheld devices and laptops to assist with gaming for several years now, and I've come to discover a few different things.

First, I'm not a fan of the crippled utility that often comes built into file management tools on handheld devices, so I would never load a copy of the Hypertext SRD and its hundreds of files onto my PDA when I can download a single searchable, bookmarked, PDF of the same text onto my PDA. I've tried using the Hypertext SRD (as well as the S&S hyperlinked SRD) on a Pocket PC 2003 device, for example, and it was a nightmare. In actual practice, I've found that a properly formatted PDF works much better.

There are several PDF viewers available for handheld devices that require far fewer system resources to run than internet browsers (the default method for viewing HTML files) do. Frex, I can run the Foxit Reader on the aforementioned PDA much more efficiently than I can run an instance of IE or Opera Mobile. For some reason, otherwise nifty mobile browsers are memory hogs that slow down everything. I finally gave up on trying to get them to work efficiently.

Another big advantage of PDFs that comes to mind is that PDFs allow for on-screen viewing and production quality printing. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an HTML file that flows like a printed book or can match the printed quality of a PDF. Printed HTML looks like absolute crap. Period. HTML is formatted almost exclusively for onscreen viewing, not printing. PDFs, on the other hand, are typically formatted for both.

Despite your misgivings, I think you're way off base stating that it's a "fact" PDFs don't get the job done that they set out to do or that they're inferior to linked HTML archives. They actually seem to be a higher quality, multi-platform, alternative to things like HTML, while providing even more functionality (to both publishers and consumers).

Given the format's functionality and quality, I think it is very unlikely that the PDF will go away in the near future.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Re-flowing text is good for novels. But most reference works - and in general, RPG books are reference works - require rather more complex layouts. You have sidebars, boxed texts, tables, and so on.

Furthermore, PDFs are easy to make if you were going to print the same books anyway - while creating proper re-flowing text will require a lot more effort to do right. I'm currently experimenting with creating re-flowing text documents in the .prc format, and it's not quite trivial.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm with Jeff Wilder. I can't speak to the question of which is better on a handheld since I don't have one, but as far as which format I prefer to view on my computer - HTML, no question.

PDFs are for storing print media in electronic form. HTML is for electronic media. I suspect we'll be stuck with PDF e-books as long as publishers view the e-book as an afterthought to the print version.

 

[kenmarable]

PDFs are book wannabe's and I'm surprised we haven't moved past them years ago. Back in 2004, I think, I even remember a discussion on EN World here where I had an epiphany when Clark Peterson was talking about PDF ebooks and said it was like making a movie from a novel by filming someone sitting in a room reading the book out loud. It simply doesn't embrace the diferet medium at all.

I planned out something that I thought would embrace the electronic medium, but got busy with real life (3 kids and being laid off can do that) and I was sure someone would have beat me to it anyway considering all of the limitations of PDF. There's been some leaning that way, but I'm surprised that years later that still no one has tried to move past PDFs. (Guess I better get busy on that idea, huh?)

I can understand why PDFs are popular. Like others have mentioned, PDF readers are everywhere. Plus publishers are familiar with it and have plenty of options for creating them. But really, unless you are printing PDFs are subpar. You'd think with the sheer concentration of geeks in this hobby, someone would have made something better by now. Even WotC's version of Dragon and Dungeon are just the print magazine except rather than sent to a printer and distributor they are posted online. It's such a 20th century outdated publishing mindset throughout the industry even though we are almost a decade into the new century.

All of these book wannabe's are painful at times for me, especially when the publisher doesn't even try to use the tools available in PDFs themselves (no bookmarks, no hyperlinks - yes you can have the benefit of a hyperlinked html archive and pdf layout). 0one is only publisher I have seen to actually push the PDF envelope and embrace that technology. So many just click "print to PDF" and call it done. It's just publishing a book without paying the printing cost and certainly not "e-publishing" in any meaningful sense of the word. For some of the short $2 PDFs, sure there's only so much content to move to the new medium anyway. But there are ways of doing it better... much, much better, especially for longer products.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

(This is a broad topic, but I'm bringing it up here because it impacts me most when it comes to roleplaying games.)

I hate reading PDFs and I simply don't understand how or why they've become the de facto standard for e-books.

The PDF format was created to standardize format and pagination across multiple platforms. This it does well.

Where it fails is in those areas where precise format and pagination are less important than content and text flow. For example, reading on a small screen -- such as an iPhone or deliberately small GUI window. For this, a hyperlinked, searchable format that will dynamically re-flow is ideal.

I had a brief foray into the publishing world. The short version is that's what people buy.

* people don't buy print on demand. They just don't. In a lot of cases it works out cheaper than a regular book, but for whatever reason there's this big gap when it comes to print on demand. Its like print on demand books had snuck up on humanity's collective subconscious and keyed its car.

* if you give them easy to read stuff like searchable html they complain about the lack of formatting and don't buy the product. People might be more open to this now because iPhones are more common, but if you give them html they'll complain.

* Doing both PDF and html. It is *not* easy to have two completely separate formats for the same document. I am telling you this from personal experience having made the attempt and given up. You're looking at more than double the effort, which may not make intuitive sense, but any work made toward producing a PDF is all but wasted making an html document and vice-versa. And obviously any last minute change made in one document has to be made in the other. In my case, I realized there were at least three valid spellings for the word "legionnaire" in MS Word at the time. All of this stuff may sound like a task that just takes 5 minutes, but that 5 minutes invariably turns into 15 or 20 minutes and you're going to have dozens of them for any document of respectable size.

Like I said, maybe things have changed and people are more willing to buy a html e-book. But I wouldn't bet on it with my own money.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Out of curiosity, what are the post popular non-PDF formats that use re-flowing text?

I've been experimenting with the .prc format, since the Amazon Kindle supports it. I am deliberating whether to publish Urbis in this or similar formats (after all, I've already created some Perl scripts doing most of the work for this) - but first I need to know what kind of formats exist out there, and how popular they are.

PDFs are the standard for fixed-formatted ebooks. What are the standards for ebooks with non-fixed formatting?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

* people don't buy print on demand. They just don't. In a lot of cases it works out cheaper than a regular book, but for whatever reason there's this big gap when it comes to print on demand. Its like print on demand books had snuck up on humanity's collective subconscious and keyed its car.

I wouldn't go that far. RedBrick sells nothing but PDFs and POD books, and they are expanding nicely - first Earthdawn, then Fading Suns, and now Blue Planet and who knows what else...

 

[S'mon]

pdf ain't good for nothing mister
Save for printing out on my office printer