When will PDFs be over?

[Vigilance]

As a PDF publisher, I can tell you that it basically comes down to two things: market share nd functionality.

PDF is the best format, overall, in both these areas.

Market share is a no brainer. Literally everyone with an internet connection can choose between multiple PDF readers for free.

For user functionality, PDF provides that in the formats used by the vast majority of PDF customers: reading on a PC/Laptop screen or printing on a home printer.

For us, PDF *also* provides superior functionality. Since books are usually printed from a master PDF, we don't have to reinvent the wheel if we decide to print a book at a later date.

In other words, when we print a book, we can use the PDF we sell you for that very purpose if we choose.

We've investigated other formats, such as the kindle, but haven't yet come up with a way to make that work without (especially tables) without a complete re-format. Given the install base in question, we probably wouldn't make enough money to make that a worthwhile time investment.

And of course, if we look at a DIFFERENT format, like a phone or PDA, we're back to square one, needing yet another layout.

So basically, its a PC vs. Mac situation right now with PDF vs. everything else. The kindle is the only device with enough market presence to make us look seriously at how to make RPG books work in that setting, and we STILL haven't quite got it figured out.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Go back and read the title of this thread and the original post in its entirety. Jeff doesn't want an alternative to PDFs — he wants PDFs to be "over" (i.e., go away). Sure, not everybody has taken this position on the thread, but the OP most certainly did.

You've read way too much into the title of this thread, and apparently ignored the body of my post in which my question was rephrased and restated not once, but twice.

I specifically talked about the good uses for PDFs. I said nothing about wanting them not to exist, and it's an interesting reading that you think I did.

What I want to be over is the era of PDF as the de facto standard for ebooks.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Market share is a no brainer. Literally everyone with an internet connection can choose between multiple PDF readers for free.

Listen, I'm not disputing the truth of what you're saying, but I have to point out the tautalogical nature of it.

"Why have PDFs become the standard for a job they're not good at?" "Because they're the standard." "Uh, okay."

For user functionality, PDF provides that in the formats used by the vast majority of PDF customers: reading on a PC/Laptop screen or printing on a home printer.

"How come there isn't a good standard format for reading ebooks on handhelds?" "Because nobody reads ebooks on handhelds," "How come nobody reads ebooks on handhelds?" "Because PDFs are much better printed or on a big screen." "Uh, okay."

 

[jdrakeh]

You've read way too much into the title of this thread. . .

The question "When will PDFs be over?" is pretty clear. In the context of your post, Jeff, it couldn't feasibly mean anything other than "When do PDFs go away?" (also, given your other negative sentiments about PDFs, I find it highly unlikely that you genuinely intended it to mean anything else).

I specifically talked about the good uses for PDFs.

Your positive 'talk' about PDFs was limited to the following remark:

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

This one bit of praise sandwiched between such gems as "I hate reading PDFs" and "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." is not effectively concealing your bias as well as you think it is. In fact, the phrase "damning with faint praise" was coined specifically to describe such affectations.

I said nothing about wanting them not to exist, and it's an interesting reading that you think I did.

Well, for starters, in the thread title you ask when PDFs will be over — not when "the era of PDF as the de facto standard for ebooks" will be over. You then go on to tell us that you "hate reading PDFs" and then incredulously state that you "don't understand" how or why it's the industry standard electronic document format.

Initially, you explain that your failure to understand is based on a single area in which PDFs could use improvement (i.e., easy viewing on mobile phones and similarly small devices). You then infer that, because of this single shortcoming, PDFs are overrated and undeserving of being the industry standard for electronic file distribution.

Finally, you wrap with a subtle assertion that PDFs are no good for displaying documents on normal (i.e., Windows) computer monitors, either — before specifically stating that you hope PDFs aren't the dominant form of electronic file distribution in e-publishing for much longer.

After reflecting, I have no idea how I ever came to the conclusion that you hate PDFs and want them to go away. Oh wait. Yes I do. You told me that you hate PDFs and want them to go away.

What I want to be over is the era of PDF as the de facto standard for ebooks.

See? You want PDFs to go away. You want them to go away, apparently to be replaced with an as yet unnamed (and, AFAIK, non-existant) superior file format.

I'm curious, Jeff — what file format provides the flexibility, ease of use, and complex aesthetic qualities that a PDF can while remaining commercially viable? I (and apparently the vast majority of publishers on Earth) am blissfully unware of such a file format.

I mean, seriously, if you can single-handedly save the entire RPG e-publishing market, why hold back?!?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Well, for starters, in the thread title you ask when PDFs will be over — not when "the era of PDF as the de facto standard for ebooks" will be over.

Yes, that would have been an excellent thread title. Well done, sir. Well done.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Anyway, I'm still wondering what kind of non-PDF formats people use.

Like I said, I'm only familiar with the .prc format, since the Kindle can read it. But what else is out there?

 

[jdrakeh]

Anyway, I'm still wondering what kind of non-PDF formats people use.

For book distribution? Well, back in the day, shareware P&P RPGs were released in .html archives, .txt files, and .rtf files. As far as I know, due to the lack of print quality formatting and artwork, nobody made a great deal of money on such endeavors. Today, such file formats are limited almost exclusively to the realm of freepress publishers.

More recently, XML, LaTeX, and similar markup languages have gained small followings but both are ultimately overshadowed by PDFs. Neither is (to my knowledge) used with great frequency by anybody other than technical writers (as previously mentioned), though I do believe that some foreign RPG publishers were using LaTeX commercially at one time (end products were often converted to PDFs for sale and printing, however).

Then, of course, as you're already aware you have a lot of proprietary document formats associated with certain e-book readers. These will almost certainly never catch on, as their cross-platform compatibility is effectively nil and, in many cases, stability on the intended platform also tends to be questionable (an unfortunate cost of hurried production in an exploding market).

Finally, you have things like .prc and .ppt files which are not designed for printing, or book publishing. You can, of course, try to force the layout of a printed book into such a format but, as I suspect you're discovering, using a screwdriver to pound nails isn't very effective

I'm drawing a blank on anything else (well, other than PostScript, which is the forerunner of the PDF). This is part of why I asked Jeff to elaborate. Apparently he thinks there is something out there that surpasses PDF in many (if not all) ways. If there is, I've never seen it.

[EDIT: To be fair, I suspect the day will come that PDF will be supplanted as the standard electronic distribution format for publishers of RPGs — but not until a superior file format with the industry-wide appeal of PDF is actually created. So far, this hasn't happened to the best of my knowledge. Also, people using cell phones or PDAs to read books don't yet compose a large enough percentage of the current e-publishing market to trump laptop and desktop PC users, so I think that it's unlikely to happen for a while.]

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Anyway, I'm still wondering what kind of non-PDF formats people use.

Like I said, I'm only familiar with the .prc format, since the Kindle can read it. But what else is out there?

Postscript?

Microsoft offers Office OpenXML and XPS (XML Paper Specification, a Microsoft equivalent to PDF). Supported by IE 7.

OpenDocument is a new open document standard based on the OpenOffice file format. (I think Open XML from Microsoft is - after intensive lobbying - a similar standard now.)

But there is nothing really practically superior to PDF.

Most formats try to avoid free-flowing texts to support easier printing. I think only (X)HTML is designed for screen use only, and allows more freedom, but it's a nightmare to print. Diagrams and especially tables are very difficult to format so that they fit well into multiple resolutions.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Most formats try to avoid free-flowing texts to support easier printing.

Which is great ... except when your purpose isn't to print the document. That's the problem with PDF ... the format was created for pagination and printing, and now it's used for everything.

As for what else is available, the answer is "not much." But that's not because PDF is suited for what it's being used for, it's because PDF is easier on publishers. Some folks are saying, "There's no market for another format," and other people are saying, "There aren't any other formats." Hopefully the reader can see the problem with accepting both of those statements as True, especially in the context of a question like, "Why is PDF the de facto format for ebooks?"

Personally, for my Palm device, I use a program called iSilo. It's not ideal -- it basically takes an HTML doc of however many pages, links it all into one doc, and compresses it -- but it works pretty well. I have the entire SRD -- fully hyperlinked, with nice additions like all the Celestial and Fiendish varieties of summoned critters -- on my phone, and use it constantly. (I similarly have annotated copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, all of my law school outlines, a huge database of court decisions, and lots and lots of other stuff.)

I'm not a developer, but I know that there are, or can be developed, markup languages that will create a great experience with reading an ebook -- complete with images and tables -- on a small screen (which does not necessarily mean just a PDA). But as long as people keep making overly broad statements like, "PDF is clearly superior to everything, so why develop anything else," those formats -- extant or future -- will never gain any ground.

How many of you folks own stock in Adobe, anyway?

(I posted several years ago offering the iSilo SRD .pdb to folks, BTW. Mark, of CMG, got it from me with the intent of updating the license info and making it available more widely, too, but I dunno how he's progressed on that. Bear in mind that iSilo is a commercial program. It's also nearing the end of a highly useful secondary purpose -- going out and grabbing HTML pages for later reading -- due to increasing prevalence of broadband speeds on PDAs and smartphones. But it's still worth the cash, IMO.)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Personally, for my Palm device, I use a program called iSilo.

I'm not sure since I don't have any Palm devices, but don't these devices also read .prc files?

I know how to generate those...