Jeff Wilder
First Post
Palm applications (as opposed to databases) are *.prc files, but I doubt -- but don't know for certain -- that they're the same file type. You could check HERE.
When will PDFs be over?
- Thread starter Jeff Wilder
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Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Hmmm... probably not.
Still, this reader should be able to read them on Palm OS - and it's free. And this program can create those files.
I've created a .PRC ebook from the Arcana Wiki here. It should probably work with that reading software.
Jeff Wilder
First Post
The issue I'm talking about isn't the ability to read ebooks on a given platform. The issue is that it's bizarre that there's not a format with nice output and dynamic reflow that is as ubiquitous and cross-platform as the PDF format is ... while being "at least as good" for large-screen reading, and "better" for small-screen reading. Printing I'll happily give over to PDF. It's why it was created.
Of course, it's now understandable to me why such a format either doesn't exist or hasn't reached an appreciable audience. Inertia is a bitch. It's definitely coming, though ... within five years, I imagine, ebook format will standardize on something much more suitable than PDF, albeit probably not without a format war between Kindle, Sony, and other reader manufacturers.
kenmarable
Hero
Maybe I'm just crazy here, but why do we want to keep making book wannabe's and call it "electronic publishing"?
Ok, for anything you want to print out, PDF is the way to go. Period. It's the most widely used and one of the best formats out there (could debate for a long time on whether it is THE best, but I certainly think there's little argument against it being among the top contenders).
But still, why do electronic products still have to mimic books and book layout? "Book" technology is thousands of years old, and with this new electronic medium, can't we do better? Like the analogy I heard from Clark Peterson, when you turn a novel into a movie, why would you just film someone sitting in a room reading the book out loud? PDFs can have built in search, cut-n-paste, bookmarks, hyperlinks (and publishers are lazy if they don't add at least bookmarks if not hyperlinks as well) - but you're just filming someone reading that book out loud in a really nice room with cool music. It's still not even coming close to using the medium to its fullest extent.
Now, of course people will want hard copies, so even if someone does actually explore the electronic medium fully, I imagine they will either include a bundled PDF or have the ability to generate one on the fly for printing purposes.
But there is so much more you can do with electronic RPG "books" that a physical book and PDF book wannabe could ever do. Still treating a physical book layout as a primary concern is incredibly limiting. PDF vs. HTML vs. RTF vs. whatever is still someone sitting in a castle reading Harry Potter into a camera, or a trilogy of Peter Jackson in a Ren Faire costume lounging around a New Zealand countryside. We can do so much better!
Jeff Wilder
First Post
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
We can. The problem is that right now, it just isn't profitable for the RPG publishing community to do so.
I am seriously considering publishing Urbis for alternative, non-PDF formats. But I could probably count the number of gamers who have expressed serious interest in such format on one hand.
Maybe this will change as ebook readers such as the Kindle become popular. But maybe not - there are also some large-screen readers coming up which can handle displaying PDFs without zooming. If publishers (including me) saw significant interest among gamers for such formats, they would put more effort into using these formats.
Kristian Serrano
Explorer
And here's the rub. I wouldn't feel a need to print if I had a format that was viewable on a low-cost handheld or lightweight tablet-like device. (Have you seen the Plastic Logic device?)
Seriously, many users feel the need to print their PDFs because reading the PDF with the current technology is a PITA. Even if it's layout is designed for landscape view, it's still uncomfortable to sit at a desktop looking up at a screen or to hunch over a bulky laptop.
Really, this isn't an issue of what other format should we use as much as it is an issue of how a new format should function and what kind of non-intrusive hardware will display it adequately.
Alan Shutko
Explorer
It sounds like you haven't used it for this purpose.
Think about how you would use XML and XSLT (and presumably XSL:FO for printed output) to produce chapter 2 of the 4e PHB. You need to reproduce the printed layout exactly, including the text wrap around images, high-quality typesetting, etc. You also need to produce an HTML or other version which looks good on the Kindle (a b/w device) with the tables and appropriate graphical elements.
Getting body text to look adequate on small devices will be easy. You've got low standards, and the device handles the formatting. Getting the 34-line Character Advancement table will be hard, but doable if you can just target the Kindle. If you need it to work on the Kindle, the iPhone, Windows Mobile, etc, it'll be substantially more difficult. Getting images to work equally well will also be difficult, since the readers all have different size screens.
But where XSLT and XSL:FO really fall down are in the visual design area. XSLT does not handle printed output. XSL:FO does. There's only one XSL:FO processor I know of which can produce the typographic quality of InDesign, and it's a rather cumbersome tool built on LaTeX. And even it can merely give you good-looking line-breaks, pagination, kerning, and some microtypographical stuff. But since it only handles XSL:FO, there's a lot it can't handle (take a look at XSL Formatting Objects - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for a list).
Since InDesign can import XML directly, it might be an adequate workflow to import it, then hand-tune for print and PDF. However, if the source document changes, you will still need hand-tweaks to make sure it looks good. There are some subtle typographic choices made in the PHB, as an example, which could not be determined automatically. For instance, look at page 110 where the arrow was allowed reach into the first column because there was no text there. If the Miss section of the previous power was removed, that choice would need to be revisited, because automatically reflowing the Evade the Blow text would look bad.
Automatic translation into multiple formats only works today if you have low standards for how it looks in each format. If you believe differently, try it.
Alan Shutko
Explorer
The question is, what would you do?
The linear presentation of information is something that is well understood. It's straightforward to put together a document, and publish it in a format that is widely supported (well or less well) on a lot of platforms. Things like search, bookmarks, and hyperlinks all are easy to add.
But go beyond that, and what are you going to do? Instead of a writing job, with editing and layout, you need all of that plus software development. It's no longer simple to support multiple devices, it's incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Can you even RUN applications on a Kindle? You add bugs, technical support, licensing costs to your business, and few people in the RPG industry have any experience managing all of that. That's why people avoid it, because it adds so much additional risk for a very nebulous reward.
Think, for a moment, about history.
The pdf format became available in 1993. A quick web-search on its market penetration says that in 1999, about 35% of web-users could read media in that format. Six years, and not yet ubiquitous...
Which is to say, becoming ubiquitous takes time. Portable devices that you might actually use for reading (much less gaming, specifically) are pretty new, and are not themselves ubiquitous. Ergo, you should not see a book-format that's ubiquitous for some time yet.
This is not "intertia", this is the fact that this is a fairly new form-factor, until recently (and, depending who you talk to, even now) with only limited functionality and usability. It will take some time for folks to experiment and figure out what the things are really good for.
