Comments on: How Amazon and Apple stabbed me in the eye

By: halfjack

halfjack — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:36:19 +0000

Yeah, Ian, if you head back a couple dozen posts you’ll see I’m the choir on that front. :D PDF is basically an encapsulated print preview and so seems like a dead end to me. Still it’s the dead end of choice.

By: Ian Borchardt

Ian Borchardt — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:22:54 +0000

The PDF format was never really designed for e-publishing, especially dedicated design in e-publishing. It’s designed to package a printable document in a portable format. And incidentally, allow it to be viewed on screen. And, after all it’s over 15 years old, even with refinements and upgrades there is only so far you can go with the base architecture.

I do think that the next step is going to be a CSS type system which separates content from styling. Your device will load the correct style file to display the work appropriately for the device format. A collision between web-design and physical layout philosophies.

But I also think that that is only a midway step, and eventually text-books (in which category I include RPGs), will have more in common with an interactive app driving a content database than a text document. Something that follows an information architecture more compatible with how people actually use these books, which can be decidedly non-linear (at least, after the initial read-through). [Then again, this last could just be my wishful thinking, and it probably won't be something developed by the RPG industry. ]

By: halfjack

halfjack — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:06:42 +0000

Well, first, Deluge is an experiment in technologies so it’s not an indication that I intend to sell through Amazon or Apple. It’s just that all the kafuffles surrounding these companies are signposts on the personal publishing highway, so it makes sense to pay attention.

PDF is the primary form for Deluge for exactly the reasons you describe, but I don’t want to box myself in — there are layout choices I can make that will make other forms (reflowable ones, notably) more or less complicated going forward. So part of the experiment is to find a PDF layout that will turn into a reflowable form handily and also print handily. And, ideally, also cross-correlate.

I think we’re stuck with PDF for a while, but even there I can build PDF-for-screen that is radically different than PDF-for-print. The screen target PDF is also intrinsically closer to the reflowable form. The print target PDF is the prettiest by far.

By: Steven Jarvis

Steven Jarvis — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:57:24 +0000

Well, you don’t HAVE to sell it via Amazon or Apple. I’d think for a specialty print product (and I’ve got some experience in the field), PDF distribution is a good choice (for electronic distribution). You can sell through IPR, RPGnow, Lulu — and, most importantly — through your own site (it’s dead easy, and maximizes your profit). You don’t have to get into the Amazon or Apple eco-systems to sell RPG content.

As far as reading that PDF book goes (printing aside), you can view it on any computer (desktop or laptop) and you’ll be able to view it on the iPad and the Amazon Kindle DX.

Hell, I’m getting an iPad mainly so I can read PDFs in a larger form factor, especially RPG books. In color, too. The Amazon Kindle DX can display PDFs at something like full size, too (though in black and white).

Reading nearly any sort of formatted reading content (esp. with graphics and tables and whatnot)on the iPhone (or other smartphone) is an exercise in frustration, even though you CAN do it.

Epub will evolve, and perhaps other, similar sorts of “flowed” text content will emerge, but PDF is still a viable and useful format, even in the New World computing age of the iPad.

Don’t give up on it yet.
I’m looking forward to having Diaspora on my iPad one day soon (in addition to the print version I already own). Deluge, too!