epub format for e23

[ClayDowling]

Here's a vote for no epub or other reflowable technology in SJGames products. I recently purchased a woodworking book in epub format. Convenient, because I can read it on my phone when I'm stuck someplace and waiting. Unfortunately, in a woodworking book the pictures are vitally important, and so is associating them with the correct text. This has not made me best pleased with my purchase, because the pictures are small, hard to read, and there's no way to zoom in.

PDFs from the same publisher, on the same device, let me zoom in, and even without the zoom tend to be easier to read and to view the images. PDF is not without its flaws, but it works better than anything else. I can read even old scanned books like the Space Atlas series on my phone, and enjoy all the cool line art, because it's in PDF. I'd be completely out of luck if that were in epub.

If you're going to insist on using an e-reader, do yourself a favor and insist on using one that is appropriate to the task. If what you really want to read with your reader is PDF documents, an inexpensive reader that doesn't handle PDF is just wasting your money.

[dcarson]

Since SJGames doesn't use DRM I can cut and paste from the pdfs I bought. So on my iPod Touch are cheat sheets with stuff that I expect to need for this game/session. Having a file with the (Dis)Ads text for the ones a particular character has saves looking and reminds me they have them.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Another area where PDFs dominate, and where ePub, Mobi, and other ebook formats don't even appear as a blimp on the radar is catalogs. They traditionally use table heavy layouts, with multiple embedded images and diagrams. You might get a web version, but it's not a single HTML, but a page per product or product series. And I'm not speaking about Ikea catalogs only, I'm speaking about industrial parts catalogs too, as well as almost every catalog out there.

Since epubs are multifile HTML structures (with support for various image formats, etc.), the only reason it makes sense "on the web" but not in ePub is lack of experience with the format, not lack of capability.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

Since epubs are multifile HTML structures (with support for various image formats, etc.), the only reason it makes sense "on the web" but not in ePub is lack of experience with the format, not lack of capability.

Except that for the previous mentioned fact the such layout have a minminum width in which below which the pages brake horribly, unless the force a horizon scrol bar.... which most ePub readers do not support.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

PDFs from the same publisher, on the same device, let me zoom in, and even without the zoom tend to be easier to read and to view the images.

Not to mention tables, a big factor in RPGs. I have Adventures in Oz on both ePub and PDF on my iPad. I loaded the latter after seeing how the former butchered tables, making the product very hard to use.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

Since epubs are multifile HTML structures (with support for various image formats, etc.), the only reason it makes sense "on the web" but not in ePub is lack of experience with the format, not lack of capability.

HTML remains a terrible language for anything requiring complex layout. Tables definitely fall into this category. :/

[Ts_]

Originally Posted by Bruno

HTML remains a terrible language for anything requiring complex layout. Tables definitely fall into this category. :/

I agree on the first part (although that applies less in this context, imho, as a simple layout seems to be one point of epub), but not really on the second. What kind of table from, say, a GURPS book do you have in mind that cannot be done with HTML? In the worst case, it's a static display of a table with fixed sizes and not much more functionality than a vector graphic. But I just don't see what's so bad about that. What functionality are you missing?

Regards
Ts

[Palmer]

Originally Posted by Ts_

What kind of table from, say, a GURPS book do you have in mind that cannot be done with HTML?

The kind where you need a display wider than a couple of inches.

My phone (admittedly a touch on the small side) can display about 40 characters across at it's smallest font size.

Now lets take the melee weapon column header from GURPS Characters.

TL Weapon Damage Reach Parry Cost Weight ST Notes

That's 49 characters, ignoring the fact that most columns have more than one space between the headers, because some items are longer than the header name (like "Throwing Axe" being 6 characters longer than "Weapon") and that spacing makes readability.

So right off the bat, the smallest font size I have available (which my partner physically cannot read) is still insufficient to display one of the most fundamental, core tables in the game. For my partner to be able to read the font, I need to increase it to where it only displays 28 characters per line.

You are confusing software limitations with hardware limitations.

Yes, you can do up the table in HTML. But depending on the screen you display it on, it may not actually display properly

Here's what Throwing Axe would look like at 28 characters per line.

TL  Weapon        Damage    
Reach  Parry  Cost  Weight  ST  Notes
0   Throwing Axe  sw+2 cut  
1      0U     $60   4       11  [1]

That's not usable.

This is my 40 per line micro font

TL  Weapon        Damage    Reach  Parry
Cost  Weight  ST  Notes
0   Throwing Axe  sw+2 cut  1      0U   
$60   4       11  [1]

Still not usable. Worse, in a way.

THAT is why epub doesn't work for RPGs

[Ts_]

Originally Posted by Palmer

The kind where you need a display wider than a couple of inches.

Umm ... doesn't epub HTML have fixed width tables? Sure, there's scrolling, but my argument was about whether epub could format the tables, not whether the display can show the entire table all at once.

PDF certainly isn't more flexible than that. There might be some smart stadard where the reader software can wrap long table lines in a reasonable way, but I don't know what that would be.

Regards
Ts

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Ts_

Sure, there's scrolling,

No there is not. That what we be saying most ePub readers cannot horizontal scroll.