[LINK] Ebooks for government reports?

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Wed Feb 10 14:20:38 AEDT 2010


On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 09:54:47AM +1100, Ivan Trundle wrote:
> > EPUB specifies a way to Zip all the needed components up in one
> > file, so the "book" is self contained, not needing an Internet
> > connection to be read.  This can then be used in place of PDF.
>
> Except that it will never replace PDFs in either the Public Service or
> elsewhere.

"never" is wrong. it won't happen in the short term, but epub or
similar format will completely displace PDFs as the default "electronic
printing" format within a few years.

openoffice will have "export to epub" in no time (if it doesn't
already), same as it has "export to PDF".

Microsoft Word will get it as a third-party add-on, just like it has for
PDF export.


> It's an orphaned format designed for a niche which is too small to
> worry about for most content creators. 

actually, it's not an orphaned format.

it's a format in its infancy, that hasn't even begun to take off yet.

watch what happens after the explosion of ebook readers, tablets, ARM
netbooks, smartphones, and so on that are scheduled to be released by
major and minor manufacturers this year. the ebook market is finally
about to take off.

when ebook readers (or ebook software on netbooks and laptops) are as
common as laptops, reading ebooks for things like reports WILL be the
preferred access method. mostly because it's something that can be read
on the train in to work without lugging around 10 kilos of paper. lots
of public servants and other office workers who have to read such things
as part of their jobs take public transport because parking in cities
is expensive and tends to be more inconvenient than parking near their
local train station (or just getting the tram or bus).

> Annual reports and many other documents produced by people don't suit
> the ePub format,

that makes no sense.  there's nothing you can do in PDF that you can't
do in html or epub.

epub is BETTER suited to reports because the fonts etc scale properly
on whatever device it's being read on - whether that's a 3-4" phone,
a 6-7" ebook reader, 10" tablet, or a full-size laptop or desktop screen.

PDF, OTOH, is pretty much fixed at the paper size (A4, US Letter, etc)
it was created for and becomes unreadable at other sizes, especially
smaller sizes.

> and the ease of making PDFs simply outweighs (by a country mile) the
> difficulty in making and distributing ePubs.

see comments above about "export to ebook" for oo.org and MS Word.

this is inevitable.


> My view? Books, on the other hand, are perfect for ePubs, and will
> continue to grow, with or without the iPad and Kindle et al.

kindle, ipad, etc will survive (both apple and amazon are far too big to
be pushed out of this market)...but they'll be forced to support epub
because no-one wants books (or any other "content") that they can only
read on one brand of device.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>



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