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I'm not sure what the alternative is supposed to be. ePub is reflowable, fine, but it absolutely chokes on placing images. At least with PDF's, I get the book i

I'm not sure what the alternative is supposed to be. ePub is reflowable, fine, but it absolutely chokes on placing images. At least with PDF's, I get the book in a form that was designed by a human being to be read by a human being.

app4soft 6y ago
> ePub is reflowable, fine, but it absolutely chokes on placing images. To be honest, ePub is based on HTML5 markup. So, you could place image in right place in your ePub book in same way as you place images on your website.
- FakeRemore 6y ago
  > So, you could place image in right place in your ePub book in same way as you place images on your website. I've never seen an ePub with images where it looked anywhere as good as the PDF version. It's generally a mess.
  - diehunde 6y ago
    Agree. Also the code snippets are mess sometimes too.
aasasd 6y ago
What particular image placing complexity do you need? And why?
- FakeRemore 6y ago
  I read a fuckton of papers and non-fiction literature with images. ePub simply isn't useable in these cases. If I'm reading something with no images or graphs or anything, then fine. I'll use ePub, otherwise, no.
  - aasasd 6y ago
    Alas this doesn't answer my question in any way.
    - FakeRemore 6y ago
      It does, actually. No ePub I've seen places the images in between text in a satisfying way. PDF's are designed in a certain layout to account for images and keep that design no matter what I'm viewing it on.
      - aasasd 6y ago
        Your comments are like an old Russian joke that can be very approximately translated as such: — Oranges are better than bananas! — But how? How are they better?! — Better than bananas!
        FakeRemore 6y ago
        How is that helpful? Go bother somebody else. You obviously don't read many PDF textbooks or you wouldn't be treating me so rudely.
  - Tagbert 6y ago
    How are those images supposed to be placed? In what way do ePub documents not match this? Looking for specific complaints, please
- phaus 6y ago
  He's talking about it from the perspective of a user of an ebook reading app. He might not know what the problem is. The point is he shouldn't have to know or care what the technical issue is. He's trying to read a paper and when he reads an epub version it usually looks like shit. This is a usability issue. It might be possible to make properly formatted epubs. However, from his experience most authors aren't making properly formatted epubs, so using epub isn't an option for him. I've experienced the same quality issue with Epubs. It has been probably 5 years since I've tried reading one, so maybe they have gotten better. Can you give an example of a freely available Epub with proper image placement? I think part of the issue is that people subconsciously expect ebooks to look like they would expect print books to look. That's not all nostalgia. One of the reasons print books are formatted the way they are is because over centuries of tweaking designs people figured out a near optimal way to present a combination of images and text. You could create print books that mimic the look of the average reflowed EPUB text, but it would look terrible because it doesn't benefit from having an intelligently designed layout.
  - aasasd 6y ago
    > Can you give an example of a freely available Epub with proper image placement? My telepathy isn't so good today, so I'm still not getting the signal on what ‘proper’ means here, and thus the example isn't coming. Maybe tomorrow, I guess, if the chakras clean up or something.
    - phaus 6y ago
      You're clearly either not interested in or not capable of taking part in a conversation where you aren't needlessly condescending so tomorrow you can save yourself the effort.
    - mattkrause 6y ago
      Functional and aesthetically pleasing? It's one of those "you'll know it when you see it" things, but grab any decently typeset book or paper. The illustrations, diagrams, and tables are the right size and shape to ensure the details are legible, without wasting a ton of space. They are placed at pertinent locations in the text, usually near the first or major mention of related topic. There's a nice boundary between the text and illustration, so you can tell which is which (again, without wasting a ton of space). If there are multiple illustrations, they're laid out in a sensible way so that one or two lines of text don't appear--and get lost--between them.

app4soft 6y ago

> ePub is reflowable, fine, but it absolutely chokes on placing images. To be honest, ePub is based on HTML5 markup. So, you could place image in right place in your ePub book in same way as you place images on your website.

FakeRemore 6y ago
> So, you could place image in right place in your ePub book in same way as you place images on your website. I've never seen an ePub with images where it looked anywhere as good as the PDF version. It's generally a mess.
- diehunde 6y ago
  Agree. Also the code snippets are mess sometimes too.

aasasd 6y ago

What particular image placing complexity do you need? And why?

FakeRemore 6y ago
I read a fuckton of papers and non-fiction literature with images. ePub simply isn't useable in these cases. If I'm reading something with no images or graphs or anything, then fine. I'll use ePub, otherwise, no.
- aasasd 6y ago
  Alas this doesn't answer my question in any way.
  - FakeRemore 6y ago
    It does, actually. No ePub I've seen places the images in between text in a satisfying way. PDF's are designed in a certain layout to account for images and keep that design no matter what I'm viewing it on.
    - aasasd 6y ago
      Your comments are like an old Russian joke that can be very approximately translated as such: — Oranges are better than bananas! — But how? How are they better?! — Better than bananas!
      - FakeRemore 6y ago
        How is that helpful? Go bother somebody else. You obviously don't read many PDF textbooks or you wouldn't be treating me so rudely.
- Tagbert 6y ago
  How are those images supposed to be placed? In what way do ePub documents not match this? Looking for specific complaints, please
phaus 6y ago
He's talking about it from the perspective of a user of an ebook reading app. He might not know what the problem is. The point is he shouldn't have to know or care what the technical issue is. He's trying to read a paper and when he reads an epub version it usually looks like shit. This is a usability issue. It might be possible to make properly formatted epubs. However, from his experience most authors aren't making properly formatted epubs, so using epub isn't an option for him. I've experienced the same quality issue with Epubs. It has been probably 5 years since I've tried reading one, so maybe they have gotten better. Can you give an example of a freely available Epub with proper image placement? I think part of the issue is that people subconsciously expect ebooks to look like they would expect print books to look. That's not all nostalgia. One of the reasons print books are formatted the way they are is because over centuries of tweaking designs people figured out a near optimal way to present a combination of images and text. You could create print books that mimic the look of the average reflowed EPUB text, but it would look terrible because it doesn't benefit from having an intelligently designed layout.
- aasasd 6y ago
  > Can you give an example of a freely available Epub with proper image placement? My telepathy isn't so good today, so I'm still not getting the signal on what ‘proper’ means here, and thus the example isn't coming. Maybe tomorrow, I guess, if the chakras clean up or something.
  - phaus 6y ago
    You're clearly either not interested in or not capable of taking part in a conversation where you aren't needlessly condescending so tomorrow you can save yourself the effort.
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    Functional and aesthetically pleasing? It's one of those "you'll know it when you see it" things, but grab any decently typeset book or paper. The illustrations, diagrams, and tables are the right size and shape to ensure the details are legible, without wasting a ton of space. They are placed at pertinent locations in the text, usually near the first or major mention of related topic. There's a nice boundary between the text and illustration, so you can tell which is which (again, without wasting a ton of space). If there are multiple illustrations, they're laid out in a sensible way so that one or two lines of text don't appear--and get lost--between them.