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Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

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Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#101

Post by freeone3000 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #66
Tepix wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's the opposite. Whenever i have the choice, i want EPUB, not PDF. The problem with PDFs is that you don't have a device that is the same size as the original page size in most cases.

One question: Why do people make PDFs in A4 format? Wouldn't it make better sense to start making them in A5 or A6, so that they could be better read on e-readers, phones, and on part of a computer screen (which is landscape oriented)?

PDFs are in Letter (rarely A4) format, quite simply, to be printed on Letter paper :) The computer screen view is secondary.

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#102

Post by onetokeoverthe »

spookie wrote: post #97
wakeupcall wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some months ago I wanted to format/print some documents, and given the existing tooling I had I decided to try the html->pdf route. I fully agree is a shitshow. The way things break across pages is hard to fix even when hand-tuning the html itself (not just by working it around with css) to avoid content being cut across margins and pages no matter what. I've found chrome to be "less bad", but still unusable. Column…

Paper quality in general has seen quite a decline as well.

Suggestions for better quality paper providers?

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#103

Post by pwg »

pseingatl wrote: post #45
cratermoon wrote: post #4

Maybe the reason we're still stuck with LaTeX and PDFs because ebook software can't be bothered to implement decent typesetting.

PDF's are size agnostic, by the way. We think of them as being restricted to A4 or letter paper, but you can generate a pdf of almost any size.

The PDF specification is size agnostic.

A given, created, PDF, is fixed to whatever size it was created to represent.

Acrobat claims to be able to "reflow" some PDF's, but whatever it is doing is more black magic voodoo than anything else, given how text layout is represented inside the PDF format.

The text layout becomes (essentially) a stream of instructions to "move current point to 123,456" and "place this text at current point". And the numerical values used are tied directly to the page size and internal "point size" used by the PDF writing software. I.e, the text is simply "physically positioned" on a virtual x,y canvas.

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#105

Post by Izkata »

dotancohen wrote: post #36
Izkata wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But without moving the paragraph up, there wouldn't be text there, just a big empty area.

As the author of the fine article states, that is preferable to the orphaned heading.

The article says it's better to have blank space instead of the header, not next to the header.

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#106

Post by grecy »

benmanns wrote: post #38

Most eBooks are produced by creating a new InDesign ebook document from the existing InDesign print document. Then you fiddle with a bunch of stuff to make it look right (removing the forced line breaks and such you did to get the print document looking how you want it, etc). That's then exported to ePub, which is a zip of some HTML, CSS, images, and fonts. The code outputted is absolutely terrible, as one used to ge…

I use pandoc to covert the source latex into an epub, then massage the result a little to tweak a few things. It’s all scripted and works extremely well.

details here: http://theroadchoseme.com/how-i-self-published-a-professiona...

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#107

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

My personal gripe is "non-linear". These are pages you shouldn't be able to see just by flipping page-to-page... ideal for "choose your own adventure" type books.

Apple Books doesn't treat these like pages that display only after you tap/click a link though. They render them as a sort of popup above the regular page, styled differently and even with a different page width, as some sort of endnote-not-at-the-end functionality. If that non-linear page also has a link to tap/click on, too bad. Nothing in the spec even slightly suggests their interpretation of it, and the longer they make it the norm, the more impossible it will become to implement the correct functionality because other book titles will have become dependent on it.

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#108

Post by carlosjobim »

freeone3000 wrote: post #101
carlosjobim wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One question: Why do people make PDFs in A4 format? Wouldn't it make better sense to start making them in A5 or A6, so that they could be better read on e-readers, phones, and on part of a computer screen (which is landscape oriented)?

PDFs are in Letter (rarely A4) format, quite simply, to be printed on Letter paper :) The computer screen view is secondary.

Yes, but today most of them never exit cyberspace. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to consider that instead of printing?

Edit: Also, are there any advantages with large papers like A4/Letter for physical prints, except that you can fit more on a single page?

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#109

Post by SilasX »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #78
carlosjobim wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One question: Why do people make PDFs in A4 format? Wouldn't it make better sense to start making them in A5 or A6, so that they could be better read on e-readers, phones, and on part of a computer screen (which is landscape oriented)?

Adapting PDFs for devices won't save us. HTML, being designed around reflow, had the ultimate solution from day one - and yet we've managed to screw that up so badly it spawned a whole industry sub-specialty of "responsive design". When authors start producing multiple PDF versions for different devices and print, how long until someone gets tired of "extra work" and comes up with "responsive PDFs"? (Also I feel that…

Yes! This is what I keep complaining about! HTML likewise solved accessibility, but then it goes right through the cycle: someone extends it in a way that requires a special reader, then they focus on people with that reader at the expense of everyone else. Unless you stop the cycle from happening, going to a new format doesn't help!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38032832

Re: Pagination widows, or, why I'm embarrassed about my eBook (2023)

#110

Post by PaulHoule »

wakeupcall wrote: post #92
warpspin wrote: post #70

While everyone here seems to talk about the epub angle to the story, there's also simply the deeper story here, that "the web's" handling of paged media and the CSS paged media specs (to which his epub problem is related) is a never ending shitshow. Not only for epubs, for everybody who actually wants to print to real paper, too, ideally with a working cross browser solution. Mistake is largely not in the specs, but…

Some months ago I wanted to format/print some documents, and given the existing tooling I had I decided to try the html->pdf route. I fully agree is a shitshow. The way things break across pages is hard to fix even when hand-tuning the html itself (not just by working it around with css) to avoid content being cut across margins and pages no matter what. I've found chrome to be "less bad", but still unusable. Column…

I thought book quality started going downhill circa 1990.

I am a fan of the old mass market paperbacks. These had a reputation of being low quality books back in the day because they are cheap and not super-durable but I think they are high quality from a Deming point of view because they are made by a process that is highly repeatable. Circa 2000 I thought my 1970s paperbacks were in great shape, but 2010 they were seriously yellowing.

I just looked at my bookshelf and found a '59 James Blish anthology that I bought for 50 cents maybe ten years ago, it is in "poor" condition and will probably crack if I read it without taking great care. Next to that I found a copy of Galbraith's The Affluent Society from 1958 which is perfectly usable except I'd be worried about the cover coming off. A Frank Herbert book from '68 is stained but in great shape other than the cover also being at risk. A '74 Herbert book is a touch discolored but has no problems at all.

(My collection includes not just science fiction of that era but also both self-help and serious books on psychology as well as books about science, politics, social sciences, etc. Government reports about inflation or race relations would be published as mass market paperbacks. You could get Plato and Sartre and Freud and the rest of the Western literary heavyweights)

The construction, materials, process, and such were repeatable enough that they even fail consistently. Not permanent, but 50 years is not bad. The right size to go in a purse or side pocket of a backpack (e.g. part of the loadout of a bibliomaniac who has 12 books in his backpack) I've got to find a good way to reinforce the cover (adhesive tape?)

Those are no longer produced, today it is trade paperbacks. There is wide variation in the dimension, construction, materials and processes for these. You sometimes find a trade paperback that is beautiful, strongly constructed and printed on acid free paper. Others you pay $50 for and the binding breaks the first time you lay the book open on the table.

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