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For many, the point of a PDF is that it appears the same way in all contexts. For device-dependent rendering, we have HTML.
by ISL 6y ago
For many, the point of a PDF is that it appears the same way in all contexts. For device-dependent rendering, we have HTML.
- emteycz 6y agoSadly no one really publishes books as HTML.
- kevincox 6y agoAren't the most popular ebook formats based on HTML?
- munk-a 6y agoThey do, they just don't end up being called books. I'm a big fan of http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/
- matt_f 6y agoThat's awesome stuff there
- svachalek 6y agoNot sure if this is sarcastic but FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats (spoiler, most of them are HTML/CSS)
- emteycz 6y agoMost books I saw were epub and pdf. They say epub is some XML, ok. But I don't see how the number of existing HTML based formats is relevant
- barumi 6y ago> They say epub is some XML, ok. Epub is HTML and CSS bundled in a zip file following a specific directory tree layout and containing a few metadata files. Epub 3 is HTML5. Open LibreOffice, create a doc, save it as Epub, and unzip the file. See for yourself.
- emteycz 6y agoThat's cool, thanks!
- mattnewton 6y agoLots of books (in major digital bookstores like ibooks) are published as "epub" which is basically html.
- ebg13 6y ago> For device-dependent rendering, we have HTML. It does not sound like the goal is device-dependent rendering, though. This is exactly parallel to Reader Mode, which is a temporary user toggle. The goal of PDF is still to produce documents that mirror print-ready layouts, something that HTML has never really accomplished. Whether you want to consume the documents that way will now be up to you.
- tshaddox 6y agoIt's not crazy to have a device-independent presentational document that also contains enough data to enable some device-dependent rendering of its text and media contents.
- coldtea 6y agoThat would be the case if a PDF was solely used for print. In the digital realm though, a PDF should also be accessible to screenreaders for the blind, people with sight problems (increased fonts, contrast), dyslexia, etc. Those already require alternative representations. And of course nothing bad about having the best of both worlds! A format that is pixel perfect when you want it too, and adaptable for easier reading when you don't.
- citizenkeen 6y agoI read a boatload of 2 column PDFs on my phone. Liquid Mode has been on PDF Reader on Android for... it feels like a year now? And it's fantastic. Without it I have to constantly pinch and zoom and swipe to the upper right to start a new column, etc. I hate PDFs, but if I want to read a document I've stored in print fidelity from the 80s on my phone, Liquid is rock solid.
- yeellow 6y agoWhich android pdf reader has it?
- Ayesh 6y agoNot OP. Xiaomi MIUI bundles WPS office, which has a "mobile view" for PDFs. It's far from perfect, but it can single-column some multi-column PDFs. Some PDFs, like restaurant PDFs are downright butchered though.
- virgilp 6y agoI would guess Adobe's? Or otherwise it's not "Liquid Mode" but a similar feature...
- yeellow 6y agoAccording to the article Adobe reader for Android got this feature recently. I tried it and I am disappointed. Maybe OP was talking about reflow mode that indeed was accessible in many pdf readers, but for technical papers (math) it was useless.
- snowwrestler 6y agoThis is kind of funny to me since what is now the iOS Core Graphics framework started out life as a PDF rendering engine.
- unicornporn 6y ago> For device-dependent rendering, we have HTML. Say that to those who create PDF files for things that should be web pages. That behavior is not going to stop anytime soon.