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Well... if you actually read the article instead of just the header, you would learn the reason for the need of a portable version.
by xtracto 3y ago
Well... if you actually read the article instead of just the header, you would learn the reason for the need of a portable version.
- emmanueloga_ 3y ago"portable EPUB: an EPUB with additional requirements and recommendations to improve PDF-like portability." IMO epub is fine for fiction but not for any sort of technical material. EPUB docs are slow to reflow and the layout is pretty much always broken in some way, specially when there are tables and graphics involved. PDFs are a lot faster to render and navigate, the fixed page size being one of the reasons.
- wolverine876 3y agoThe OP addresses some of those issues.
- lxgr 3y agoHaving suffered through many PDFs on my phone I’d take slow reflow and sometimes broken layouts over no reflow and guaranteed horizontal scrolling any time.
- auggierose 3y agoNot sure why anyone would want to read PDFs on their phone.
- offices 3y agoImagination error. My phone has hundreds of downloaded PDFs from emails containing things such as tickets, job specs, pseudo-letters, bills, etc. Anything where one might wish to read a Document in a Portable Format.
- auggierose 3y agoYeah, I guess. The thing with these is I don't care about the "quality" of a bill or ticket, it's enough if the tax man / concert venue accept it. Many people advocating for a "better" PDF don't understand the quality aspect of a PDF. I am not willing to compromise on that when reading a book. It beats all other aspects, including the fact that I cannot read it on my phone. Basically, PDF's are a perfect translation of books into the digital medium. Gimmicks and features on top of what PDF can do are fine, but never a replacement, given that books also don't have these features.
- lxgr 3y agoI quite often find interesting research papers during the day that I don’t have time to read in the office, and there’s no stable cell signal on my commute, so it’s in a way the perfect reading environment for these for me. My commute isn’t long enough and often too crowded to warrant pulling out a tablet though. Reading on a single-hand device is ideal, and I prefer physical to physical books for that reason. So why shouldn’t I read research papers the same way? I just want a portable document format for an actually portable device.
- auggierose 3y agoI guess that's one use case! I wouldn't be able to read in such an environment, where I cannot even pull my tablet out.