Ugh. I hate living through transitional periods.
Anyway, I was an early adopter of the Kindle (a month after the Kindle
1 came out; pre-ordered the Kindle 2 when it was announced) and on the
whole, I've been very happy. In (by now) hundreds of books, I've had
no formatting problems save two. One edition of Jane Austen's
"Persuasion" was absolutely awful--the lines were so oddly formatted
that it was like reading bad poetry instead of some of the best prose
in English. As it happens, I'm now reading the second clinker--a Kate
Atkinson novel with an average of two egregiously hyphenated words per
Kindle page. You wouldn't think that would be so bothersome, but a
wrongly hyphenated word in the middle of a sentence (not as part of
the wraparound) stops the eye and irritates mightily. FWIW, I usually
read in the default size type.
I have also learned that the "free" books are full of annoying typos,
the result of their volunteer staffing. I search through the offered
editions to see if I can find a Penguin or other well-known publisher
and pay a few bucks instead of getting the book for free. It's worth
it to me to get a typo-free book. I appreciate the efforts of the
Gutenberg Movement, or whatever it's called, but typos drive me up the
wall.
Thanks for asking, Owen.
Pamela
On Mar 17, 2010, at 12:56 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
I'm really starting to like digital book reading, at least on
devices like the kindle, and hopefully the iPad. But I was appalled
at the number of formats!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats
I'd say we're in for a rough ride for a while.
On my laptop, pdf and djvu reign supreme. I have a very few epub
books, and one .chm.
A key feature that early readers was line wrapping: letting the view
change with larger fonts, for example. Very important on the kindle.
This may all be unnecessary on the iPad, just possibly pdf will
still be boss.
What experiences do you have with ebooks?
-- Owen
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