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What version of PDF for ebooks? Bill McCoy answers
January 27, 2010 | 8:37 am
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By Paul Biba
Bill McCoy discusses this at great length on this Books 2.0 blog. Here’s the fist little bit:
I often receive queries like:
I am converting the Word file of my book to a PDF (a bit later in epub). To be read on as many devices as possible, is PDF or PDF/A better? PDF/A-1a or PDF/A-1b?
This may seem like a rather nit-picky question, and the bottom-line answer is straightforward: stick to PDF/A to maximize portability, and the lower conformance level “b” is fine. But some interesting strategic points are illustrated by the details underlying this answer. …
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Adobe, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Paul Biba, PDF
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Comments:
Is this a trick question??
PDF IS NOT EBOOK. PDF is a format for moving PAGES between computers, and there are NO pages in eBook’s. (I know, there are pagebreaks, but thats not the same).
And if you insist that PDF is eBook, then remember that it then follows that PostScript is all so eBook. And I think (hope) we can all agree that PostScript is not eBook.
My understanding is that the ‘A’ in PDF/A stands for ‘archive’ and thus, fonts must be embedded, and encryption and DRM are forbidden.
Also of interest in McCoy’s post is the blame on Apple – the knife-war between Adobe and Apple carries on – and how he manages at times to make encryption and proprietary additions to an open standard seem oh, so attractive. The underlying theme seems to be, ‘that old standard, which I won’t bother identifying as open, is so quaint and archaic! Wouldn’t you all prefer all these shiny new toys Adobe offers (on our proprietary, unstandard, patented, software)?’
I’m looking forward to his follow-up. Maybe he will address some of these issues in a non-salesman manner.
Bill seems to be downplaying the value of “tagged” PDF (PDF/A-1a), based to the fact that most software designed to read tagged PDFs aren’t perfect. (Perfect or no, I read them on my PDA regularly, and have no problems.)
That hardly seems a good reason to dismiss a format designed for full accessibility… rather, it suggests a demand for more reading SW to get its rendering/reading of tagged PDFs right. And with memory being what it is today, I see little reason not to save all PDFs as PDF/A-1a for accessibility, even if they are larger than non-tagged files. I save my files that way, and always will.