[mattkrause]

You're thinking about this too technically.

As an engineer, I am totally willing to believe that the EPub format itself is capable of producing gorgeous, reflowable documents that would knock Edward Tufte's socks off with their design. As a reader though, I've also been disappointed. I don't really care that a book could have been authored better. I want nicely rendered math and I don't want random

line brea

ks

and other ug-li-ness that makes me squint and scroll.

One reliable way to avoid that is to just get a PDF instead. This may be a historical accident. The PDF formatting is probably closer to the print layout, which is most publishers' core competency. Maybe the tools are better, or the layout staff are just better trained on them. Maybe it's the reader, rather than the document. Regardless, I'm going to be reading it on something paper-shaped (and often, sized) so it's barely even a tradeoff.

[aasasd]

I'm thinking technically because I want PDF out and HTML/epub in. If authors or publishers have trouble with producing HTML/epub, I'd like to hear about that too. Ironically, when I had surprises with amateur-made epubs of e.g. SICP, alternative releases in actual HTML were better.

(Btw, I'm told that PDFs of Tufte suck and the only way to read him is on paper.)

> I'm going to be reading it on something paper-shaped (and often, sized) so it's barely even a tradeoff

Just as I wrote at the beginning of the thread: “buy a special device to read this format”.