[texhax] Parchment layout

[James Quirk]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote:

> 
> 
> James Quirk wrote:
> 
> > > Your latter point is also of interest, because I am about
> > > to have a visitor who is very keen to release individual
> > > chapters of a heavyweight textbook in one or more e-formats,
> > > and he too is unconvinced that PDF will necessarily be one
> > > of those.
> 
> > My reservations are not with PDF as a document format,
> > they lie with Adobe embracing the mobile market to the
> > detriment of their more traditional products.
> 
> That is also my visitor's perspective : he sees e-books, Kindles,
> I-pads and the like as the major growth area, and does not
> envisage significant sales to anyone wishing to read a
> beautifully laid out book in PDF format on a good-size screen.
Here one could make an analogy between mass produced sliced bread and 
artisan produced loaves. When the former took off, generations grew up 
never having tasted real bread, and people can't miss what they've never 
had. But in time the pendulum swung back, because a few die hards refused 
to give in and extolled the virtues of the old way of doing things. And I 
think we'll see something similar in electronic publishing. Therefore
I wouldn't write PDF off just yet. 

James
> 
> ** Phil.
> 
>