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If You're an Ebook Publisher ...
December 18, 2005
I've recently bought a few ebooks, plus received a few review copies, as well. (I know, I know - I have several reviews that are long overdue plus reviews of all these latest products. "Reviews" is at the very top of my list for this blog for 2006)
Anyway, I just wanted to post a little tip for ebook publishers, from the consumer side of the fence, so to speak.
When you pretty-up your PDF files, they look mighty nice on my monitor. But I'm one of those people who just don't get quite the same warm and cozy feeling out of reading an ebook on screen as I do holding an actual print copy in my hands. No, not even if I load it up on my very small, very light laptop. I'm a printed materials kind of gal when it comes to reading.
And I've been noticing there's a real trend among ebook publishers to pretty-up their ebook pages. And I really really wish the trend would stop.
At the very least, if you're going to do it, then please don't disable the "copy" function, because when I open up a prettified ebook with a nice colorful (read: ink-consuming) border or header on every single page, the first thing I try to do is select all the text, copy it and paste it into Word so that I can fulfill my need to hold your nice book in my hands without using up all my ink.
That's my personal tip for the day. Now I'm off to read several ebooks. Printed out. And yes, I'm still sighing over those borders and the ink I just used up ...
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Posted by BJ at 12:12 AM in Miscellaneous | Permalink
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Comments
I am another printed material kind of gal ;)I spend enough hours on the computer as it is. I like being able to take the ebook on the go, thats when I get in most of my reading.
I too have several reviews I need to get a jumpstart on... so much to do, not enough hours in the day.
Posted by: Chrissie | Dec 18, 2005 1:40:08 AM
Hey BJ,
I'm one of those guilty ebook publishers, but I try not to use bold colours which require large amounts of ink.
But, since I'm also a printed ebook kind of girl (I can show you a binder of printed ebooks that would scare you into next Sunday) and I've actually developed a very good routine:
1. Set printer level to 'draft' or 'quick print' mode
2. Turn on black in (if it contains a lot of pictures which would drain my colour ink quickly)
3. Use front and back printing so I can conserve paper (and space in that binder).
I just recently learned about a new bit of software (http://www.inksaver.com/) and plan to test it out - hopefully it works well.
Now, off to finish reading several ebooks that I've not had a chance to read either LOL.
Posted by: Teli | Dec 18, 2005 12:40:05 PM
Teli, your ebook just has a nice faded THIN border. You're definitely not one of the culprits - after all, I do like things nicely laid out, too, and those types of borders help.
I have read ebooks which are printed on an entire colored background - those are the worse and I just don't print them out at all. And when I sit to read them, I think to myself, "this better be REALLY good" :)
I use Fineprint so I get two pages per page. (You can download it at http://www.fineprint.com/index.html - the download is for the free trial version that doesn't expire. You can buy the software, which will get rid of the line of advertising at the bottom of the page).
Chrissie, those reviews definitely pile up, don't they? I have resolved to get to them in January, though - I have stuff I bought before the summer that needs to have a review written up!
Posted by: BJ | Dec 18, 2005 1:39:55 PM
If you have a full version of Acrobat, you can actually crop the borders off as long as there isn't any important print on them.
I tend to read all the pdfs I get on my PDA, so the images are shrunk to negligible size even if I don't crop them out.
Wendy
Posted by: Wendy | Dec 22, 2005 11:32:50 PM
