
Ask HN: What file-format(s) do you prefer for highly technical ebooks? - webmaven
Examples would be advanced books (or textbooks) on programming, mathematics, economics, physics, etc.<p>EDIT: Please also mention the reading context (eg. desktop, laptop, smartphone, ereader device, etc.) for your prefered format.
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nobody271
In 2018 there is no question about it. They should be done in HTML.

I have some experience with this subject on my math website
([http://regressionbuddy.com](http://regressionbuddy.com), look at the
appendixes). Having it be adjustable to the screen size while at the same time
presenting the content in an easy to follow way is challenging. But once you
get it right there's no way to beat it.

~~~
mindcrime
It's especially nice if you want to make it interactive. Imagine a math book
written in HMTL and using something like Tangle[1] to create nice interactive
examples.

The downside is that displaying formatted equations on the web is still so
janky. Images suck balls, Mathjax can be slow and dodgy and adds weight to the
page, while browser support for MathML is still not ubiquitous, particularly
since some dumbshit at Google decided to nix MathML support[2] in Chrome.

Seems like there is some effort underway[3] to try and get MathML into
Chromium which would hopefully result in it winding up in Chrome, but there
don't appear to be any guarantees. :-(

[1]: [http://worrydream.com/Tangle/](http://worrydream.com/Tangle/)

[2]: [https://www.cnet.com/news/google-subtracts-mathml-from-
chrom...](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-subtracts-mathml-from-chrome-and-
anger-multiplies/)

[3]: [https://mathml.igalia.com/](https://mathml.igalia.com/)

~~~
nobody271
I really agree with your first point. There is an incredible amount of
potential in web pages as teaching tools. I'd love to see someone make a math
notebook environment for tablets with a stylus. It could pull up a sort of
intellisense as you write (for example first, second, nth derivatives, common
expressions, suggestions for factoring, etc.). It could have graphs. It could
have a reddit like QA section. Really, there are so many unexplored ways of
connecting people who are struggling with a concept with just the information
they need. Who wants to watch a ten minute video to hear about that one
equation three quarters of the way through? Just learn what helps people like
them and offer it up as potential solutions while they are working through
problems.

There is the possibility of pre-endering Mathjax but that seems like it would
be a lot of work.

~~~
mindcrime
_Really, there are so many unexplored ways of connecting people who are
struggling with a concept with just the information they need. Who wants to
watch a ten minute video to hear about that one equation three quarters of the
way through? Just learn what helps people like them and offer it up as
potential solutions while they are working through problems._

Yeah, absolutely. There's still a lot of untapped potential in this area.

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auslegung
I've been reading programming books in PDF on my iPad, not because it's great
but because PDF is (often) the only choice and PDF doesn't play nice on most
readers. I would prefer HTML that an ereader could view and interact with, but
I'm not aware that exists yet.

~~~
webmaven
_> PDF is (often) the only choice and PDF doesn't play nice on most readers_

Yeah, that situation is the one that indirectly prompted this post. I don't
really understand why the EPUB format (or .mobi, or .azw3) hasn't made
significant inroads into technical books.

Print-formatted PDFs are just awful to read on anything but a medium-to-large
monitor.

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ocdtrekkie
I pretty much solely buy DRM-free PDFs. I don't trust anything else. It's a
handy single file format that's stood the test of time for... decades... and
doesn't screw up the presentation of the information.

~~~
webmaven
Do you find that ebook file formats like EPUB, .mobi, and .azw (when obtained
from the publisher, not ones you've converted yourself) screw up the
presentation?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I don't trust that they won't. Things outside the flow of text definitely can
be moved around, and I feel there's value in page references being accurate.

And this lies more on a feel thing: I feel that when you are looking at images
of the printed page (effectively), you are looking at something relatively
legitimate, I know it's an exact copy of the actual book, and that conveys
with it a much more solid sense to me than looking at what might as well be a
text file someone sent you.

That being said, features like table of contents links, search, being able to
copy/paste from the material are huge. I probably wouldn't mind if they
figured out a way to let me look at a page as a PDF and then "zoom in" on
reflowable text on my phone or something. But to me, the material being
presented as intended for print is pretty key, otherwise you might as well
just be on someone's website.

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mindcrime
Given the lack of MathML support in browsers, I'd have to say that as of today
my preferred format is still PDF or Postscript.

~~~
webmaven
MathJax doesn't work for you?

[http://docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/misc/epub.html](http://docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/misc/epub.html)

~~~
mindcrime
It's better than nothing, but I'd prefer native browser support.

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anon49124
PDF and ePub. LaTeX if you want to get fancy and OSS.

