I love the convenience of ebooks and I enjoy reading on my tablet, but I really dislike the eyestrain that often accompanies it. This is why I prefer to read a book in epub format because I can adjust the background colour, increase the font size, or switch over to nightmode. PDF books don’t allow this sort of customisation and my eyes are currently suffering for it.
Then why not just read epubs? I generally do, but most of the books I’ve read recently come from Reader’s Favorite, and the format depends on what the authors have uploaded. Converting books can sometimes take a while and I prefer to spend my time reading the actual book rather than waiting for it to convert.
My burning eyes have compelled me to write this post in order to enlighten authors on how and why PDF files are problematic as ebooks.
PDF books are great facsimiles of print books, but this is precisely why they suck as ebooks. Font sizing that works great on paper just doesn’t translate to a screen because most PDF files are formatted to represent an A4 sized page. My screen is 7 inches. You can only zoom in on the page so much before you cut off part of it so most PDFs force you to choose between squinting at your screen or constantly swiping pages from side to side as you read them in pieces. This is not satisfying and it soon becomes downright annoying.
The worst part of reading PDFs, however, is that glaring white background. Even if I put my screen brightness right down, it still kills me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I did most of my reading when the sun was out but I don’t. I read in the evenings and at odd hours of the early morning when I can’t sleep.
Yet another point of contention is the badly converted PDF. There is no excuse for files that have random changes in font occurring several times on a page. Check your work, and then double check it.
If you’re going to distribute PDF files as ebooks then please, please, set your page sizes a bit smaller or make the body font a point or two larger. For the love of pizza and bacon, consider your poor reader’s eyes.
Then why not just read epubs? I generally do, but most of the books I’ve read recently come from Reader’s Favorite, and the format depends on what the authors have uploaded. Converting books can sometimes take a while and I prefer to spend my time reading the actual book rather than waiting for it to convert.
My burning eyes have compelled me to write this post in order to enlighten authors on how and why PDF files are problematic as ebooks.
PDF books are great facsimiles of print books, but this is precisely why they suck as ebooks. Font sizing that works great on paper just doesn’t translate to a screen because most PDF files are formatted to represent an A4 sized page. My screen is 7 inches. You can only zoom in on the page so much before you cut off part of it so most PDFs force you to choose between squinting at your screen or constantly swiping pages from side to side as you read them in pieces. This is not satisfying and it soon becomes downright annoying.
The worst part of reading PDFs, however, is that glaring white background. Even if I put my screen brightness right down, it still kills me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I did most of my reading when the sun was out but I don’t. I read in the evenings and at odd hours of the early morning when I can’t sleep.
Yet another point of contention is the badly converted PDF. There is no excuse for files that have random changes in font occurring several times on a page. Check your work, and then double check it.
If you’re going to distribute PDF files as ebooks then please, please, set your page sizes a bit smaller or make the body font a point or two larger. For the love of pizza and bacon, consider your poor reader’s eyes.
An accurate depiction of how I feel when I must read a PDF
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