Room for improvement (highlighting & co.)

[Guest]

Figuring that you might value some feedback, I'd like to take this opportunity to give my two cents' worth and quickly express my disappointment with the ADE software.

The content I purchased so far was intended to start up a library for professional purposes. As the publisher chose to solely rely on ADE, I installed the reader after purchasing the books. After using for the first hour or so, having imported my books, I still kept looking for various functions thinking that I had installed a 'slim' or maybe trial version.

Case in point (and imho the most important shortcoming): editing. In order to get the most out of purchased content, I do not only see it as desirable but rather absolutely necessary to have elementary editing functions such as highlighting, underlining and commenting (on the page, without leaving bookmarks) at one's disposal. It could be done simply, without greatly disturbing the neat look of the software or making it more difficult to use. However, the rudimentary bookmarking function which is implemented currently simply does not do.

Having browsed through this forum beforehand, I am aware that other users requested the same functionality. Answers were encouraging, as requested functions were promised for upcoming new versions. Rather discouraging is the fact, however, that these announcements/statements were made in mid-2008.

For the moment, I decided to not purchase any further e-books or associated reading devices until ADE includes these most basic of functions and thus enables me to work with and store the purchased material in a way that is acceptable. Currently, unfortunately, it is not.

[Guest]

Thank you for your feedback. Just to be clear, you are asking for highlights not to be tied to bookmarks, yes?  If so I would be interesting to hear your reasoning for having the highlights listed with the bookmarks?  The only downside I can think of offhand is that it might create problems finding any bookmarks (without highlights) that you used to mark locations in the forest of your highlights.

[Guest]

I would not link highlights with bookmarks because of the difficulties associated with sorting them later and with displaying the bookmark list. Currently, if I want to highlight, I could set a bookmark without a text - obviously a nightmare in terms of having an organised bookmark list, as this would exactly create that 'forest' you mentioned.

Bookmarks ought to be just that - a referrer to a specific page in the book with a short description of the relevance.

Highlights/underlined text should not be listed with the bookmarks to avoid clutter. They would serve simply as graphical aid to emphasise the most important parts of the text and it might be helpful to create a one-click tool in order to place them (similar to Acrobat). The search function could then contain a check box to limit the search to highlighted/underlined parts or to list highlighted results first. Alternatively/additionally, they could be listed separately, thereby creating a 'virtual excerpt' of the original text with just the passages/paragraphs containing highlights and thus being most relevant to the user (bookmarks could be used as additional headlines?).

This way, it would be possible to work with and 'organise' the text, making relevant information directly visible without creating a huge amount of bookmarks. When reading an industry standard, f.e., the bookmark would help me to find the text dealing with financial derivatives, the highlight then alert me to the fact that this or the other only applies to publicly listed companies - I would need this sort of detail in the bookmarks listing, though.

Also nice, to gather one's thoughts and keep them together with the text, would be an opportunity to leave annotations on a page. Again, these would not be listed with the bookmarks but it would be good to be able to add an emphasis in the search function or even exclusively search meta data.

Of course, all these tags need to stay with the e-book through future versions of the program as well.

Most of what I said here is probably platantly obvious to you and need not be explained; I did so just to avoid confusion about what I mean to be linked/listed with what and to clarify my previous post.

Thank you for your quick reply and Best Regards

--- PS

After looking at a document with a number of graphs/tables printed sideways: It would be great to be able to rotate pages!

[eamillican]

A little late here but I will second (or eighty-fifth) this sentiment.  If I have a physical book I easily add bookmarks and, completely separately, underline and highlight the text.  The current clunky interface really doesn't get the job done (particularly since it lacks even basic underlining).  It makes the ebooks significantly less user friendly than a physical book, and makes it feel like a rip off when publisher's suggest that you will be able to annotate your ebooks.  If the DRM allowed me to view the pdf in any of the basic, functional pdf viewer/editors that are out there then it wouldn't be a big problem but I'm stuck in the DE environment so it would be great if it wouldn't get in the way so much.

[hr_sf]

I will add my "vote" on the inability to highlight text and make annotations in the margins. IMHO, this is absolutely essential for e-books. I will not purchase another e-book that does not allow access to readers that have this feature! I am amazed that for many years now readers have been asking for this from ADE, and it is still not offered!

[Frustrated in AZ]

From what I can see in the thread, you're assuming that ADE should be able

to support functions that would let you interact with the text of an

ebook.

You have to remember that ADE is NOT an editing tool. It's design is to

display ebook text and embedded graphics, and manage a library of ebooks.

ADE is NOT the software that you should be using if you intend to have an

interactive experience with your ebooks.

================

[hr_sf]

The problem is the Goggle e-book that downloaded was “linked to” and only readable by ADE, I assume due to copyright agreements. I do not appear to have any choices.

[Frustrated in AZ]

The copyright agreements are on top of program functions, and in your case,

they may not make things any better. Bluefire Reader, Overdrive, Calibre

and a couple of others might be more flexible, and fit your needs better.

============

[hr_sf]

OK, thanks. I’ll check them out and see if I can read the downloaded file.