Hi everyone, I'm mostly just a passive observer of the incessant flame wars on this list, but I do have a small contribution to make tonight. There are mainly 4 things I'd like to say: 1) Kudos to Bowerbird for being so obstinate, notwithstanding Marcello's funny collection of quotes (my site is intended to focus on quotes, good as well as atrocious ones, so I really appreciated that webpage) 2) Bowerbird, as of right now, has zero creditibility in my eyes. :-o Why? Because you simply *can't* be a proponent of ZML, which is supposed to stand for zero (zero!) markup, while contributing to this mailing list in such an obnoxious manner as Bowerbird does. I mean his unspeakably ugly HTML emails. Breaking news for Bowerbird, in case he hasn't noticed this after all these years: HTML in discussion mailing lists is an abomination, and a symptom of the worst kind of shoddy amateurism, ignorance, arrogance and/or narcissism on the part of the contributor. Everyone on this list submits their posts in the standard, nice plain-text -- but not the most vociferous proponent of *zero* markup! So, Bowerbird, please just stop. If you will choose to continue flooding this list with those obnoxious HTML-formatted emails, my only conclusion from that would be that you don't even know how to disable HTML in your email editor -- and that likely isn't the image that a *programmer* would like to cultivate about themselves. As a European, I was always surprised why there are so many jokes about AOL users on the Internet; AOL has never played a big role here in Europe; but I trust that Bowerbird, through his obstinacy in holding on to obnoxious HTML in discussion emails, doesn't aspire to become *the* explanation for the motive behind all those "AOL user" jokes! :-D It's not only that HTML emails are extremely ugly in all circumstances other than newsletters, ads, or congratulatory messages -- but as AOL produces them, they apparently also *constantly* break the standard threading of messages from this list. Bowerbird, please *stop* and employ some decent email software, for the love of the almighty. It's just horrible to see that, whenever anyone else says something on this list, their messages get properly threaded (on my iPad and iPhone) -- but whenever Bowerbird joins the debate in that execrable HTML style, this completely explodes a thread to a thousand pieces, so that it's hard to see who's talking about what, in reaction to whom. 3) One practical contribution to the current BB converter debate from me. Although I haven't tried Bowerbird's converter yet, I have seen Jane and others mention "curly quotes". As a professional translator I'd just like to make everyone, and especially the software creator Bowerbird, aware of what a tricky subject curly quotes are. Every language has its own conventions for curly quotes. So, in case Bowerbird intends for the converter to be able to handle non-English files, too, he will also need to pay attention to the various shapes of curly quotes in the various languages. For example, curly quotes in English go “like this”, but in many European languages such as German or my native Slovak, curly quotes go „like this“, which is totally different from English. And let's not even mention French texts, where quotation marks have approximately « this shape ». 4) Just like HTML in emails is an abomination, so is PDF when talking about e-books. I completely agree with James Adcock that PDF should be completely disregarded in the discussions of e-books. By all means, there should be *converters* allowing for any PDF file to be easily converted into EPUB, MOBI, etc., and such free and extremely easy-to-use tools already are available (see this great free webpage: www.2epub.com ). I assure everyone that the *only* reason why some people download and/or produce e-books in the PDF format is because they don't know any better -- the main reason is their ignorance, and nothing else, because no one in their sane mind would prefer an unwieldy format imprisoned in a fictitious paper-bound unverse, over a free-flowing format such as EPUB, MOBI, or even HTML; and that applies not only to smartphone screens but also to larger devices such as the iPad. I read e-books on my Kindles (small & DX), the iPad, and the iPhone every single day -- but the only use I've ever found for PDFs is when reading comics which are, basically, nothing but a series of pictures, for which purpose PDF seems ideal. But for *text*-based files? No way! :-p -- Yours, Alex. www.aboq.org [processed by "The Bat!", Version 4.2.10.12]