Marc Hedlund at O’Reilly summarizes the good things about PDF books:
- They are searchable.
- They are portable.
- They can often be bought and downloaded immediately.
I am still trying to decide what I think about this. In general I prefer to have all articles and reference literature available as PDFs in my digital library, currently organizing them using DevonThink Pro. As computer screens are finally getting bigger, brighter and with higher resolution (even the new MacBook is sporting 1200x800 pixels on the 13 inch screen), it is becoming increasingly more pleasant reading on screen. However, when it comes to books I guess I still prefer to read them in paper format, although being able to search a PDF would certainly come in handy. And I feel a bit lost sitting here in Montreal with all my reference literature in a bookshelf in Oslo.