🚀 go-pugleaf

A text book that I am using is available in both print and electronic 
editions. The electronic editions are made available through a website 
called CourseSmart.com. The texts are provided to students at 
approximately 50% of list price. The book must be viewed through a web 
browser. The publisher's are hoping to cut out or reduce the used book 
market. They probably get more per book than they do selling through the 
traditional market and give the student value of a book that would cost 
less than their purchase and trade-in value of the book.

You might ask what this has to do with typography. I'm reading through 
the electronic edition for a course I teach. I'm noticing that several 
of the words are missing letters. I curse and complain about the poor 
copy editing for the electronic edition. After going through the book 
more extensively, I find out that there is a pattern to the missing 
letters! The ligatures are missing!!! There are other typographical 
issues with spacing around n-dashes, etc.

The publishers could of course all be using pdfs with DRM, and some are. 
But CourseSmart is providing services to many of the big name academic 
publishers. For this to succeed, the publisher will either have to give 
up having the print editions look good. At the moment they do not seem 
intelligent enough to know that their published content looks like heck.

...Mike