Your point regarding the difference in file size is certainly valid. But remember, I'm not looking to do this for "recreational reading". For recreational reading, Kindle (or any of the many eReaders) are ideal. I have several hundred books in this format and they work quite well.

My intent now is to digitize the remaining sailing references that have not been done. This includes many "how-to" books on topics such as "celestial navigation", "cruising routes", "diesel engine mechanics", "cruising guides", "weather and navigation references", etc. These are filled with graphics (photos, illustrations, etc), which are an absolutely critical part of the book. A PDF is the only effective way to preserve this content. Actually, on my computer, I use a application I've written that displays the book in a web page, similarly to Amazon's previews (but more efficiently). Each page is indexed and searchable, wherein I can search the entire library for a given topic or phrase, which displays thumbnails of the page(s) containing the search string. (I just don't have time to finish scanning the rest of the books.)

While it may be a consideration for some, I really don't care about file size. I have 20, 1TB pocket drives that will go along. This is about 40-80x what the average computer has as total hard disk space. (My 2TB desktop drives will all go into storage.)

Nonetheless, good points for most to consider... thanks.

WanderAimlessly