i find it pretty straightforward, but i've never seen the older style. plus in the digital age its pretty easy to find out what zone you are in and if you aren't sure of a lake theres only a few options it could be.
also for using on your phone, you can go here
https://albertaregulations.ca/fishingregs/ (though for some reason when you click pp1 it actually goes to the pp2 page and then you have to click pp1 there to get to it) and then click a zone and then download the regs for just that zone. sometimes its even separated into rivers/streams and lakes/ponds depending on the zone. so if there is one or two zones you normally use just download those ones and then you dont have to scroll through the entire book every time.