Quote:
Originally Posted by mnha
On the device side: limited support for proper microtypography, not even trying to avoid cardinal sins like widows and orphans.
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eBook typography rules and controls belong in the reading app, not in the file format, simply because the file knows nothing of the rendering device (Screen size, resolution, aspect, etc).
A good reading app *should* have embedded algorithmic rules for white space, line spacing, widows/orphans, and even formatting style (Via templates). But that stuff is *hard* to code. So, at best, we get hyphenation and user-set margins and spacing and at worse none of the above or one-size fits all typography.
Going back to the days of the now-deprecated but still mourned MS Reader app we can find better embedded typographic rules than in most modern reading apps.
Now, that is just the theoretical typographical purist critique.
The real world reality is that mainstream consumers don't care about typographical issues as long as they can set reasonable font sizes and the available font families aren't aggresively ugly.
For the ebook market of today, the formats are mre than adequate and the reading apps acceptable. There might be an opportunity for one of the payers to gain a minor competitive advantage by offering quality dynamic typography in their reading app but impact is likely so small there are higher-priorities at Amazon and Apple.
What we have isn't perfect but it's good enough for the market.
