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Man Eating Duck · 09-27-2012, 10:17 AM

I produce epubs with a custom CSS file, which I am generally happy with. I use relative font sizes for everything. I specify most things in a body definition, and override them for a host of different h, p, and span classes.

However, I tend to specify a bit smaller body text font (which is the base for all other sizes), between 0.8 and 0.9em. This is because some e-ink devices, like older Sony Readers and various no-brand readers, have a limited choice of font size adjustments, especially in the lower end of the scale. The prs-650 at the largest size will display around 20 words per page, while the gaps between the smallest sizes are fairly large.

I feel that a somewhat smaller base size gives the reader a better chance of finding a comfortable size. In software readers I have never had an issue with adjusting to a perfect font size. We embed Deja Vu serif in most books if that's relevant, this is because a lot of our books contain international glyphs, we're not living in ASCII-land, so default fonts don't suffice

What do the gurus think? Is it bad to specify other base sizes than 1em, or is it acceptable to use it as a workaround for limitations in some devices?

09-27-2012, 10:17 AM	#1
Man Eating Duck Addict Posts: 254 Karma: 69786 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Oslo, Norway Device: Kobo Aura, Sony PRS-650	Epub - best practice for base font size? I produce epubs with a custom CSS file, which I am generally happy with. I use relative font sizes for everything. I specify most things in a body definition, and override them for a host of different h, p, and span classes. However, I tend to specify a bit smaller body text font (which is the base for all other sizes), between 0.8 and 0.9em. This is because some e-ink devices, like older Sony Readers and various no-brand readers, have a limited choice of font size adjustments, especially in the lower end of the scale. The prs-650 at the largest size will display around 20 words per page, while the gaps between the smallest sizes are fairly large. I feel that a somewhat smaller base size gives the reader a better chance of finding a comfortable size. In software readers I have never had an issue with adjusting to a perfect font size. We embed Deja Vu serif in most books if that's relevant, this is because a lot of our books contain international glyphs, we're not living in ASCII-land, so default fonts don't suffice What do the gurus think? Is it bad to specify other base sizes than 1em, or is it acceptable to use it as a workaround for limitations in some devices? Last edited by Man Eating Duck; 09-27-2012 at 10:30 AM.