Quote:
Originally Posted by SensualPoet
Yah, now that we have the ability to change font size; and in some cases "word per line" which alters margins or font family; I'm hungry for more. 
Is it really so hard to add the control: full justify vs ragged right vs "as shipped"?
Or for spacing between paragraphs: remove a line vs add a line vs "as shipped"?
Or for line spacing: more vs less vs "as shipped"?
Having access to these minor tweaks would go a LONG way to solving almost all the inept, thoughtful or plain bloody-minded formatting that passes for "commercial grade".
And, yes: strictly "on device" tweaks -- I have NO desire to ever even consider touching the actual file under the hood. |
I agree that users having the ability to set the formatting for their ebooks is the best way to deal with many of issues concerning ebooks (justification, fonts, spacing, and so on). With books on paper we had to simply take whatever was offered since it had to be one-size-fits-all (about the only available variation were some large print books).
But this is not the case with ebooks, which should be able to be adjusted by each user to suit his/her preferences. As an example, I prefer my main paragraphs to be ragged right (due to relatively large font I use along with the width of my ereader screen), with approximately one line of space after each paragraph. Due to the small number of words on each line, full justification wouldn't look very good on my reader and would affect its readability for me.
As I mentioned before, the book formatter should have the responsibility to designate what the different parts of an ebook are (main body, headings, section breaks, interruption marks, and so on). A standard for naming the parts of an ebook would be a great help in this matter, and I think that basic HTML would be a good starting point.
However, the actual ebook formatting should be left up to the end user within the limitations of the ereader device itself, since no one ebook formatting guide will suit all readers. My own preference is that the ebook format itself contains no formatting at all, much like CSS is supposed to contain all of the formatting for an HTML page with no formatting code in the HTML itself.
I think the best way to handle formatting on the device itself is to have a collection of initial settings, but any/all of those settings can be overridden by a collection of user-created style sheets (with the ability to set any of them as a default), with each style sheet containing all the settings needed to format your ebooks the way that you want.
Just my opinions, thanks for reading.