Is eBook format far from mature?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

soft hyphenation....meh....I just left-align and I don't have to worry about it at all!

If I saw a whole bunch of & shy ; in an html file, the first thing I would do is delete them all...that would cut the file size in half...

If you had hyphenation, maybe the right side would not be as ragged.

[Fluribus]

I asked my Kindle if it was immature. It responded, "I know you are but what am I?"

I've created a few Kindle files for my own use. Though a neophyte, I managed to include a linked table of contents, linked notes, and a cover. Why some professional publishing houses can't manage to do the same is a mystery.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you had hyphenation, maybe the right side would not be as ragged.

I don't mind the ragged at all. I would rather have complete words than pausing in the middle. It flows a lot better.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by toddos

On hyphenation, books should be encoded with soft hyphenation hints. Programmatically figuring out hyphenation is expensive, and can lead to bad hyphenation if the implementation does not have a robust enough dictionary (especially when dealing with proper names or made up fantasy terms). However if typesetters/editors/authors/editing software would insert soft hyphens appropriately, software would only need to understand the character and render it appropriately.

Yes, Or the format should specify which hyphenation method that must be used. The format also need to be able to include things like hyphenation-dictionaries. So it is the format that specifies what the rendererer must do.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

To insert soft hyphens is just going to make a mess. Plus, it will blow up the size of the eBooks. There's no reason not to just use the Tex hyphenation routine.

It works less well for other languages than English but even for English you need for each document to specify soft hyphens for a set of words. But requiring a reader to use the TeX algorithm is actually a thing that is in the format. So by adding that requirement you are changing the format (the format also includes things like how the format should be interpreted).