Kobo Aura HD or Kindle Paperwhite 2013?

[missimpossible]

Oh! I have another question - does the Aura HD allow you to customise the font on sideloaded books to the same extent as Kobo books? How does it deal with footnotes and so on in sideloaded books also?

[meeera]

I spent quite a long period with an Aura HD recently (setting up and training a relative) and I found the fonts crisp, black and very gorgeous. The font weight adjustment feature is something I now wonder how I ever lived without. (And yes it works on sideloaded books.) If you are just looking at an unmodified Avenir Next font or something, it is going to appear "grey" because of the thinness of that particular font. But you don't have to use that font, and if you do, you can adjust its weight to suit.

I know next to nothing about footnote management, sorry (I mostly read novels on my Kobo; complex nonfiction with images and such goes onto the iPad Mini).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

How does it deal with footnotes and so on in sideloaded books also?

There are two answers to that.

If you are sideloading epubs, the footnotes will simply be links to somewhere else in the book. Pressing on the footnote will to take you to it. There will be a "Previous location" link in the bottom menu to go back.

Kobo ePubs, or kepubs, present the start of the footnote in a popup. If you need to see more, one of the buttons takes you to the location the footnote is in the book and then it works as above. Or if the fill note is displayed, you can press cancel to return to the book. Books can be sideloaded as kepubs using calibre and the KoboTouchExtended driver.

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by meeera

I spent quite a long period with an Aura HD recently (setting up and training a relative) and I found the fonts crisp, black and very gorgeous. The font weight adjustment feature is something I now wonder how I ever lived without. (And yes it works on sideloaded books.) If you are just looking at an unmodified Avenir Next font or something, it is going to appear "grey" because of the thinness of that particular font. But you don't have to use that font, and if you do, you can adjust its weight to suit.

I know next to nothing about footnote management, sorry (I mostly read novels on my Kobo; complex nonfiction with images and such goes onto the iPad Mini).

Ah, okay. The advanced font options don't work on sideloads on my Touch so that was why I asked. That was really helpful, thank you

Originally Posted by davidfor

There are two answers to that.

If you are sideloading epubs, the footnotes will simply be links to somewhere else in the book. Pressing on the footnote will to take you to it. There will be a "Previous location" link in the bottom menu to go back.

Kobo ePubs, or kepubs, present the start of the footnote in a popup. If you need to see more, one of the buttons takes you to the location the footnote is in the book and then it works as above. Or if the fill note is displayed, you can press cancel to return to the book. Books can be sideloaded as kepubs using calibre and the KoboTouchExtended driver.

Thanks, this is really useful. It probably won't crop up that often as I don't read much academic non-fiction on my ereader at present anyway, but I was trying to read a sideloaded copy to The Colour of Magic on my Touch recently and the footnotes just didn't work at all, which was why I was asking!

I think I'm still leaning towards the PW2 but I'm not sure. I know that it's probably genuinely going to come down to personal preference but it's a pretty close one. I do think, though, that it's possibly not worth the extra £40 for the Aura HD for what I'll be using it for.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

I was trying to read a sideloaded copy to The Colour of Magic on my Touch recently and the footnotes just didn't work at all, which was why I was asking!

That's interesting - the UK editions of the "Discworld" ebooks don't have any footnotes at all. Who's the publisher of the versions that you have?

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's interesting - the UK editions of the "Discworld" ebooks don't have any footnotes at all. Who's the publisher of the versions that you have?

Huh, that's really weird. I bought it from Amazon on 7 January this year and the publisher is Transworld. I don't know how that would have happened?

[meeera]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

Ah, okay. The advanced font options don't work on sideloads on my Touch so that was why I asked. That was really helpful, thank you

Hang on, I think there may possibly have been a muddle here. I was answering this question:

Oh! I have another question - does the Aura HD allow you to customise the font on sideloaded books to the same extent as Kobo books?

The advanced font option (font weight adjustment) works the same on sideloaded epubs as it does on Kobo kepubs, but it doesn't work on sideloaded fonts without a hack.

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by meeera

Hang on, I think there may possibly have been a muddle here. I was answering this question:



The advanced font option (font weight adjustment) works the same on sideloaded epubs as it does on Kobo kepubs, but it doesn't work on sideloaded fonts without a hack.

Ah, sorry, yes that was what I meant - sorry for the confusion!

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's interesting - the UK editions of the "Discworld" ebooks don't have any footnotes at all. Who's the publisher of the versions that you have?

I now can't find the offending footnote. I was sure that was the book I'd had the bother with, but I suspect I must be getting mixed up. It's not a huge big deal anyway, as I've played around and found I can get footnotes to work in sideloaded books after all, but that they're really a bit fiddly. It's not something that comes up very often so it's not exactly a deal breaker, just something I wondered about.

[ersott]

I have both, and I prefer kobo aura hd for biggest screen and much better configuration options, alternative fonts, line spacing, margins, font size...

Also has better battery life and the ability to put the book cover as an image on standby

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

I now can't find the offending footnote. I was sure that was the book I'd had the bother with, but I suspect I must be getting mixed up. It's not a huge big deal anyway, as I've played around and found I can get footnotes to work in sideloaded books after all, but that they're really a bit fiddly. It's not something that comes up very often so it's not exactly a deal breaker, just something I wondered about.

Thanks! I was interested because the printed versions of the Discworld books do have lots of footnotes, and I was somewhat annoyed to find that they were all missing from the ebooks.

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks! I was interested because the printed versions of the Discworld books do have lots of footnotes, and I was somewhat annoyed to find that they were all missing from the ebooks.

Yeah, I'd only skim-read the first fifty or so pages of TCoM so I'd got mixed up. That's annoying that they're just completely missing though, I'd been considering building up a digital copy of the books but that might not be so much of a priority if they're missing.

[HarryT]

Sorry to divert your thread .

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by ersott

I have both, and I prefer kobo aura hd for biggest screen and much better configuration options, alternative fonts, line spacing, margins, font size...

Also has better battery life and the ability to put the book cover as an image on standby

Just spotted this post - thanks for letting me know. Those are good points. Screen I think I could go either way on, for some reason I actually find that the smaller amount of text on the screen at one time on a 6" reader helps my reading comprehension so I can see advantages in keeping the smaller screen. The configuration options are a thing I might miss though. Battery life I'm not too bothered about as I'm very rarely away from a computer for long (perhaps sadly!). I didn't know about the book cover thing - what does the Kindle have instead?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

I didn't know about the book cover thing - what does the Kindle have instead?

The Kindle displays random pictures for a screensaver. But, if you have any sense (which I'm sure you do ) you'll keep your Kindle in a case, and almost all Kindle cases have a magnet which automatically puts the Kindle to sleep when you close the cover, and wakes it up again when you open it, so you almost never see the screensaver.