ade extra stylesheets & page layouts

[cybmole]

i recently liberated a couple of free-to-buy books ( in order to tweak) that contained "professional" styling courtesy of Adobe.

easily recognised as they have 2 stylesheet links per page with lots of what seems to be boiler plate styles for everything possible on the extra stylesheet.

now to my eyes the extra styling just looks bad on an e-reader device. the body text is surrounded by big margins on all sides and in at least one case it is also aligned left, not justified. thus lots of wasted white space on the reader screen. Chapter title styling is of baroque complexity

is there a case FOR styling like this & I'm just not used to it, or is it really intended only for printed editions & left in due to publisher laziness ?

PS the extra stylesheet is called called page-template.xpgt. do all ADE books contain this & is it the same in every book ?

(I zap the extra stylesheet link with find/replace - it only seems to control page borders, then re-run through calibre to add sensible @page defaults everywhere )

[Toxaris]

Not all ADE books contain this stylesheet. It is used to override certain styles to make it compensate some quirks of the ADE engine. However, I usually remove the page-template.xpgt. I absolutly don't like it and therefore will not use it.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Not all ADE books contain this stylesheet. It is used to override certain styles to make it compensate some quirks of the ADE engine. However, I usually remove the page-template.xpgt. I absolutly don't like it and therefore will not use it.

[Funslinger]

Originally Posted by cybmole

i recently liberated a couple of free-to-buy books ( in order to tweak) that contained "professional" styling courtesy of Adobe.

easily recognised as they have 2 stylesheet links per page with lots of what seems to be boiler plate styles for everything possible on the extra stylesheet.

now to my eyes the extra styling just looks bad on an e-reader device. the body text is surrounded by big margins on all sides and in at least one case it is also aligned left, not justified. thus lots of wasted white space on the reader screen. Chapter title styling is of baroque complexity

is there a case FOR styling like this & I'm just not used to it, or is it really intended only for printed editions & left in due to publisher laziness ?

PS the extra stylesheet is called called page-template.xpgt. do all ADE books contain this & is it the same in every book ?

(I zap the extra stylesheet link with find/replace - it only seems to control page borders, then re-run through calibre to add sensible @page defaults everywhere )

What's wrong with left aligned text? I much prefer it to justified text. With justified text, the spacing between words differs from line to line. I find it much more pleasing to have a constant flow to the text rather than having to read out to the right margin every line because of extraneous spacing between words.

Justified text is really only necessary for multi-column pages where the right margin of the first column looks better if it is lined up vertical against the left margin of the second column. Other than that, justification is a joke.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Funslinger

What's wrong with left aligned text? I much prefer it to justified text. With justified text, the spacing between words differs from line to line. I find it much more pleasing to have a constant flow to the text rather than having to read out to the right margin every line because of extraneous spacing between words.

Justified text is really only necessary for multi-column pages where the right margin of the first column looks better if it is lined up vertical against the left margin of the second column. Other than that, justification is a joke.

different users, different preferences - I spent some time googling the topic when I made the earlier post - readability studies were inconclusive; I think that the majority preferred fully justified ( I know I do) as that is what paperbacks use.

anyway it is easy to change the stylesheet to suit your tastes. and current versions of calibre can remove all the extra css crap via an epub to epub conversion

[theducks]

This ducks tired eyes prefers
text-align: justified: ;margin-top: .5em ; text-indent: 1.5 to 2 em;
for basic paragraphs.
All else is open to whim (and I do vary it widely)

[cybmole]

I tried 0.5 em para spacing, then switched first to 0.3 & then to 0.1, with 1em indents. I guess I don't much care for white space :-)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by cybmole

different users, different preferences - I spent some time googling the topic when I made the earlier post - readability studies were inconclusive; I think that the majority preferred fully justified ( I know I do) as that is what paperbacks use.

anyway it is easy to change the stylesheet to suit your tastes. and current versions of calibre can remove all the extra css crap via an epub to epub conversion

We set almost all our books to left-justified, for the simple reason that then the user reading the book can choose what s/he wants. If, on the other hand, you set it to full-justification, most reading devices can't/won't override that. I'd rather give readers the choice than not.

We use the xpgt in some books, depending upon what is required. The only "absolute" in ebook-making should be that there should be no absolutes.

FWIW.
Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

We set almost all our books to left-justified, for the simple reason that then the user reading the book can choose what s/he wants. If, on the other hand, you set it to full-justification, most reading devices can't/won't override that. I'd rather give readers the choice than not.

Same here. But I just leave out the justification setting/directive (except for any center-, right-aligned, or other special circumstances) entirely. Choice is good.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Hitch

We set almost all our books to left-justified, for the simple reason that then the user reading the book can choose what s/he wants.
FWIW.
Hitch

you mean over-ride the justification settings just with e-reader device controls - can some e-readers can do that ?

If my Sony can, then it's news to me !

[DiapDealer]

you mean over-ride the justification settings just with e-reader device controls - can some e-readers can do that ?

More and more all the time. Either through built-in preferences/features or "hacks"... readers are being quite clear that they like having it their way.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Same here. But I just leave out the justification setting/directive (except for any center-, right-aligned, or other special circumstances) entirely. Choice is good.

Yabbut, if you don't set it to left, various readers (and, no, I don't remember the whole list off the top of my head) will default to full, and I have some vague recollection (ah, senility) that this caused a problem somewhere...

Can't remember where, though. Probably bloody Apple, by default. It's the usual suspect.

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yabbut, if you don't set it to left, various readers (and, no, I don't remember the whole list off the top of my head) will default to full, and I have some vague recollection (ah, senility) that this caused a problem somewhere...

Can't remember where, though. Probably bloody Apple, by default. It's the usual suspect.

Hitch

You've put way more ebooks on way more devices than I have... so I'll take your word for it that there's a good reason you do it the way you do.