Format question

[cgsmom]

I currently read on my iPod touch. I just checked out "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" from the library. I downloaded it into the Overdrive app. It is full justified with huge margins. Very annoying to read. So i downloaded to ADE and copied to the Bluefire app. Margins better but still full justification. Still slightly annoying.

Just out of curiosity, I downloaded a sample of the book from Barnes & Noble, Amazon and iBooks. The nook and kindle versions are still full justified, but the iBooks version is left justified and very nice.

Is this a function of the file or the app? Is there any way to change it without stripping DRM (which I don't want to do to a library book)?

Thanks

[susan_cassidy]

It could be the file, or the app. No way to tell without stripping the DRM and looking at the HTML. Unless other books in the same app(s) have different margins.

[Quexos]

I don't know whether it can be done without removing the DRM but I can tell you that this issue is fixable if the file is epub. But you need to go into the css file and simply change the code. It must have something like "margin-left 2em, margin-right 2em (or 2px)" where 2 is a supposed value.
Then you bring that value to something inferior, down to 0 which would mean no margin which is how I like it.
As for the justify value, you need to change the "text-align justify" to text-align left. But you must be certain to find the right line of code lest you could mess other parts of the book, usually the right line falls under the tag "body" but not always. As for other formats (mobi, pdf and so on), I have no idea how the codes work)

Now as a personal opinion, I don't understand why you want to remove the full justify. Without it, the text will end unequally on the right of each line, just like this post I'm writing does. That is not nice IMO. Paper books have text fully justified and that's how I like my ebooks. But to each their own.

[DiapDealer]

What does that even mean?

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

What does that even mean?

You think that one's good? Read the one in the The New Dead Horse Thread.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

You think that one's good? Read the one in the The New Dead Horse Thread.

I'm guessing a spammer who's got links in their signature, and is hoping the links will magically appear after a certain amount of posts/time (does anybody fall for that anymore?).

They've obviously got software that tries to guess the gist of a thread from keywords. In this case "touch" screens/phones. In the other thread... animals (dead horses).

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

I currently read on my iPod touch. I just checked out "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" from the library. I downloaded it into the Overdrive app. It is full justified with huge margins. Very annoying to read. So i downloaded to ADE and copied to the Bluefire app. Margins better but still full justification. Still slightly annoying.

Just out of curiosity, I downloaded a sample of the book from Barnes & Noble, Amazon and iBooks. The nook and kindle versions are still full justified, but the iBooks version is left justified and very nice.

Is this a function of the file or the app? Is there any way to change it without stripping DRM (which I don't want to do to a library book)?

Thanks

What format is it in? Overdrive supports ePub, Kindle's azw, and PDF. ADE handles ePub and PDF. If you have the PDF, then, you're kinda stuck. Many PDFs cannot "reflow" so you're stuck with what you are annoyed by.

[Quexos]

And what does that have to do with the issue at hand ?
Sounds to me like some kind of a software made translation.
Enough said

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

What does that even mean?

[cgsmom]

The file is epub. When I bring it up in ADE, it is fully justified but it looks OK because of the bigger screen. I had forgotten that paper books are justified. It's been so long since I read one. I think the combination of large margins and justification on a small screen is what is so annoying. There are really large gaps in the lines of text. Thanks for all the suggestions, but I think I will just read it in Bluefire. I really don't care to get in the file and mess with it. If it was a book that I purchased and may read again in the future, I would consider making changes to the file.

I really need to get a larger screen. I think I will put a Nook Tablet on my Christmas list. Thanks again for all the information.

[JSWolf]

in the iOS options app, there is an option for iBooks to use full or left justification and to also use hyphens or not. Try hyphenation on and justification on and see how it look. If you don't like it, you can always turn justification off.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Now as a personal opinion, I don't understand why you want to remove the full justify. Without it, the text will end unequally on the right of each line, just like this post I'm writing does. That is not nice IMO. Paper books have text fully justified and that's how I like my ebooks. But to each their own.

If you've got 10-15 words/line, justification is nice. 7-10, it's okay, if the text doesn't alternate between large and small words so that you have large gaps on the screen. If you're reading at a large enough size that you get 3-5 words per line, justification is atrocious.

And some people just don't like it. It works very well to define the sections in columned text like newspapers and textbooks, but for books, it's a trade-off between "neat margins the eye can follow easily" and "potential large spaces in the middles of lines." Especially with ereaders' inability to stretch out letters inside words and limited support for hyphenation, justification often looks ugly on a 5" screen.