I'm thinking of doing a style survey

[Mel]

I work at a college and often have to format documents several times with different fonts because it has to go to a variety of people with different vision problems. For some conditions a serif font increases readability and for other conditions a san serif font is optimal. The ability to choose fonts would increase accessibility.

[weatherwax]

- Do you like to choose styles for yourself, or are you happy with whatever the publisher decides? ----> as long as the publisher's decision is not really ugly, I would rather not be bothered

- Do you prefer paragraphs separated by white space, or marked by an indent, or both? ----> how much, 1 line, half a line? I prefer to have a bit of space but not a full line

- Do you prefer white space between lines of text? ----> how much whie space? have seen ebooks where text was so tightly spaced that it was hard to read

- Do you prefer side margins about the width of the hyphen on this line, or margins the width of the space between the left edge of the text and the D? ---> I don't like "no space"

Looking at the variety of opinions already here in this thread I'm looking forward to the results of the survey to learn from them, but at the end I'm going to create my books based on my personal preferences.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Maybe it was there in the discussion already, but another possible question is:
- what is your preferred line-spacing? (single spaced, double spaced, 0.9, 1.1 ...)
And another:
- do you like the cover image to appear as the first page of your book?

Thanks, Jim. I'll try to add those questions. I know what you mean by line spacing, but I've been looking for a way to put the question.

Regards, Alex

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by goodscoolwf

Good idea, but needs moe detailed plan.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions, preferably on the forum, or by private message.

Regards, Alex

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Take a look at the non-Sony edition of For the Win to see what I think is a good style. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83384

This wills how you what font I prefer, what staling in terms of margins, indents, and paragraph spacing. To me, this is a good format that will work for most people (IMHO).

Thanks, Jon.

I quite like Fontin, but still don't like having the choice taken away from me.

I like most of the formatting, but can't abide the zero margins. In fact I couldn't continue reading the book.

One of the glories of ePub is that one can go into the stylesheet and change things. When I have time I'll reset the margins to say 2%, and finish reading it.

Regards, Alex

[jasonfedelem]

I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm becoming a big believer in starting a new chapter on a new page.

I didn't have an opinion at first, but now some of the books I'm reading will have just enough room for the title and then the content starts on the next page. This is tacky. Therefore, imho it should be standardized that new chapter = new page.

[neilmarr]

Tend to agree with you, Jason. Because the cost of paper and inks is no object in an ebook, there is no excuse for cramped text design. There's all the breathing space necessary to make the presentation attractive. N

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Clancy_s

Absolutely.

I think most people really want to be able to specify their own settings: even if they don't want to have to do it themselves.

I'm happy with epub, since having worked out what customisations I like in Calibre and having applied a hack* that will enforce my prefences on my ereader epubs are displayed the way I want on my reader.

* the hack doesn't work with other formats, which is one of the reason I prefer epubs

eReader ePubs ... there is no such format. It's either eReader or ePub. Never the two shall combine for yet another eBook format.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

When it comes to section breaks/point of view changes, I prefer a simple visual marker on a line by itself. I normally use "~~~" centered on a line by itself with a blank line above and below because it's simple and should be able to be consistently generated in any format since the "~" character itself is plain text. It's also distinctive regardless of the spacing between the paragraphs.

I'll go with whatever the author put in to indicate a section break. But I do like having the first paragraph after a section break to not be indented so we can easily tell it's the first paragraph of a new section.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kacir

I like tightly spaced lines, so I can get as much text on screen as conveniently possible.
Depending on font I vary between 1 and 0.8
Some fonts produce very tight spaced lines, others much wider.
Also, various fonts produce various physical sizes with the same "point size" setting on my PocketBook.

Another question for the font:
Do you prefer large x-height, medium one or small ...

Another font you should definitely present among choices is Droid. Free, professionally looking, developed especially for devices with small screens.

I know that on my 505, I should be able to get 32 lines with the default font size for a page with no margins on the top/bottom. If I get any less, the line spacing is too much. If I get more, the spacing may be too squished. So I like the spacing to give me those 32 lines.

I've tried the Droid font. I didn't like it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'd really appreciate any suggestions, preferably on the forum, or by private message.

Regards, Alex

The only way to actually satisfy most people is to make multiple ePub available with different formatting. That way, you are most likely to get something someone is going to like.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Thanks, Jon.

I quite like Fontin, but still don't like having the choice taken away from me.

I like most of the formatting, but can't abide the zero margins. In fact I couldn't continue reading the book.

One of the glories of ePub is that one can go into the stylesheet and change things. When I have time I'll reset the margins to say 2%, and finish reading it.

Regards, Alex

With ADE, you get no choice other then the default with as not all that good. I've noticed more and more publishers are including an embedded font because the ADE font is so awful. Plus with the ADE font, bold and italics are noticeably simulated. So unless the device using ADE has custom code to override the CSS or ADE font choice, you'll not get any choice.

As for margins, please do not use 2% or em or such. if you have to have margins, use a fixed size like pt or px where the margins won't change based on the font size or the screen size. 2% on my 505 is different then 2% on ADE on my computer. And 2% would be different on a 9.7" screen vs a 6" screen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jasonfedelem

I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm becoming a big believer in starting a new chapter on a new page.

I didn't have an opinion at first, but now some of the books I'm reading will have just enough room for the title and then the content starts on the next page. This is tacky. Therefore, imho it should be standardized that new chapter = new page.

Actually, you have to start a new chapter on a new page if you want most eBooks to conform to the mobile ePub standard. If you have the entire book in one flow, it won't work with mobile ADE. So the book has to be split and in most cases, splitting at chapters works fine.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, you have to start a new chapter on a new page if you want most eBooks to conform to the mobile ePub standard. If you have the entire book in one flow, it won't work with mobile ADE. So the book has to be split and in most cases, splitting at chapters works fine.

But is there something in the ePUB specification that mandates new files to be displayed in a new "page"? Sure, it makes sense, and any ePUB reader I know of requires a "next page" to go to the next file, but there could be other reader that only forces a pagebreak when an explicit CSS page-break is found. If that were the case, and if it's allowed by the spec, splitting at chapters wouldn't necessarily mean chapters start at a new page (which, on the other hand, could be useful if for some reason one is forced to split a very long chapter in two or more files).

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

With ADE, you get no choice other then the default with as not all that good. I've noticed more and more publishers are including an embedded font because the ADE font is so awful. Plus with the ADE font, bold and italics are noticeably simulated. So unless the device using ADE has custom code to override the CSS or ADE font choice, you'll not get any choice.

As for margins, please do not use 2% or em or such. if you have to have margins, use a fixed size like pt or px where the margins won't change based on the font size or the screen size. 2% on my 505 is different then 2% on ADE on my computer. And 2% would be different on a 9.7" screen vs a 6" screen.

I think this raises another question which hadn't occurred to me:
- Do you read most of your ebooks on the desktop or on your stand alone ereader?

Speaking only for myself I rarely if ever read ebooks on my desktop - except of course when I'm checking an ebook for publication. So the deficiencies of the ADE desktop reader are irrelevant to me. I'll have to make a decision as to whether to make the questionnaire specific for ebook readers or not.

So far as the 2% is concerned I guess I have been influenced by old habits from when I was designing websites. I've carried on before that ebooks are not print books, and I should remember that ebooks are not websites either. I'll think again about % or px for margins.

Regards, Alex