11-10-2010, 01:38 AM | #1 |
Wizard
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Honor Harrington poor formatting?
So the first of the Honor Harrington books made it to the top of my TBR list and I've started in on it. So far I'm enjoying it.
However there is one annoying formatting problem I have and was wondering if anyone else had noticed the same. Mind you, this is a legit copy, given out free by Baen. After hearing so much about Baen and how good they are, I am pretty disappointed and frankly if this is a common occurrence with their books I doubt I will be buying from them in the near future. Basically, there is no spacing, asterix, line or other sort of marking to indicate when a scene change occurs. Often a paragraph will end and another will begin and the new paragraph will be a new scene. It's particularly annoying when both scenes include Harrington or another main character in them. When this happens it can be a few lines to an entire paragraph before it becomes obvious that the scene/setting has changed. When this occurs it is very annoying and jars me straight out of the story. I have tried every different file format I have on both my reader and my computer and the problem persists across the board. So I know it is not my reader or the file format that is the problem. Anyone else come across this problem when reading the first Honor Harrington book? Cheers, PKFFW P.S: Mods, if this thread is in the wronog forum feel free to move it. I just didn't think it was news or specifically a reading recommendation issue. |
11-10-2010, 02:35 AM | #2 |
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That problem is, unfortunately, quite common in the older ebooks from Baen and is not confined to the first Honor Harrington books. IIRC, it gets better about half-way through the series, say, book six or thereabouts.
If you downloaded the book a good long while ago, it sometimes helps to acquire a more recent copy, because at least some - but by no means all - books got fixed along the way. |
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11-10-2010, 02:55 AM | #3 |
Wizard
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Thanks for the reply Gudy. I'll try to get a more recent copy and see if that makes a difference.
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11-10-2010, 09:22 AM | #4 |
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You're referring to On Basilisk Station? I could be wrong -- it's been a long time -- but I seem to recall some issues with the pbook formatting as well. Baen was a lot younger back then.
And yes, the most recent CD is usually the best source for books to be sure of the latest updates. |
11-10-2010, 09:35 AM | #5 |
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I just tried my MOBI version of On Basilisk Station and see there is nothing obvious to indicate a scene change. But on my K2i there is a larger than normal spacing between the new scene and old, almost a double paragraph separation. So thanks for pointing the issue out. Now when and if I ever get into reading it, it's low in my reading priority list, I can be aware of the issue.
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11-10-2010, 10:30 AM | #6 |
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I just finished book 7. Same problem. Plus a few spelling mistakes thrown in for good measure. Considering I bought the books in a fictionwise 50% off sale for $2.55 each, I'm not going to complain.
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11-10-2010, 12:07 PM | #7 |
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Interesting. Just checked both the .mobi and the .epub files for "On Basilisk Station" from the "Mission of Honor" CD and both have an extra line feed between scene changes. Sound like getting the latest copies are a good thing.
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11-10-2010, 04:19 PM | #8 |
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Thanks jgaiser, the formatting on that CD looks much better. Much appreciated.
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11-10-2010, 04:43 PM | #9 | |
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Quote:
I will say though that the version of Mission of Honor from the July Webscriptions had decent formatting but other issues with some characters in the text. For example there numerous cases of *--* throughout that I think were supposed to be hyphens. I've not looked for a more recent version (I couldn't wait). Maybe next time I go to read I will. |
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11-10-2010, 05:47 PM | #10 | |
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Quote:
If you like, I can send you my ePub which is quite easily readable. |
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11-10-2010, 05:58 PM | #11 |
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That's different than the linked CD above. All paragraphs are indented, all sections have extra line feeds, all paragraphs after section break are indented. Looks like Baen fixed everything with this last release.
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11-10-2010, 06:05 PM | #12 |
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Given all Baen books are DRM-Free I actually run them through Calibre to format the way that I want them (I can't stand 0 margin on the right hand side, damn ADE getting page numbers overshadowing text).
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11-10-2010, 06:17 PM | #13 |
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Thankyou for the offer JSWolf but as jgaiser mentions, it appears the latest release has fixed all the issues and the copy I now have looks great.
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11-10-2010, 06:19 PM | #14 |
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I fixed the problems. I prefer no indents on the first paragraph of a chapter and also the first paragraph after a section break. Basically, I made it more readable then it is on the CD.
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11-10-2010, 06:20 PM | #15 |
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