Glo Kobo Software Update 2.5.2

[roger64]

What worries me in this thread is that complaints about title display are just considered by some experts to be childish whining: it makes me realize how few Kobo probably cares about them.

I bought a Kobo Glo (most of the bookshops sold only the PW) about six weeks ago after really looking for it just because it displayed EPUBs and I did not want MOBIs. It replaced an old Sony PRS-505.

I remarked, with philosophy, some fuzzy things: "long paragraph bug"..., not too precise superscript display, random access to endnotes, woefully unaccurate slider to go to another page, psycho-rigid sideloaded font-names, allergy to embedded fonts... I do not add to this some genuine formatting defects I spotted on kepubs.

I thought they were balanced by some pretty good ideas: nice light display, fonts, line-height, margins optional settings, dictionaries.

Not knowing Kobo at all, I have been an optimist. It lasted till 2.5.2.

There are few things about which I really care. The second most important thing for me after the EPUB standard is the quality of the page display. That's why I hardly stand the big space taken by the page count display. I can't accept that Kobo decided for me to add a title display.

The direct consequence will be that for now on, I will stop syncing to Kobo as long as we do not get an official option about it. No access to shop of course. I am ready to keep 2.5.1 as long as my Glo. After all, I kept my Sony four years and a half without updates...

Kobo, do you hear me? No shop. Now my Glo complains and tells me: "Your wishlist is empty." Ah, ah, this time, I do not care.

[Quexos]

That was experimental condescending rhetoric so don't take it for face value, I thought it was clear. My point being to stress the opposite which is to say that I do respect your priorities in terms of firmware options, perhaps naively hoping for some sort of equal reciprocation, dude :-)

Originally Posted by DNSB

So, Dude, it is not a matter of staring at the cover on the sleep/power off screen, it's a matter of looking at the home screen. That is something I do much more often than gazing admiringly at the sleep/power off image.

Well I stayed on 2.5.1 but it is my understanding that since the latest firmware, epubs have now the same displaying properties regarding wasted space as kepubs have since the beginning, minus the statistics and the page count by chapter, so the main text screen itself should be pretty much equivalent in both formats.

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'd already seen that video -- what I was looking for was one showing an epub with the title bar. In the video posted, the bottom of the screen shows the pages within the chapter which says it is showing a kepub not an epub. Kepubs had the title of the books showing at the top of the screen long before the introduction of the Aura. Check reviews of the Touch and Glo for example.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Well I stayed on 2.5.1 but it is my understanding that since the latest firmware, epubs have now the same displaying properties regarding wasted space as kepubs have since the beginning, minus the statistics and the page count by chapter, so the main text screen itself should be pretty much equivalent in both formats.

But most ePubs don't come with blank lines between paragraphs.

Lots of KePubs do, though. And of course these blank lines "waste" a lot of space (unless you are like me actually prefer them).

[Quexos]

Well, with Kobo never say never. Blank lines may still come in future firmware updates for epubs. After all, why stop at top and bottom blank space when you can screw up the entire text in-between as well. And since this is the case for kepubs, why leave epubs unscathed ?
And it goes without saying that the whole thing would be forced upon users, naturally. After all why have people freely choose what's best for them when it can simply be decided for them.

Originally Posted by Jaden

But most ePubs don't come with blank lines between paragraphs.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Well, with Kobo never say never. Blank lines may still come in future firmware updates for epubs. After all, why stop at top and bottom blank space when you can screw up the entire text in-between as well. And since this is the case for kepubs, why leave epubs unscathed ?
And it goes without saying that the whole thing would be forced upon users, naturally. After all why have people freely choose what's best for them when it can simply be decided for them.

I have some KePubs that don't have blank lines so I think those who have were formatted that way. And they can hardly force that on ePubs (except on those you buy from Kobo).

But yeah, well... you'll never know...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Well, with Kobo never say never. Blank lines may still come in future firmware updates for epubs. After all, why stop at top and bottom blank space when you can screw up the entire text in-between as well. And since this is the case for kepubs, why leave epubs unscathed ?
And it goes without saying that the whole thing would be forced upon users, naturally. After all why have people freely choose what's best for them when it can simply be decided for them.

I am confident that won't happen. If you look at how Kobo display the text of epubs, they are very respectful of the CSS in the book. Respectful to the extent that people are complaining that they use the default values for widows and orphans So any spacing between the paragraphs is there in the book. If other readers don't show this, then they are in the wrong.

The kepubs are a different matter. From what I can see, Kobo have been adding a stylesheet to these. That over rides some of the CSS in the book. The added stylesheet has changed over time so that new kepubs are more likely to not have spaces between paragraphs than before. I understand that Kobo are going through the existing books and fixing them, but it takes time.

[DNSB]

Just a quick note with some images (sorry for the quality) of what I mean about the lack of an image on the home screen for sideloaded books for which Calibre was not used to generate the images. Even in the main memory, I don't get the large home screen thumbnail without having to muck around.

I also added two images of the same book and more or less same page. A free download from the Baen library. Just to show what the difference a few minutes with Sigil can make.

Regards,
David

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'd already seen that video -- what I was looking for was one showing an epub with the title bar. In the video posted, the bottom of the screen shows the pages within the chapter which says it is showing a kepub not an epub. Kepubs had the title of the books showing at the top of the screen long before the introduction of the Aura. Check reviews of the Touch and Glo for examples.

You are right, we have always had to put up with the page numbers at the bottom. A number of people, including me, have commented on this in the past (pre-Aura) and I have also emailed Kobo asking politely if they could make them optional, or at least take less space. Nothing doing so far...2.5.2 has just made the situation worst.

The review video obviously wanted to compare the bog-standard reading experience on both devices. For the Aura, this means kepub. Pre 2.5.2, the reviewer could still have commented on the wasted screen space compared to the Kindle, which would have negated some of the benefits of the bigger screen. Post 2.5.2, another three lines are wasted, so there is little benefit to the larger screen compared to the Kindle. I don't think the average punter should have to fiddle around with Sigil to get around this problem.

[Quexos]

I wonder why Kobo readers have so many bugs here and there ?
All my books luckily for me display a thumbnail but a few do not display it properly. Some got it super small, kind of like a thumbnail within the thumbnail, and one even displays it deformed and stretched up so the bottom and top of the thumbnail go all the way up and down as they should but the left and right sides are crushed in like a column.
I spend a lot of time in the css to fix issues, but this one I cannot fix.

Originally Posted by DNSB

Just a quick note with some images (sorry for the quality) of what I mean about the lack of an image on the home screen for sideloaded books for which Calibre was not used to generate the images. Even in the main memory, I don't get the large home screen thumbnail without having to muck around.

I also added two images of the same book and more or less same page. A free download from the Baen library. Just to show what the difference a few minutes with Sigil can make.

Regards,
David

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Quexos

I wonder why Kobo readers have so many bugs here and there ?
All my books luckily for me display a thumbnail but a few do not display it properly. Some got it super small, kind of like a thumbnail within the thumbnail, and one even displays it deformed and stretched up so the bottom and top of the thumbnail go all the way up and down as they should but the left and right sides are crushed in like a column.
I spend a lot of time in the css to fix issues, but this one I cannot fix.

Are you talking sideloaded epubs or kepubs?

For sideloaded epubs, the cover image is the first page of the book. If that renders OK when you view it, then the cover image used should be OK. If you are getting stretched cover images, it usually means the code to display the image is stretching it. There has been a lot of discussion about using an SVG tag to size the image correctly.

Sideloaded kepubs need an extra property added to the cover definition in the OPF. The extended plugin does this.

[Quexos]

I use only sideloaded epubs, I'm nowhere near tempted to buy kepubs with the wasted space issues at present.

What code is stretching the cover image ? if it's in the css file and if someone can tell me what the tag and values are, I could try to fix it.
This SVG tag, where does it go ? the css file too ? what is the proper syntax to use it ?

Originally Posted by davidfor

Are you talking sideloaded epubs or kepubs?

For sideloaded epubs, the cover image is the first page of the book. If that renders OK when you view it, then the cover image used should be OK. If you are getting stretched cover images, it usually means the code to display the image is stretching it. There has been a lot of discussion about using an SVG tag to size the image correctly.

Sideloaded kepubs need an extra property added to the cover definition in the OPF. The extended plugin does this.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Quexos

I use only sideloaded epubs, I'm nowhere near tempted to buy kepubs with the wasted space issues at present.

All books Kobo sell have both kepub and epub versions. You can sideload the epub version.

What code is stretching the cover image ? if it's in the css file and if someone can tell me what the tag and values are, I could try to fix it.
This SVG tag, where does it go ? the css file too ? what is the proper syntax to use it ?

The following is what I use.

  <div>
    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 296 475" width="100%" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
      <image height="475" width="296" xlink:href="../Images/cover.jpeg"></image>
    </svg>
  </div>

This replaces the code that currently displays the cover image. You need to change the sizes to match the image size.

If you use calibre to insert or replace the cover, it will use code similar to the above.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quexos

I use only sideloaded epubs, I'm nowhere near tempted to buy kepubs with the wasted space issues at present.

What code is stretching the cover image ? if it's in the css file and if someone can tell me what the tag and values are, I could try to fix it.
This SVG tag, where does it go ? the css file too ? what is the proper syntax to use it ?

I see DavidFor has already supplied a sample of the code used to display the cover image with aspect ratio preserved.

One further note is that I also add a style to ensure margins are set to 0 for that page.

Regards,
David

[Anak]

In my opinion the video review is fair as kepub is Kobos preferred ebook format and should also be considered as best optimized or customized for Kobos devices. Why else would they create their own proprietary format? To tie users/generate traffic to the Kobo eco-system, I know. Kobos business is to sell (more) books and there's nothing wrong with that.

The video clearly shows the output of the kepub format, which can not be changed bythe user:

• a very wide (margin in the) header and footer
• empty text line after every paragraph (does not happen with all kepubs)
• additional margins to left and right which can not be tweaked to zero

With the introduction of fw 2.5.2 the top header is also introduced in regular epubs, so it doesn't make the comparison unfair. This is what you would see if you go to a local shop and compare a Kobo device with any other ereader brand.
Kobos chosen presets can make a direct comparison look unfavorable, because

• the default font size is 12pt (100%), Kobo uses 14pt as default
• a relative larger default line height

Increasing the font size or line height is not a problem, making it smaller is limited. Till the dot in the slider is placed in the most left position.

In a direct comparison there will be - almost with absolute certainty - less text on a Kobo screen, and when the kepub format is used the layout may look different then other readers. While the layout on the non Kobo devices look pretty much the same as they'll follow the original layout of the publisher (even when font sizes, line heights etc. can be changed; e.g. Cybook Odyssey HD)

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'd already seen that video -- what I was looking for was one showing an epub with the title bar. In the video posted, the bottom of the screen shows the pages within the chapter which says it is showing a kepub not an epub. Kepubs had the title of the books showing at the top of the screen long before the introduction of the Aura. Check reviews of the Touch and Glo for examples.

Part of what the reviewer said and I agree with is that kepub book do tend to use a wider line and paragraph spacing, wider than I prefer but, at most, 10 minutes with Sigil corrects that issue for epubs and non-DRMed kepubs. Part of this comes from the differences between the Adobe and ACCESS rendering engines – rename a epub to .kepub.epub and take a look at the difference in appearance.

Much of the difference between how a Kobo device display epubs and the way other epub devices display them seems to follow Kobo's apparent philosophy of allowing styles specified in the ebook to control the appearance of the ebook. Line heights set in the style basically disable the line spacing slider, margins can be made wider but not narrower and there is no control over the paragraph spacing.

I would have preferred the reviewer to have used the same font and font size on both devices so a comparison of the amount of text on the page would have been easier to do. I do realize that would require some familiarity with the devices which most reviewers do not have the opportunity to gain.

Regards,
David

[Quexos]

Thanks for this code
but I still don't know whether this goes to the css file or maybe that other file with opf extension or elsewhere.
Besides is this standard code or code specific to one ebook. After all one cannot just take the css of one book and copy paste it to another's.

If book publishers and e-readers brands did their job we wouldn't have to bother messing with the code.

  <div>
    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 296 475" width="100%" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
      <image height="475" width="296" xlink:href="../Images/cover.jpeg"></image>
    </svg>
  </div>