Kobo, Kindle, KOReader and hyphenation

[roger64]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It doesn't fit your worldview, sure. But it's true.

Unhyphenated, justified text.

Of course, I wasn't reading on a two-inch screen. There are more than three words per line, and very few 162-letter words, so the "gaping holes" that I believe you are alluding to (in French, which I will cheerfully ignore under any and all circumstances)...

... aren't very gaping.


I could say more, but I know when my words are being ignored, so I'll leave it at "I still claim to have not noticed anything you believe I should've noticed".

To conclude with hyphenation (unless you have any question).

- Koreader allows you to hyphen or not the book you are reading. You can select your own language for hyphenation (among about thirty... but without the Dutch). Of course, you can select a permament setting for one language and all your books will be automatically hyphenated this way.

- To hyphen your azw3 books, you need to perform a voluntary step, for example using a Calibre plugin named "Hyphenate this". It's the same as a conversion process because it has to be repeated for each book, which explains why few people seem to bother to do it. However, I believe it would be markedly different if the only thing readers had to do was just to select a permanent hyphenation choice "à la Koreader".

For your enjoyment, I tried to provide you with a fair example in English with a six inch format EPUB. I took the screenshots with Koreader on Kobo Glo but I guess the results would not have been that different on a PW3 with an azw3.

I chose an average page of text (not too long paragraphs, about 20 lines). You can note two hyphens (if you extrapolate, it's 10% of the page display). On the page without any hyphenation, I underlined in red what you call "gaping holes". Too nice.

So, 2 hyphens a page, 600 hyphens a book, 1 200 000 hyphens for 2 000 books... How many polysyllabic words and gaping holes in your happy readers's life... I believe you when you tell us that you neglected this myriad of defects but not when you say you did not notice any of them...

But now, Amazon changed its mind. It decided to provide hyphenation with the kfx format. I am sure that future readers of this format will enjoy this brand new and still secret technology, as much as the readers of "Les Liaisons dangereuses" did in 1782.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by roger64

To conclude with hyphenation (unless you have any question).

- Koreader allows you to hyphen or not the book you are reading. You can select your own language for hyphenation (among about thirty... but without the Dutch). Of course, you can select a permament setting for one language and all your books will be automatically hyphenated this way.

- To hyphen your azw3 books, you need to perform a voluntary step, for example using a Calibre plugin named "Hyphenate this". It's the same as a conversion process because it has to be repeated for each book, which explains why few people seem to bother to do it. However, I believe it would be markedly different if the only thing readers had to do was just to select a permanent hyphenation choice "à la Koreader".

For your enjoyment, I tried to provide you with a fair example in English with a six inch format EPUB. I took the screenshots with Koreader on Kobo Glo but I guess the results would not have been that different on a PW3 with an azw3.

I chose an average page of text (not too long paragraphs, about 20 lines). You can note two hyphens (if you extrapolate, it's 10% of the page display). On the page without any hyphenation, I underlined in red what you call "gaping holes". Too nice.

So, 2 hyphens a page, 600 hyphens a book, 1 200 000 hyphens for 2 000 books... How many polysyllabic words and gaping holes in your happy readers's life... I believe you when you tell us that you neglected this myriad of defects but not when you say you did not notice any of them...

But now, Amazon changed its mind. It decided to provide hyphenation with the kfx format. I am sure that future readers of this format will enjoy this brand new and still secret technology, as much as the readers of "Les Liaisons dangereuses" did in 1782.

I don't see any "gaping holes" in the lines you have underlined. For me, I JUST DON'T CARE. As long as I can change the font size to one that is comfortable for my eyes and change the font style to sans serif, I'm happy. I will even read in a non-optimal size/style, but I can't read for as long as I'd like to, because the words start swimming after a while.

You are not the world, and the world is not you. The main reason that e-book readers are so wonderful is that almost all reading preferences can be accommodated. Please stop assuming that what is important to you is important to everyone.

Shari

[roger64]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

.../...
Actually, I like to go by the majority.

The majority does not care and never will care about typography in any way, shape or form.
You cannot argue with that, no matter how distasteful peoples' lack of interest may be -- it is simply true, the way it is true that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the earth is a sphere, and 2 + 2 = 4

Of course I am not the world. But I am just here because of some hasty statements of this kind above. How can people be so mistaken? To "go by the majority" here makes absolutely no sense (the whole statement in fact makes no sense).

There is no Gulf Stream divide between lovers and haters of typography. Users are the same on each platform (Kindle, Kobo, etc.). They look for the most easy or convenient solution provided by their platform.

As it happens, most EPUB users seem to use hyphenation, most Kindle users don't.

Why? EPUB users have automatic hyphenation and use it even if they do not care any more about typography than Kindle users. And Kindle users don't use hyphenation because it's not automatically provided to them.

If Kindle provided automatic hyphenation to its users, I bet that 98% would use it - without thinking about it. There is no need to make hasty and earth-shattering statements of this kind, it's just a matter of ease of use of certain feature.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by roger64

Why? EPUB users have automatic hyphenation and use it even if they do not care any more about typography than Kindle users. And Kindle users don't use hyphenation because it's not automatically provided to them.

If Kindle provided automatic hyphenation to its users, I bet that 98% would use it - without thinking about it. There is no need to make hasty statements of this kind, it's just a matter of ease of use of certain feature.

...and THIS is exactly what I was talking about. The vast majority of people just don't care about hyphenation. If they did, they would all be using formats that support it.

Shari

[roger64]

Originally Posted by shalym

I don't see any "gaping holes" in the lines you have underlined.
.../...
Shari

True, it's not that obvious on this example as it can be in some other cases. I've been honest.

But take care, do not look at it for too long, because the poison may enter your brain. Your eye, today blissfully unaware and totally untrained to spot these kinds of defects, will begin to notice them every few lines. It can be the beginning of a long suffering. It's the Vischnu malediction.

Please disagree but dont' quote me in bold. Thanks.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by roger64

True, it's not that obvious on this example as it can be in some other cases. I've been honest.

But take care, do not look at it for too long, because the poison may enter your brain. Your eye, today blissfully unaware and totally untrained to spot these kinds of defects, will begin to notice them every few lines. It can be the beginning of a long suffering. It's the Vischnu malediction.

Please disagree but dont' quote me in bold. Thanks.

As for me, I'm not indifferent to hyphenation, I detest it actively. Perhaps I'm too used reading on kindles, can't say for sure. In any case, hyphenated text bothers me exceedingly. Bigger spaces between words don't. And yes, I read justified text.

Can you disable hyphenation on Kobo readers, for example? If not, then no Kobo reader for me, ever.

So yes, there are many weird people with weird tastes out there.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by roger64

True, it's not that obvious on this example as it can be in some other cases. I've been honest.

But take care, do not look at it for too long, because the poison may enter your brain. Your eye, today blissfully unaware and totally untrained to spot these kinds of defects, will begin to notice them every few lines. It can be the beginning of a long suffering. It's the Vischnu malediction.

Please disagree but dont' quote me in bold. Thanks.

I have seen the "gaping holes" you reference, it happens when my eyes are extremely tired and I have the font set to very large size. Of course, I also see them on my Kobo if the font size is set very large--even *with* hyphenation.

So it seems to me that at least for my use case, hyphens just don't matter.

Shari

[roger64]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Can you disable hyphenation on Kobo readers, for example? If not, then no Kobo reader for me, ever.

So yes, there are many weird people with weird tastes out there.

indeed.

On Kobo/Koreader I can disable it at will (pressing the @none value you can see on the screenshot) either permanently or just for the current book (long tap/short tap). You can see that I took the same page with hyphenation on and off.(screenshot)

For Kobo/Nickel, I am sorry I really do not know because there are also some widely used patches around which provide much looked-after functionalities like the "advanced" boldening of side-loaded fonts and other goodies. It would be better to ask on their forum.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by roger64

Of course I am not the world. But I am just here because of some hasty statements of this kind above. How can people be so mistaken? To "go by the majority" here makes absolutely no sense (the whole statement in fact makes no sense).

There is no Gulf Stream divide between lovers and haters of typography. Users are the same on each platform (Kindle, Kobo, etc.). They look for the most easy or convenient solution provided by their platform.

You're talking about matters of taste, not fact. You obviously care a great deal about hyphenation and that's just fine. Many of us don't. Also fine.

I don't know how long you've been reading ebooks. Probably a while if my memory of your posts is about right. But many of us who don't care about hyphenation also have been reading a good while.

The very first books I read were in a program called Veritical Reader on an HP95lx. This was a pocket size MS-Dos computer with a 4.8"x1.8" display. It was held vertically for reading so the text was 1.8" wide. If I recall the very first version didn't even have word wrap. It was just mono-spaced letters from edge to edge. I read quite a few books that way and enjoyed them. A later version got word wrap and that was a big improvement.

Later I read on a Palm Pilot for years. This was a 3" screen and the books were mostly plain text converted to .pdb. There was no hyphenation in most readers and books. Some readers did support hyphenation and I used whichever reader was needed for the book I was reading. Hyphenation was never a consideration. I liked to be able to control text size and to scroll manually.

Now I read on a Kindle and with Moon+ and I'm pretty sure I get hyphenation with the Kindle these days, depending on the book I'm reading. I honestly can't tell you if I'm getting it on Moon+. I remember seeing it as an option but even though I read about 3 hours yesterday on it and an hour this morning, I don't recall if hyphenation is turned on.

The proper way for an ereader to behave is the way the person reading the book wants it to behave. There really isn't any other important criterium.

Barry

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

I don't see any "gaping holes" in the lines you have underlined.

I notice the gap. I notice them on my H2O because they aren't there all that often. The hyphenation works well and I usually don't have big gaps. Plus, RMSDK also can adjust the spacing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

As for me, I'm not indifferent to hyphenation, I detest it actively. Perhaps I'm too used reading on kindles, can't say for sure. In any case, hyphenated text bothers me exceedingly. Bigger spaces between words don't. And yes, I read justified text.

Can you disable hyphenation on Kobo readers, for example? If not, then no Kobo reader for me, ever.

So yes, there are many weird people with weird tastes out there.

Yes, you can disable hyphenation.

body {
-epub-hyphens: none;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
-webkit-hyphens: none;
-moz-hyphens: none;
hyphens: none;
}

That's all you need to do. Add that to your body style in CSS and no hyphens.

[dickloraine]

I care for hyphenation (in german there are more lengthy words than in english). That is one of the reasons I use a kobo. And yes, hyphenation is the "correct" way of typesetting justified text. BUT first there are many people who just doesn't care. For them it is totally unimportant if a reader can hyphenate or not. Then there are the few who don't like hyphenation at all. And then there is the fact, that typography and layout in eReaders is just not that good and automatic hyphenation is not perfect. Maybe we someday will have readers with a type engine like latex inbuild (could be difficult to make and difficult to use or change things like fontgsize in a timely manner) but until then it is a trade off. We loose some niceties in typography compared to paper books, but we gain things like control over font-size, family, line spacing etc. And we can read on a smartphone and a computer screen.

We don't compare in a vacuum. Kobos have some qualities as have kindles. And different people have different needs and therefore weight them differently. It doesn't work to single out one feature and make it the all important one. Because the next person thinks it is the most unimportant feature ever

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by barryem

The proper way for an ereader to behave is the way the person reading the book wants it to behave. There really isn't any other important criterium.

Barry

And still mine won't bring beer and pizza!!!

This bothers me much more than hyphen-
ation.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes, you can disable hyphenation.

body {
-epub-hyphens: none;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
-webkit-hyphens: none;
-moz-hyphens: none;
hyphens: none;
}

That's all you need to do. Add that to your body style in CSS and no hyphens.

Thank you, that's good to know.

[murg]

Originally Posted by cvkemp

I spend 45 years as a electronics tech/engineer/software engineer and over that time I learned that the best way to screw up a device, computer, radio, transmitter, or the superconducting magnets were to start screwing with them to make them do something they were not originally designed for. So I make sure I buy the device for what I want it to do, and it always works better that way.

This takes all the fun out of life...