Long Standing Line Spacing Bug

[murg]

I was playing around formatting an epub today, and formally discovered what may be a bug in the line spacing adjustments in the font adjustments on the reading screen.

I've been seeing this behaviour for a long, long time, just never got to the point were I could test it. I think it is happening on both the Glo and the Touch (and probably the Mini).

The css element line-height controls the line spacing.

It looks like the smallest line spacing that Kobo allows you to set on the font adjustment screen is about 125%. It will gladly increase the line spacing above this value.

A line-height of 100% is a more natural setting.

In any case, the line spacing slider should have 100% in the middle, allowing you to have larger or smaller line spacing than 'normal'.

If the line-height is set in an epub's css, then the line spacing adjustment is disregarded. This is why setting line-height in the file's css is not a real solution.

The above was determined using Amasis on a Glo with a side-loaded book.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by murg

I was playing around formatting an epub today, and formally discovered what may be a bug in the line spacing adjustments in the font adjustments on the reading screen.

I've been seeing this behaviour for a long, long time, just never got to the point were I could test it. I think it is happening on both the Glo and the Touch (and probably the Mini).

The css element line-height controls the line spacing.

It looks like the smallest line spacing that Kobo allows you to set on the font adjustment screen is about 125%. It will gladly increase the line spacing above this value.

A line-height of 100% is a more natural setting.

In any case, the line spacing slider should have 100% in the middle, allowing you to have larger or smaller line spacing than 'normal'.

If the line-height is set in an epub's css, then the line spacing adjustment is disregarded. This is why setting line-height in the file's css is not a real solution.

The above was determined using Amasis on a Glo with a side-loaded book.

That is on the Glo, Touch and Mini. Personally, I use the stylesheet to set line height to my preference of 1.2 which is below the minimum of 1.35 the slider will set. I do the same with margins and simply leave the line spacing and margin sliders at their minimum settings unless I am reading a kepub or library book where I don't have the option of editing the ebook.

I'd disagree that a line height of 1.0 is natural unless you are fond of ascenders and descenders meeting.

Regards,
David

[murg]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'd disagree that a line height of 1.0 is natural unless you are fond of ascenders and descenders meeting.

I did a test ebook, and at line-height=100% the decenders were a pixel or two above capitals on the lower line.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by murg

I did a test ebook, and at line-height=100% the decenders were a pixel or two above capitals on the lower line.

Did you check using different fonts? With some that I tried, there was no pixel between the ascenders and descenders.

Regards,
David

[murg]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Did you check using different fonts? With some that I tried, there was no pixel between the ascenders and descenders.

Regards,
David

Yes, Amasis and whatever the default Sans Serif font is.

[davidfor]

I'm with the other David on this one. 1.2 or 120% is about right. Anything smaller tends to mean the lines aren't distinct. And at 1.0 or 100%, the letters will touch on the fonts I tried. From memory, the definition of the line height means they should touch.

There was discussion on this a while ago. In a "tweaks" thread I think. You can edit a conf file on the device to set it to 1.2 or edit the settings in the content_settings file. And the actual minimum is 1.225. At least that is the smallest number I tried that made a difference. I could see a difference between 1.225 and 1.25 but not between 1.225 and 1.2.

Having said that, if I was specifying this, I think I would have gone with a range from 1.0 to 2.0 in steps of 0.1. Maybe I would start with 0.9.

[murg]

Well, as it is, the line spacing adjustment goes from too big to way too big.

It should go from a a little too small to a little too big.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by murg

Well, as it is, the line spacing adjustment goes from too big to way too big.

It should go from a a little too small to a little too big.

Now that I would have to agree with. The nice thing with non-DRMed epubs is that we can change those settings to what we personally like. You like a closer line spacing that I find comfortable, nothing stopping me from changing the line height to my favourite number.

My preference would be if the Kobo ereaders would treat line spacing like they treat margins where you can increase the margins from what the ebook sets instead of the current do nothing if the ebook specifies a line height. A starting point of 1.0 would be fine for me since anything less pretty much guarantees overlapping text no matter what font you use.

Regards,
David

[ShellShock]

I am in the 100% (1em) line-height camp. OK, ascenders and descenders may just touch, but I am used to it, and I prefer the extra lines of text I can get on a screen. I think we agree that as along as this is adjustable then everyone is happy. Except the only way to get a 100% line-height is in the css; you can't just set it at the body level either, because this will be overridden by the line spacing in the Glo's options. You have to set it at least at the paragraph level.

I could not get the conf file thing to work.

[RG1]

I don't use kobos line height feature cause they seem to use absolute line height for sideloaded epubs. I use relative line heigth in css, so line height stays the same regardless of used font size.

[murg]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I am in the 100% (1em) line-height camp.

I'm experimenting with this. 100% seems to be too much like a cheap paperback where they've printed the lines too close together to cram the text onto fewer physical pages.

I like 105% and an currently trying out 110%.