Windows epub viewer/reader recommendations?

[phossler]

Sigil seems to be a lot smarter that the epub readers that I can find, esp. ADE.

The CSS below was an experiment and Sigil has no problems displaying it as expected (i.e. correctly), but ADE seems to ignore the :first-line and :first-letter selectors. ADE also seems to be a little flaky with embedded fonts also.

Using Calibre to convert to Kindle AZW3 will show correctly in the Kindle Previewer (haven't actually tried my touch yet)

p {
text-indent: 0;
text-align: left;
font-size: 1em;
margin-top:0;
margin-bottom: 1em;
font-size: 1em;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
font-family:serif;
}

p:first-line {
	font-size: small;
	font-style: italic;
	text-decoration: underline;
	font-variant:small-caps;
	font-family:sans-serif;
}

p:first-letter {
	font-size: 1.75em;
	font-weight: bold;
	font-style: normal;
	font-family:sans-serif;
}

(Yes, I know it's ugly .. it was just an experiment)

So ... is there a more 'accurate' epub viewer for Windows?

Paul

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by phossler

So ... is there a more 'accurate' epub viewer for Windows?

"Accurate" just as often means "obscure" in the ePub viewer world. Meaning; you're not going to convince people to use the renderer your ePub looks best on, so you might want to consider making your epub look the best you can on the rendering engine they're probably going to be using: ADE (or RMSDK to be more accurate).

If you're only asking for your own personal edification and/or for the purpose of creating/viewing epubs specifically intended for conversion to Kindle books, then I apologize and will bow out to allow people to make their Windows application suggestions.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by phossler

Sigil seems to be a lot smarter that the epub readers that I can find, esp. ADE.

Sigil uses a standard browser-like HTML renderer, which means that it will render many (most?) CSS features, including CSS3 ones.

That might be a good thing, especially when other epub readers do not support important features like :first-letter of font-variant.

But it's also dangerous to trust Sigil too much, as it will also (I believe) happily accept and render other properties that are not included in the ePub spec, and which should not be relied on in ePub books, like text-transform or opacity. Besides, not being a paged renderer, it will probably ignore things like page-break-before or widows (which ADE does, AFAIK), and it does not support ePub-specific stuff like oep-page-head (not that many readers do, anyway).

In summary: If your goal is to see an ePub as it should look, according to the specs, there's no known program for that. If your goal is to check how a book will look in an Adobe-based reader, there's no substitute for the device itself.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by phossler

ADE also seems to be a little flaky with embedded fonts also.

Check the OS/2 version of the font. Make sure it is version 3.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Check the OS/2 version of the font. Make sure it is version 3.

That's a biggie! I've found that any version less than 4 seems to be the key here. Not sure if that changed with ADE 2.0 or not.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by phossler

Sigil seems to be a lot smarter that the epub readers that I can find, esp. ADE.

The CSS below was an experiment and Sigil has no problems displaying it as expected (i.e. correctly), but ADE seems to ignore the :first-line and :first-letter selectors. ADE also seems to be a little flaky with embedded fonts also.

Using Calibre to convert to Kindle AZW3 will show correctly in the Kindle Previewer (haven't actually tried my touch yet)

p {
text-indent: 0;
text-align: left;
font-size: 1em;
margin-top:0;
margin-bottom: 1em;
font-size: 1em;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
font-family:serif;
}

p:first-line {
	font-size: small;
	font-style: italic;
	text-decoration: underline;
	font-variant:small-caps;
	font-family:sans-serif;
}

p:first-letter {
	font-size: 1.75em;
	font-weight: bold;
	font-style: normal;
	font-family:sans-serif;
}

(Yes, I know it's ugly .. it was just an experiment)

So ... is there a more 'accurate' epub viewer for Windows?

Paul

Paul:

I can guarantee that psuedo-classes like "first line" and "first-letter" are hopeless, if you expect them to work on numerous reading devices. I haven't tried them in a while, but when I did, they worked on iBooks (of course, because Liz tested them, eh?), but not Nook, or most of the ADE-based readers. Generally, they don't work for any ePUBs destined to be converted to MOBI. (n.b.: the K Previewer also tends to err on the side of displaying stuff that doesn't really work on the devices, as it too is essentially browser-based, rather than using the same software as the actual devices.) And the results you'll get from Calibre--which is still getting rejected at KDP, by and large--will NOT be the same as what you'll get if you feed an ePUB to KindleGen/KP. If you're writing an ebook to be viewed strictly on browsers--say, something you're going to upload to Goodreads--you're STILL stuck with ADE, because they use ADE to render, and then display in the browser.

As, I think, Diap said, stick with testing on ADE if you have no device(s). As Jellby said, there's no substitute for the devices themselves, but ADE will give you a reasonably decent version of what you will see on the vast majority of the reading devices. I'm actually sorry to hear that the Previewer for Sigil displays this (I realize the issues making it not do so, but just thinking aloud here), because now we're sure to be inundated with questions that ask the same question--"X" works in Sigil Book Preview, but not on ADE/iBooks/Bob's Big Book Browser, etc. ;-)

Hitch

[phossler]

@everyone -- thanks for the thoughts.

The Sigil-zation really is just to make a poorly formatted PD ebook readable on my Kindle, or to remove the multiple TOC's added after too many runs through Calibre by someone else.

Format usually don't need to please anyone except myself or the family, so long as it's readable and there's an effective TOC.

I use ADE 2.0 as a quick view check, and the first time I tried to be clever (to me anyways) with a little fancy formatting (:first-letter,etc.) which I'd seen that in some purchased books, ADE really didn't show anything close to what Sigil was showing in BV.

Running the ebook through Calibre to convert to AZW3 and then loading onto the actual device might be the only option (as well as the final proof).

But since ADE 2.0 wasn't showing as much as Sigil, I thought there might be a better epub reader for Windows.

Paul

[Turtle91]

If you are just looking to read an epub for yourself, you could always try Azardi. They are an ePub3 reader for windows that does a good job.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's a biggie! I've found that any version less than 4 seems to be the key here. Not sure if that changed with ADE 2.0 or not.

Well, I have found one with the value 'automatic' that also didn't fly... Version 1 and 2 also do not always play nice.

[EowynCarter]

I was baffled was seeing ADE didn't understand "first-letter".
But as most reader use an implementation of ade...

[JSWolf]

p {
text-indent: 1.2em;
text-align: justify;
margin-top:0;
margin-bottom: 0
}
.first-line {
font-style: italic;
text-decoration: underline;
font-size: .75em
}
.first-letter {
font-size: 1.75em;
font-weight: bold
}

Now in your code, use spans. Problem solved. Also, I've neatened up the code. You really don't want to mix serif and sans-serif that way (it doesn't work). Also, small is a bad idea. Just go with the default size of 1em. Oh and I've fixed your formatting. No indents with a 1em paragraph space is not very readable. What happens is the you read the first paragraph and then you get taken out of the book by the very large gap before the next paragraph.

[phossler]

@JSWolf --

1. you are correct about your formatting recommendations. I'll include some of them in my 'standard' css file that I use to re-format ebooks

(Yes, I know it's ugly .. it was just an experiment)

2. spans would work, but wouldn't EVERY <p> need <span> tags around the first letter and/or first line?

Seems like a lot for work, and I thought that was what a style sheet was for. Esp when I saw how nicely Sigil handles things like :first-letter, etc.

I was just trying to maximize the use of the tool and to minimize my work.

I'm sure that there's a regex that could be made to work, but I was hoping there was a more Sigil-compatible reader for the PC. AFAIK, once Calibre converts the epub to AZW3 format, the actual device can handle it, but I really haven't gotten to the point of extensive testing there yet.

But I appreciate the feedback and the suggestions

Paul

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I was baffled was seeing ADE didn't understand "first-letter".

Since the spec-compliant way of dealing with punctuation before the first letter is not always what I want (and even if :first-letter were supported, I'm pretty sure punctuation treatment would be defective), I'm not so troubled by the lack of support. It's more reliable to use spans anyway.

Originally Posted by phossler

2. spans would work, but wouldn't EVERY <p> need <span> tags around the first letter and/or first line?

Yes, although you can't really put a span around the first line, because you don't know what the first line will be.

[user_none]

What about the reader that comes with Calibre?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Since the spec-compliant way of dealing with punctuation before the first letter is not always what I want (and even if :first-letter were supported, I'm pretty sure punctuation treatment would be defective), I'm not so troubled by the lack of support. It's more reliable to use spans anyway.



Yes, although you can't really put a span around the first line, because you don't know what the first line will be.

Yes, I was about to explain to Wolfie that what phossler was seeking was a way to implement Liz' lovely "first-line" and "first-letter" CSS examples in E:STTP because, in theory, the CSS does all the heavy lifting for you, whereas with spans, you have to individually mark every "first letter" and every first-length (of whatever) you want to mark. What would have been nice would be if first-line were supported, because those of us that make books are frequently requested to make the "first line" smallcaps (or all bold, or whatever), and of course, that's not reliably "doable." Thus, we too use spans, and have to explain (for the 594th time) that it can't be "fixed," because it isn't broken. ;-)

However, if you mark your chapter heads consistently, you can develop regex for, at least, the first-letter. I've never really worked out an automatic way to mark "first-line" or its emulation, because you're always making judgment calls about where to end the smallcaps or bold. {shrug}.

@user_none:

I, for one, do not love the Calibre reader. In the past--and I admit I haven't looked at it this year--it would not display italics and bold, along with other minor display glitches.

Hitch