beginner's question re text display/font sizes

[lipstick]

My first question here & first Sigil question. I'm no techie. Instead, I'm a novelist and just opened a professionally formatted epub file for one of my books. Although the book looks great on Kindle, Nook etc, the font size displayed in Sigil is so small as to be sub-microscopic. I can't find any reference to correcting this in the manual. What do I need to do to increase the size enough so it's readable?

Right now, as I'm just beginning, all I want to do is edit some back matter links & delete some old cover images.

Thank you for help and hand-holding as I get started with Sigil.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by lipstick

My first question here & first Sigil question. I'm no techie. Instead, I'm a novelist and just opened a professionally formatted epub file for one of my books. Although the book looks great on Kindle, Nook etc, the font size displayed in Sigil is so small as to be sub-microscopic. I can't find any reference to correcting this in the manual. What do I need to do to increase the size enough so it's readable?

Right now, as I'm just beginning, all I want to do is edit some back matter links & delete some old cover images.

Thank you for help and hand-holding as I get started with Sigil.

Since the file is supposed to be ready-to-go
Use the slider in the lower right to change size (this make NO change in the book, only the view)

If you think the book is less than prime time, attach the CSS (you will need to add TXT to the end of the filename for MR to allow upload (eg styles.css.txt) for someone to look at. We may need a partial.sample chapter.

[mrmikel]

I typically have to set the viewer at 130% to be comfortable on my screen.

[Tex2002ans]

I would recommend exactly what theducks said (just changing the magnification slider in Sigil's bottom right corner).

If you have no HTML/CSS knowledge, it would most likely be very tough for you to fix the actual code throughout the entire book.

Originally Posted by lipstick

Although the book looks great on Kindle, Nook etc, the font size displayed in Sigil is so small as to be sub-microscopic.

Most likely the reason the text is so small on Sigil is this nonsense/frustrating CSS some conversion companies typically use.

I ripped this CSS right out of one of the converted books that I recently got my hands on:

p.indent{
	font-size:small;
	margin-bottom:0em;
	margin-top:0em;
	text-align:justify;
	text-indent:2em;
}

h1.chn{
	text-indent: 0em;
	font-size: x-large;
	font-weight: bold;
	margin-left:0em;
	margin-top:4em;
	padding-bottom:1.2em;
	text-align: left;
}

Every single class seems to use "font-size: x-small, small, medium, large, x-large" throughout the entire book.... which quite often leads to some confusing spaghetti code (trying to fix one error with the CSS causes many more problems, and it becomes tough to find the exact cause of the problem).

Originally Posted by lipstick

Right now, as I'm just beginning, all I want to do is edit some back matter links & delete some old cover images.

Good luck, if you happen to need any more help, please post more questions.

[theducks]

I set a base font for the Body:
Everything else is Relative to that (which those sizes are NOT).

body {
    display: block;
    font-family: Charis, "Times New Roman", Verdana, Arial;
    font-size: 1.2em;
    margin-top: 0;
    margin-left: 2pt;
    margin-right: 16pt;
    margin-bottom: 0;
    page-break-before: always;
    text-align: justify;
}

For the most part, I only set (additional) margins,indents,font style and weight in the other classes

Set up a Body, Blow away/comment out (/* this is a disabled line */) all those other font-size lines

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by theducks

I set a base font for the Body:
Everything else is Relative to that (which those sizes are NOT).

body {
    display: block;
    font-family: Charis, "Times New Roman", Verdana, Arial;
    font-size: 1.2em;
    margin-top: 0;
    margin-left: 2pt;
    margin-right: 16pt;
    margin-bottom: 0;
    page-break-before: always;
    text-align: justify;
}

I believe you shouldn't set the font size in the body. The above code actually says that default size will be 120% of the font chosen by the user... Why should a book change the user-selected font size?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I believe you shouldn't set the font size in the body. The above code actually says that default size will be 120% of the font chosen by the user... Why should a book change the user-selected font size?

Because it gets around ADE's stupidity
because Calibre's rescale ALSO uses the body to set the visual (size) tone.
Because I am not a EPUB purist .

If I leave it at 1 (or not there), the (margin) Page Numbers are the same size as the text AND it SMEARS into the last 3 letters on a line (the reason for asymmetrical margins)


Which would look visually better? (123 is the ADE supplied page number)
lastwords 123
or
lastwords 123 (zoom setting 3 emulated)
Setting a base in the body does not prevent user intervention at the device (but device intervention also affect the device supplied text. This way I control the size balance)

[Jellby]

Oh, well... since my device doesn't display page numbers anyway... I have my preferred font size, and would hate it if a particular book decides it should be 20% larger instead

[DiapDealer]

Gotta admit... rogue ebooks that don't match the font size of the rest of my book sort of annoy me. I want to set my base font-size preferences once and not have to fiddle with adjusting it for individual books.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Gotta admit... rogue ebooks that don't match the font size of the rest of my book sort of annoy me. I want to set my base font-size preferences once and not have to fiddle with adjusting it for individual books.

My device does not allow that preference (would be as I always use Zoom level 3), But that would STILL NOT work around scaling those pesky page numbers that exist in MRSDK 1.7

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I have my preferred font size, and would hate it if a particular book decides it should be 20% larger instead

This is what I hate about a lot of these EPUBs from said conversion company (where I grabbed that CSS from). I have to adjust my font sizes on my Nook, the body text then looks fine, but if I reach a blockquote (text is too small), or a header (text is much too large).

I say font-size should be set ONLY when doing something special (dropcap, title page, image captions, etc.), besides that, everything should be set to user defaults.

Plus it makes it easy as pie if someone DOES want to change the font size, it becomes a one stop shop. Not having to pull your hair out for hours trying to figure out/tweak spaghetti.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

....
I say font-size should be set ONLY when doing something special (dropcap, title page, image captions, etc.), besides that, everything should be set to user defaults. ...

I agree, but...

...there are really two different conditions to consider:

1. Books created or massaged for personal use only.

2. Books created for distribution.

In the latter case, I agree that the base size should NEVER be set and that all other sizes should be set using "em" as the units so that they adjust relative to the reader's choice for the base size. Also, indents should be set using "em" and margins should not be specified but left to the reader to control.

That said, if you are creating a book for your own private use then anything goes. It is quite reasonable to then adjust the base size and/or margins for reasons like those mentioned (e.g. as a workaround for ADE's bogus page number behavior, ...).

[lipstick]

Thank you, theducks! The slider worked perfectly.

Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate your help & interest and will no doubt need more!