Troubleshooting Justification

[sillypoint]

Hello!

When an e-book is justified the Kindle needs to adjust spacing between words so that eventually the text appears justified. There seem to be two ways through which the Kindle handles this.

First is where the adjustment for the spacing is done within the line. Sometimes this tends to create weird-looking large spaces between words. The other way is where the adjustment is made at the end of the line, which leaves some space only at the end of the line.

So my doubt is, whether there is any specific way to format an epub so that the converted mobi file displays justification only of the second type? (I use Kindle Previewer for converting epubs to mobi.) 'Cause I'm not too much of a fan of large spaces appearing all over the line. Is there a way?


Thanks a lot. The thing is, though I appreciate their hard-work, the formatting of Kindle books on Gutenberg – paragraph spacing, indent – is not really to my liking. Thank you!

[HarryT]

Sure - just hard code left justification into your book:

<p align=left>...

If this is for your own personal use, that's no problem, but nobody else will thank you for creating a book with hard coded left justification.

[sillypoint]

Thanks a lot! The left align code leaves space at the end of each line which does look really bad. Perhaps the question should've been more clear.

The kind of justification which I'm trying to get is where there's a blank space if required at the end of, say, only one line per page. The other lines look normal with no extra spacing either within the line or at the end of the line.

To give an example, Robin Buss's translation of Monte Cristo from Amazon has that sort of formatting.

[HarryT]

I'm afraid you've lost me. There are only two ways of doing justification:

1. Left alignment, where all the space is at the end of the line.
2. Full alignment, where space is added between words.

That's it; there's no other choice.

The Kindle tries to be smart, so if you have full alignment and that would involve inserting too much empty space in the line, the Kindle will left justify that line only, but you can't control when or if it does that.

[sillypoint]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The Kindle tries to be smart, so if you have full alignment and that would involve inserting too much empty space in the line, the Kindle will left justify that line only, but you can't control when or if it does that.

Oh.

The Kindle does that for some books. With others (converted epubs) it always inserts white space within the line – no matter how much – and never ever left justifies that line. So I thought there could be some way to, you know, tell Kindle to left justify such lines instead. By editing the CSS.

[Antoinekamel]

I agree with the other and think it is not possible by default.

However, there is a software you can easily install in your Paperwhite, a hack, called JBPatch. It has this option and also allows you to add hyphenation to make the reading clearer (among other improvements).

I can't take the link now in the smartphone I'm browsing, but you'll find JBPatch thread in the Developers Corner in the Kindle section.

Best Wishes,
Antoine

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sillypoint

Oh.

The Kindle does that for some books. With others (converted epubs) it always inserts white space within the line – no matter how much – and never ever left justifies that line. So I thought there could be some way to, you know, tell Kindle to left justify such lines instead. By editing the CSS.

Perhaps you're seeing the difference between Mobi and KF8 books. The Kindle will left justify some lines in Mobi books, but it doesn't do so with KF8.

[Jeff L]

Originally Posted by sillypoint

...there's a blank space if required at the end of, say, only one line per page. The other lines look normal...

Kindles used to justify the entire line regardless of the amount of spacing needed between words. After a certain upgrade (available only for some Kindles), Amazon introduced an algorithm where no more than three spaces would be added between words.

If that wasn't enough to justify the line, then you would see a space at the end.

[sillypoint]

However, there is a software you can easily install in your Paperwhite, a hack, called JBPatch. It has this option and also allows you to add hyphenation to make the reading clearer (among other improvements).

However, I use the K4 non-touch and not the paperwhite.

Perhaps you're seeing the difference between Mobi and KF8 books.

Nope, it's a mobi file.

Amazon introduced an algorithm where no more than three spaces would be added between words.

Exactly! But that's what doesn't work sometimes.


Thank you for replying.
Here, I've attached a screenshot to show how a converted epub (using Kindle Previewer) straight from PG looks. See how the line fifth from the bottom is weirdly stretchy. I was wondering whether that could be fixed by doing something to the epub's CSS.

PS: This is a bit silly, but the "Originally posted by *username*" is not appearing with the quoted texts! Am I missing something?

[sillypoint]

I think if the ebook file is from Amazon, this does not happen.

[sillypoint]

Originally Posted by sillypoint

PS: This is a bit silly, but the "Originally posted by *username*" is not appearing with the quoted texts! Am I missing something?

Oh. Got it. My bad.



Update
This problem has a solution:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=208534