The Adventures of Joe Nobody and the Badly Formatted Epub

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Using em for margins instead of points means that when the font size is increased, so are the margins, making readers who prefer a large font stuck reading two or three words in the center of a mostly-blank page.

Maybe, if it is implemented this way. Bu the CSS standard says you should not use em here so I assume it is not well defined what will happen.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Maybe, if it is implemented this way. Bu the CSS standard says you should not use em here so I assume it is not well defined what will happen.

It is very well defined what will happen and that is why the CSS standard says not to use it.

Dale

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

heh. great minds. i was writing at the same time as you were posting.

You knew the technical side of it. All I knew is that the Harlequin freebies look atrocious on M or L, and I really sympathized with people who find the default font too small.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

You knew the technical side of it. All I knew is that the Harlequin freebies look atrocious on M or L, and I really sympathized with people who find the default font too small.

ah, are they formatting their margins using ems ? somebody should tell harlequin to quit doing that. i sympathise with those people too. but yes, that's exactly what will happen if you do use them.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It is very well defined what will happen and that is why the CSS standard says not to use it.

Dale

Not in 2.1 at least: "The page context has no notion of fonts, so 'em' and 'ex' units are not allowed. ". Since they are not alllowed it is unspecified what happens if they are used. It would be correct to turn off the reader when you see an em in a @page specification.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Not in 2.1 at least: "The page context has no notion of fonts, so 'em' and 'ex' units are not allowed. ". Since they are not alllowed it is unspecified what happens if they are used. It would be correct to turn off the reader when you see an em in a @page specification.

thanks, I hadn't thought of the @page wouldn't know about fonts although I would expect it to have a notion of the default font size, perhaps not.

Dale

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by akratic

In particular, body { margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; } is recommended, which will only add left and right margins. Extending this example to body { margin: 2em } doesn't work well either, adding top and bottom margins only to the entire book.

After a fair bit of searching on this forum, I discovered that a better approach for margins is: @page { margin: 2em; } which will add margins to every page of the book.

It's not really meant to be exhaustive, just an example. It's what I use, since I only ever add left and right margins.

The "@page" I agree with.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

to further expand on this point, i don't recommend using ems as the unit of measurement for margins, since that is a proportional unit (it is the width of the letter "m" in whatever font size you are using. if the font size itself is defined in ems, 1em is around 16pt). this means that if you enlarge the text, the margin will also be enlarged proportionally. it's better therefore either to use percentage

Good point. Again, I just listed what I use for my books since I practically never zoom in a book. But others will, so it should be changed.

Baah, now I have bugs in the documentation as well, as if those in the code weren't enough...

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Valloric

Baah, now I have bugs in the documentation as well, as if those in the code weren't enough...

aw ! don't feel bad, i'm sure you can count on us to find and report (at length) any bugs in the documentation. we only report because we care, you know.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

we only report because we care, you know.

Of course, the more bug reports are filed, the better off Sigil will be for everyone.

[avresbo]

.... and where can I find a manual for dummies?

[lene1949]

I have a really, really badly formatted epup book... Can Sigel help me with that, or is it better just to convert to RTF, edit and then convert back to epup using Calibre?

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by lene1949

I have a really, really badly formatted epup book... Can Sigel help me with that, or is it better just to convert to RTF, edit and then convert back to epup using Calibre?

Well that depends entirely on the book. Try it in Sigil and see.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

it's better therefore either to use percentage (which is proportional as well, but to the size of the display) for example :
body {margin : 15%;}
or
@page {margin : 15%;}

or use pixels (this is a fixed unit and will not vary proportionally), for instance
body {margin : 20px;}
or
@page {margin : 20px;}

I wouldn't recommend using pixels. That's because the margin the user sees now depends on the resolution of the display. Set a 20px margin, and on a 72dpi screen display the margin will be just over 1/4 inch. On a 166dpi eInk screen they'll be just under 1/8 inch. On a 200dpi eInk screen they'll be 1/10 inch. And on some future 600dpi display they'll be just 1/30 inch.

It's better to use a percentage, but my preference is to use an absolute size unit, like points (pt - 1/72 inch), picas (pc - 1/12 inch), mm, cm or inches (in). All these are supported in the ePub flavour of XHTML/CSS.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I wouldn't recommend using pixels. That's because the margin the user sees now depends on the resolution of the display. Set a 20px margin, and on a 72dpi screen display the margin will be just over 1/4 inch. On a 166dpi eInk screen they'll be just under 1/8 inch. On a 200dpi eInk screen they'll be 1/10 inch. And on some future 600dpi display they'll be just 1/30 inch.

It's better to use a percentage, but my preference is to use an absolute size unit, like points (pt - 1/72 inch), picas (pc - 1/12 inch), mm, cm or inches (in). All these are supported in the ePub flavour of XHTML/CSS.

good point (ar ar ar). i hadn't thought about that, although i should have because in daffy's great experiment thread i explained how pixel size varies depending on resolution in the same post as i was talking about margins. i tend to use a percentage, personally ; it seems logical to use something which is proportional to the size of the display. it seems weird to me to use any kind of "physical" measurements (pts, mm, etc.) for digital media even if it can work, but that's probably just my own little neurosis.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

it seems weird to me to use any kind of "physical" measurements (pts, mm, etc.) for digital media even if it can work, but that's probably just my own little neurosis.

I know what you mean, but in this case it's probably the right thing to do - the margin is there to give a little gap between the edge of the display and the start of the text to cope with slight mis-alignments, shadows from bezels, etc. This probably needs to be the same (small) amount whatever size of display, or size of text.