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Old 09-01-2010, 05:44 AM   #60
sourcejedi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by simonroyle View Post
What I take from this, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that for Kindle via DTP I should format my text as justified.

For Smashwords I should leave the text essentially unjustified (no setting), although that invariably means left justified, and let the readers ereader sort it out. Is that correct?
Hah. Wrong question :-). Now we come to the real world.

"no setting" is possible if you generate your ebooks by hand. Or if you generate them from HTML, in a process which does not impose formatting (e.g. Calibre's conversion appears to impose formatting, because it's designed to be used by individual readers rather than by publishers). Or if you otherwise have access to the source code - it's not too complicated to just unset the relevant formatting.

So it should be possible to do that for the Kindle store. But since the Kindle 2 doesn't give users any control over justification, I can't make a very strong case that you should make the effort :-(.

OTOH, it doesn't look like smashwords "Meatgrinder" gives you any such option. I haven't seen a way to test it without submitting a book for publication (which is an obvious bad sign itself). But it doesn't accept HTML, only Word. I don't see a way to say "no alignment specified" in Word, or to tell the Meatgrinder that there is no specified alignment. When you use the Meatgrinder, I think you do have to make a choice between left- or full- justified. (If it helps - remember that Stanza and iBooks will ignore your decision by default, so you only have to consider the effect on FBReader and Sony/Adobe readers).

I'm afraid I can't help you there because finding this out has put me off buying anything from either of these stores until I've worked out a conversion process that lets me ignore their deficiencies.
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