Quote:
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
In seventeenth century metaphysical poetry, for example, stanzas are sometimes written in the shape of what they describe. That can't be done reliably in mobi or epub.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ankh
Uhm, that would be like a (mouse) tail shape in Adobe epub version of "Alice in Wonderland" (chapter III)?
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Can't be done reliably, as in, formatted not once ultra-carefully but through an entire book with multiple indents, and not by an expert programmer but by an ordinary poet, and by publishing house grunts who wish to lay out/automate hundreds of pages as quickly as possible.
Great example, though -- especially since
Alice in Wonderland is ubiquitous. I'll have a look at our MR library's versions of the "Tale of the Mouse" (we have at least three). Have any of our Kindle users taken a look at commercial mobi editions?
Even so, I've yet to see a
single ePub or mobi edition in which stanzas with multiple indents are laid out correctly, let alone in a lengthy poetry collection or anthology. So far, everything I've seen has been aligned to the left margin and that, Beuys and grills, is a problem. Sadly, "yet to see" includes the poetry of writers like George Herbert and John Donne.
Entire volumes of sixteenth century prose can't be reproduced because of their layouts: Boxes of continuous text inside larger boxes of continuous text. For the modern equivalent, have a leer at
Glas, by Jacques Derrida.