Hi,
First things first: I consider
Moon+ Reader Pro to be the best EPUB reader on Android. The paid version is greatly superior over the free one, although I couldn't say whether it would resolve your particular issues.
Just a few general comments from me below...
Quote:
Originally Posted by McManly
I note in passing that Sigil is less than impressed with html that Calibre is able to live with. I just let it "clean" it, and the result looks fine.
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I wouldn't rely on a vague "looks fine". For every EPUB book I produce, I make sure to run its HTML code through
w3c.org's validator. Until I get the green light, I won't publish the faulty code. Having 100% valid code would be particularly important for a scientific publication such as yours, I'd say, which requires precision in every respect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by McManly
display Greek characters like pi and nu, plus h-bar and other rarities;
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Please note that this is largely dependent on the
font (!) the reader activates in his or her e-reader software, and that is something that you cannot (and should not) specify on behalf of the reader.
Greek characters (and other oddities) display just fine in quality e-reader software if your file is properly encoded using UTF-8. Then, all you can do is to alert the reader of your e-book, perhaps in a preface or introductory note, that they should select a fully Unicode-enabled font for viewing your book. That should do it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by McManly
display italics, bold, and 9, 10 and 12-point body type;
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Italics, bold (and other such formatting) are a must.
However, specifying exact font sizes is (in my opinion) a misconception. That is
not what the EPUB format is about. The EPUB code should only contain
relative font specification. Leave the size of the default paragraph text unspecified; and then, you can specify certain passages to be a certain percentage in size compared to the default and unspecified text size (such as
1.25em,
0.8em).
Quote:
Originally Posted by McManly
display my selected font (Verdana, though I would settle for Arial)
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Again, a misconception, in my opinion. You
cannot enforce your own preferred fonts in EPUB e-readers. EPUB files are not PDF files, thank heavens. All you can do, is
recommend certain fonts to your readers as optimal for viewing your particular e-books. You'll
never be able to
enforce a particular font onto your readers, though. And that's a great thing!
(For example, I dislike non-serif fonts and would
not read your books in them; the first thing I'd do, even if your book displayed in a non-serif font for me by default, would be to swap your preferred font for
my favourite -- and serif -- font. And that's fine, as long as my preferred font is fully Unicode-enabled, so that your content remains intact.)