Quote:
Originally Posted by GrannyGrump
@Nabodita -- something that sometimes helps to soften the shock of the white borders around a COVER image is to set a background color for THAT page that blends well with the main color of the image. For example, using your screenshot, you could use a shade of gold.
<snip CSS examples>
|
...and, of course, what would REALLY soften the shock would be the realization that not 1 person out of 100 ever looks at the cover of an ebook
after it's been purchased and downloaded from the e-store (proof positive: ask all the Dresden Files fans here on MR about how many Harries were shipped WITH a cover AT ALL for the ebooks, for ages...); what matters are the
catalog covers (what's shown on Amazon, B&N, KoboBooks and iTunes), and to a lesser degree, how the cover image displays on the virtual bookshelves on the purchaser's device. 99% of all ebooks open to the Title page or the TOC, or the "text" set-location (as set in the Guide). I'd kill to have access to Amazon's usage data, but I'd bet a chunk of income that my numbers are right--that not 1 in 100 pages back to the cover.
I grossly underestimated the importance of covers, as sales inducements, before I got into the biz--but
Creative grossly overestimates the importance of the covers
once the sale is made.
The iBooks' glitch with centering has been known for a good 3 or 4 years now. For plain old alignment web CSS does not work. For it to work, as has been mentioned here (for everything: text, images, whatever), you have to wrap the element to be centered in an empty something, whether that's a span or a div. Auto-margins don't work on a massive number of devices. Rubén's solution of the incorrect table suggestion does, as he states, work on iBooks and the KF8 devices, but dies on KF7.
So, to date, the oldie-but-goodie is still the safest; wrap it, whatever "it" is, in an empty span (or div, or whatever is suitable) and then center that. You'll have to take it up with iBooks, followed by the IDPF, which is currently playing footsie with worrying about crap like ePUBDUB, or whatever it's called, instead of trying to get ANY type of standarized compliance, or, hell, even specs, for ePUB3.
I've noted, over the years, that "getting" aspect ratio, sizing, and device aspect ratios seems to be really hard for people...that there's no CSS for "Gumby." I think I should create a new media query, the "Gumby" query: automagically make this 3:4 image fit this 1:1.7 screen, or vice-versa, sans distortion. But for reasons that elude me, that never works. ;-) Seriously, I must explain this...hell, at least 3x a week, if not more.
That, and the "no, that ginormous, 3-column book you made at
Blurb is
NOT GOING TO LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME when it's made into a reflowable book," discussion. I wish I could come up with some simple, elegant demonstration that in a 15-second video could explain a) why a cover of a certain size won't magically fit ALL devices, and b) why that 10" x 15" book that has 3-columns and images floating next to text, etc, can't be CRAMMED into 17 square inches of space for a regular ebook screen and still be readable. I've tried to think of everything: 20lbs. of flour pouring into a 5lb. tin; water into a glass, etc., but...something about people and what's happened with webpage, with panning/zooming, javascript...man. They just CANNOT GET IT. It's my biggest frustration. (Okay, I'm a big liar. It's merely ONE of my biggest frustrations. I have a list, but it's getting so long that it's starting to look like Santa's list, stretching from my desk, over the device table, down to the floor, across the 10' to my office door, under the door...the Booknook cats are starting to think it's a python that they can play with. Yes, I'm keeping the list by hand. A list of WHO'S NAUGHTY AND WHO'S NICE, just so you've all been warned....)
ARRGGUGHGHGH. This work is making me
.
Hitch