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GERGE · 09-27-2015, 02:13 PM

Note: This ended up being a little rant, sorry about that.

Leave glyph size to the reader in the body text.
Leave line spacing to the reader in the body text.
Leave typeface choice of the body text to the reader.
Leave justification settings of the body to the reader too.

Almost every epub I bought was suffering from not following one of these. Self-published books are usually okay but almost no big publisher understands one crucial thing: we are using ebook readers, you don't need to set this things!

I am quite angry, actually. I am a big fan of Ellen Kushner, and was very exited when I saw that she will release a new Riverside book with Serial Box. But when I checked one of their releases, I saw that they didn't follow three of those four rules! I could change the size, that was about it.

I fiddle with almost every ebook I buy to free the typesetting, but I don't want to accept this as an usual part of reading ebooks. I just don't. Enough is enough!

What could we do to raise awareness of this with the publishers? To think; as they would be cutting expenses by not licensing typefaces for epubs (they need separate licensing per some hundreds or so different book) and hiring designers to design messed up CSS files, they would already be not doing anything to the design which is what we really want.

I mean; what is wrong with the publishers? They spend money to license typefaces for ebooks and then spend more money to pay designers for CSS and than we just strip all of those away muttering darkly. And those who don't know how to do this keeps complaining about faded and hinted type, huge or small line spacing, type unsuitable for epaper...

The state of epubs are just unbelievable. I am one step away from buying into Kindle, only because I just had enough of this. Every book I buy, almost evey book I buy, needs editing just to change linespacing or unreadable type. Look at this, this is from the Serial Box: http://i.imgur.com/B3JJ837.png Only thing I can change here is the size. What is this?

Something needs to change, or my next ereader will be a Kindle. While I think that Kobo produces better devices for me, I don't want to spend time fixing CSS anymore.

09-27-2015, 02:13 PM	#1
GERGE Guru Posts: 733 Karma: 5797160 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Istanbul Device: Kobo Libra	Basic rules of ePubs Note: This ended up being a little rant, sorry about that. Leave glyph size to the reader in the body text. Leave line spacing to the reader in the body text. Leave typeface choice of the body text to the reader. Leave justification settings of the body to the reader too. Almost every epub I bought was suffering from not following one of these. Self-published books are usually okay but almost no big publisher understands one crucial thing: we are using ebook readers, you don't need to set this things! I am quite angry, actually. I am a big fan of Ellen Kushner, and was very exited when I saw that she will release a new Riverside book with Serial Box. But when I checked one of their releases, I saw that they didn't follow three of those four rules! I could change the size, that was about it. I fiddle with almost every ebook I buy to free the typesetting, but I don't want to accept this as an usual part of reading ebooks. I just don't. Enough is enough! What could we do to raise awareness of this with the publishers? To think; as they would be cutting expenses by not licensing typefaces for epubs (they need separate licensing per some hundreds or so different book) and hiring designers to design messed up CSS files, they would already be not doing anything to the design which is what we really want. I mean; what is wrong with the publishers? They spend money to license typefaces for ebooks and then spend more money to pay designers for CSS and than we just strip all of those away muttering darkly. And those who don't know how to do this keeps complaining about faded and hinted type, huge or small line spacing, type unsuitable for epaper... The state of epubs are just unbelievable. I am one step away from buying into Kindle, only because I just had enough of this. Every book I buy, almost evey book I buy, needs editing just to change linespacing or unreadable type. Look at this, this is from the Serial Box: http://i.imgur.com/B3JJ837.png Only thing I can change here is the size. What is this? Something needs to change, or my next ereader will be a Kindle. While I think that Kobo produces better devices for me, I don't want to spend time fixing CSS anymore.