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Originally Posted by Barty
Has anyone tried contacting kobo about this?
Seems like people have been complaining about this and the widow orphan bug forever.
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I think Kobo doesn't care about it because most people don't seem to care.
I've set up an e-reader for something like two dozen (older) people over the years. Most of them get their books on their readers trough one of their children, or through me; then they stop by with a list of books they want. I buy those for them, using their own Kobo/Amazon account (but my own payment details), and then I sync the reader. They reimburse me for the books. I download the books and put them into a separate Calibre library as a backup.
These people just read whatever layout Kobo/Amazon provides.
Most people I have seen that use tablets, phones, or the cheapest e-reader in town use them as a means to read as cheap as possible: i.e., by pirating books. If you see the layout of what they read, your eyes start to bleed and your brain recoils in horror. Widows/orphans, half a letter cut-off on the right, or even half a blank page now and again are trivial matters; they're not even regarded as problems.
If all the text is there, then it's good enough.
I think, only readers that became used to reading pretty hard cover books that are printed and typeset perfectly get worked up over things like widows/orphans, or a few lost lines on a page.
To be honest, the default Kobo KEPUB layout is quite pretty, with the title on top of the page and the progress on the bottom. If you look closely at the comparison pictures I've posted, you'll see that the paperback has "Philip Athans" on the top of the left page and "Baldur's Gate" on the top of the right (all of them), and it uses quite a big space to display the page number.
I also have hard covers that are set up like this, and even have a margin of 2cm all around (my Dutch copy of Lord of the Rings, for example). I have no problem with it. The only reason why I have a problem with it on an e-reader is because the screens are already smaller than what a hard cover provides (and in the case of a 6 inch reader, even smaller than a paperback), so I consider it foolish to use big spaces of it for titles and page numbers.