Thread: i Loathe ePub...
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Old 10-09-2017, 02:36 PM   #83
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Posts: 179
Karma: 141378
Join Date: Sep 2009
Device: kindle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutchbook View Post
Hello all,

As you might or might not be aware, I'm quite new to the joys of E-ink. However, I immediately remembered why I didn't bother before: ePub

I like to download a book, formatted by the specification by the writer or publisher, and just read it.

This is simply not possible with ePub.

Not even mentioning the DRM that makes buying an ebook from an independent store as pleasant as shoving a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire up there, it also makes for a ridiculous adventure trying to format the damn thing.

Example:
This is an excerpt from the PDF preview of the book. Notice the soft serif font? the size of the letters, formatted perfectly with the rest to create a readable and pleasant viewing experience?
https://imgur.com/kk8J9Wl

Murdered by the Kobo App...
https://imgur.com/jOUEmAI

After half an hour of work, and Kobo's proprietary "TsukuMin" font, I got something which was reasonable out of it
https://imgur.com/FSCgAm8

But then, Calibre struck!
https://imgur.com/Ga5WrdZ

Another hour fiddling with Calibre...
https://imgur.com/wL9mv52

Just look how far that is from what the publisher intended.

But ok, it is somewhat legible, so lets use the 'Print to PDF' option.

And the end result: https://imgur.com/PoPWkcS

Really? REALLY?

In the past, Kobo offered to download a PDF of ebooks, but now I'm stuck with a book collection that requires me to format every.effing.book.myself and try to make it readable. Who in their right mind came up with such a horrible system?

Boy, I really wonder why e-reader sales collapsed!
Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't see what is wrong with any of those images. Some of them, I can see differences, but they are all perfectly readable to me.

The only thing that bugs me with my books is that for some reason my Kobo doesn't like using my monospace don't for code samples in tech books. Even that, I've been living with so far, but it is annoying. (I have a few workarounds in Calibre, but they are a bit of work, so I don't always bother with them, especially since some workarounds have to be applied each time the device updates, and it appears that another step might need to be redone sometimes after Calibre updates....
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