Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
For Baen's free library, I'd suggest re-downloading in epub format. For other books, I have spent quite a few hours editing ebooks whose formatting is so bad that I find it painful to read them.
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Unfortunately the few I had saved are no longer listed on their site, and I only downloaded the html. But I only spent a day collecting, editing, and tweaking everything (not just Baen e-books) so not a huge loss of time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Kobo's ereaders will use the styles embedded in the epub. For instance, a fixed line height will override the line height slider while the margin slider can increase the margins set in the epub but not reduce them. To get the ebook to match your requirements will require editing. What you will find is that many of the edits are repetitive and saved search/replace makes it much faster.
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Which BBEdit is excellent for (text factories), though I normally use Sublime Text. Calibre's editor is painful to use... and I'm still not entirely sure how it doles out CSS classes when bring in html files.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
There have been several near religious arguments over respecting the publisher's embedded styles vs. allowing the user to override everything.
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When I get a paper book I don't have a choice, so in that respect I have to leave it alone... but if given a choice I think it's worth reformatting provided no intent was lost with the reformatting. In some books that I've read type was used both as words and design, so obviously in a book like that you shouldn't mess with the formatting. To me design is subjective, and at the whim of the graphic artist (unless the author is really really specific, which I would hope would be obvious).
Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
There have been several near religious arguments I suspect the real answer is because we can. Personally, I like having quite a few books available as options when I finish a book since a average book takes only 1.5-2 hours. I also keep quite a few manuals and other reference materials on my ereaders. The iPad Pro is better for PDFs but the Kobo works in an emergency.
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I no longer have an iPad, never used it much (just for games, reading wasn't pleasant). I usually use my laptop for PDF manuals, but I'm really curious how well they will display on the Kobo. I've heard PDF viewing isn't the greatest experience, and might require reformatting for the screen, but for my needs might be sufficient. It might give me the impetus to scan all of my (vintage) power tool manuals, but then I'll regret getting the 8GB model!