Quote:
Originally Posted by acabal
SE Editor-in-Chief here.
ADE is the IE6 of ereaders. There isn't a whole lot we can do to make things look nice there. Fortunately fewer and fewer devices are shipping with ADE. Kindle of course uses their own renderer for mobi/azw3, and Kobo uses a very good Webkit-based renderer when using kepub files (but importantly, it defaults to ADE when using plain epub, versus kepub, files--that's why we tell people to transfer the kepub files to Kobo readers and not the regular epubs, otherwise ADE will make the ebooks look bad!).
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Firstly, we need to make a distinction. "ADE" is the software running on PCs and MACs for handling ePubs especially those with Adobe DRM. The "Adobe RMSDK" is what is used on many ereaders and apps when reading epubs. The distinction is important as they don't necessarily render books in the same way, and the versions of each that someone see is not likely to match. I would never suggest anyone use ADE for anything other than books infested with DRM and maybe as a quick check of rendering.
Having said that...
Sorry, but that is BS. The Adobe RMSDK is just as good at rendering books as the kepub renderer is. I use both. And I would have to look closely to tell the difference. Or check the book format. The RMSDK does not support some newer features, but, in general there is no differences in how they look. There is a
lot of discussion about kepubs and epubs on Kobo devices. Which to choose really comes down to personal opinion. And whether people can be bothered installing the software to change books to kepubs. There are differences in the font handling and epub does win out there. For example, the Adobe RMSDK will use ligatures, whereas the kepub renderer won't. And for an ugly error in a kepub, just look for a em-dash in a justified book. Some people think these things are important. Some don't care. Some people don't want kepubs and want to stick with epubs. In my opinion, the only real advantages using kepubs over the epub are the way that footnotes are handled, the ability to view images with zoom and the in-book stats. If you are reading novels, only the last one will be
The reason that
your "compatible" epubs look terrible on a Kobo device is because of something you are doing. Something in the stylesheet is causing an error in the RMSDK and that dumps the complete stylesheet. I have had a look and what I believe is wrong is at the end of this post.
There is also a problem with recommending kepubs: Kobo does not officially support sideloading kepubs. While it works, the only reference they have to this is in their guide to authors. They make a suggestion for how to test book looks OK on Kobo devices. And the only other instructions are about them are how to make sure links, the ToC and footnotes work properly after Kobo does their processing when the book is submitted to their store. This means that at any point, Kobo could remove this support. And if someone finds a bug that cannot be reproduced in a purchased kepub, it might not be fixed (and yes, I know of one). I don't think Kobo will remove the support, but, it won't surprise me if it happens. I'll just assume they have a new manager that wants to make their mark. Or it will be some idiot in marketing.
And the problem is that your "compatible" epubs
aren't. They are not compatible with the version of the Adobe RMSDK that is in the
current firmware for Kobo devices. Or tolino ereaders. Which means they are even worse for older devices. I would have expected Nooks to have similar problems. Can you tell me what ereaders they are compatible with?
And the fact that these are not compatible with these older devices means that you are alienating a group of people that might need these books. There are still plenty of people using these old devices. I saw a post today from someone who was happy to receive a Kobo WiFi for Christmas. That is a device that hasn't been made for 9 years. And that backs up your point about how slowly the ereader technology has moved. The companies got this working very well years ago. Unless you break a device, there is little reason to upgrade. And that is also why the newer ePub standards were not adopted. They were just not needed.
And for the record, the mention by others of ADE version 2.01, is a little bit of a red herring. There are two reasons it is still recommended here. One is to help demonstrate a book is compatible with older devices. Such as Sony's or the older Kobo devices that do not get firmware updates. Plus quite a few ereader applications. But the big reason is that books downloaded with it can have the DRM removed. This isn't guaranteed with the later versions of ADE.
Now, how to fix the "compatible" books. And honestly, the "Advanced" books.
And for the record, the bit of the stylesheet that is breaking the books in the RMSDK on Kobo devices is:
Code:
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark){
img.epub-type-se-image-color-depth-black-on-transparent{
filter: invert(100%);
}
}
This is the first time I can remember seeing an @media statement in the stylesheet for and ebook that didn't have the test for the media type. Most have been for Kindle specific things and I think they all used "screen" (of course I can't find them now). Changing this to the following works. It should work with "screen", but, "all" is effectively what I think your current code is doing.
Code:
@media all and (prefers-color-scheme: dark){
img.epub-type-se-image-color-depth-black-on-transparent{
filter: invert(100%);
}
}
Whether you make this change or not is up to you. But, at the moment, your claim of "Compatible epub" is not particularly valid.
And add "widows:1;orphans:1" to the body. Anyone using epubs on Kobo or Sony device