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Old 05-05-2021, 01:27 AM   #13
Tex2002ans
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Posts: 2,306
Karma: 13057279
Join Date: Jul 2012
Device: Kobo Forma, Nook
Quote:
Originally Posted by patrik View Post
I bought a book today that seems to be an Indesign export. Every word has its own formatting. On my ereader there are huge margins, so it's not readable.

[...]

Ideas?
Yep, like DNSB said, that's a Fixed Layout EPUB.

The way you can tell is InDesign wraps every single individual word in a <span> and absolutely positions it:

Spoiler:
Code:
<p class="Drop-Cap ParaOverride-1"><span class="CharOverride-14" id="_idTextSpan41408" style="position:absolute;top:2537.09px;left:-34.4px;">“</span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41409" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:326.11px;">I </span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41410" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:515.94px;letter-spacing:0.87px;">want </span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41411" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:1107.67px;letter-spacing:-1.22px;">you </span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41412" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:1567.94px;letter-spacing:-0.62px;">to </span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41413" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:1877.72px;letter-spacing:1.83px;">imagine </span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41414" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:2773.35px;letter-spacing:-0.23px;">your </span><span class="CharOverride-3" id="_idTextSpan41415" style="position:absolute;top:2589.14px;left:3321.68px;text-rendering:optimizeLegibility;letter-spacing:0.73px;">reflection </span> [...]</p>


Compare to:

Code:
<p class="Drop-Cap ParaOverride-1">“I want you to imagine your reflection [...]</p>
And as you noticed, only zooming + panning/scanning, no changing fonts, and missing all the other fantastic advantages a true ebook brings!

Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB View Post
Somewhat interestingly, from the content.opf, this epub is intended to be read in landscape with the pages carefully labelled as left/right and the Apple metadata to allow using embedded fonts is present:
Bah, that's another problem with InDesign's fixed layout EPUBs, they export code that only works in Apple's iBooks.

And I have no idea how that passed Kobo's Quality Control in the first place.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB View Post
Overall, the kindest thing I can say about the structure of the epub is that it's an abomination. I've attached some screenshots from my Forma. Likely the same crap you've already seen.
Woof.

And the book looks like it's a basic Fiction book, just pure text. There's absolutely zero reason for that to be a fixed-format book.

Last edited by Tex2002ans; 05-05-2021 at 01:30 AM.
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