Thread: What is your process for testing an eBook across multiple devices?
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Old 06-21-2021, 12:42 AM   #17
davidfor
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze View Post
I briefly tried the KePub Output plugin for Calibre but disabled it immediately because of the monospace font butchery
Kobo do not supply a monospaced font. For epubs, recent firmware will use a font whose name starts with "Courier" if one is added to the device. This is what @DNSB referred to. But, I do not believe that kepubs do this. Or at least my quick test didn't show it.

Personally, I find the concern over monospaced fonts a bit strange. I remember noticing that the Kobo devices didn't support them when I got my original Touch. But, the only times I have ever noticed the lack is when someone points it out in discussions like this. All the books I have either don't need one, or use an embedded monospace font.
Quote:
and the obscene handling of squeezed em dashes. I hadn't noticed concentration-destroying spacing issues before or since.
What is a "squeezed em dash"? In the kepub renderer, the handling of spacing around emdashes, endashes and similar is wrong. But, you have to care for it to be noticeable or a problem.
Quote:
Other people seem to use that plugin without issue, so perhaps there are inherent conflicts with the formatting of certain books. I only know that all four of the books I converted with that specific plugin had the same distracting spacing.
No, it is a sign of how little people care about the typography. Most people don't care if ligatures are used. Or know what they are. Or if hyphens are used when emdashes or endashes should be used. Hell, most people have no idea what any of that meant. They might notice "smart" quotes instead of "straight" quotes, but, again, they probably don't care. I think if you showed the rendering of an epub and a kepub to someone, they would probably see the difference, and might even say the epub was better, but, it wouldn't matter to them. In the case of kepubs and epubs, most would probably say that the other advantages of kepubs outweigh the disadvantages.

And, as @hobnail said, it is not the driver or conversion, it is the renderer. These differences are in how the renderer lays out the text.
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