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Originally Posted by bookman156
I didn't understand until recently the recommendation I received in this forum not to use margin for spacing, but padding instead. In web design this makes no sense, but in ebooks I came across a good example recently in the PocketBook Reader in Android. I altered the margin all around the page and this completely destroyed the margins I have been using to space type. On changing it to padding instead I could alter the page margin without any effect on my spacing.
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That is a mistake. You do not want to alter the margins all around the screen. You really don't. You want to let the person reading set the margins if the program has that as an option. For example, Kobo Readers have the option to change the margins. You don't want to take away the user's choice of margins.
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As for line-height, I experimented with removing, but have reinstated, as without line-height being set you may end up having no choice but too tight or too spaced. It is the case on the above-mentioned reader for example. But if you set line-height (in em) to what you think is aesthetically desirable then this is reflected in the reader, effectively giving you access to inbetween measures that are in any case relative to the font size, if you alter it.
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As for line-height, get rid of it it. Kobo has a setting for Line spacing and if you set it, you'll once again ruin the user's choice.
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As for default units, I have seen people use pt in ebooks, which so far as I know is solely a print measure. I always use em. 12pt only equals 1em for 12pt type. For 10pt type 1em is 10pt. I have no idea how ereaders use pt, or whether they do, but em is better as a relative unit.
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Do not use px or pt. Use em or %. But some publishers overuse %. Mostly you want to use em as % can change based on the device being used to read the eBook. A text-indent of 5% is smaller on a PW3 and larger on a Kindle Oasis. A text indent of 1.2em is the same on both devices.
So please don't fool around with margins or line height. Leave L/R margins at 0 and no added line height. And also don't add in paragraph spaces. You will make the reading experience better for more people then you would doing it the way you said earlier in this post. This is from experience.