Quote:
Originally Posted by Turtle91
This is what I meant by differentiating between someone's opinion and best practice.
Legend
red = opinion
blue = ok to do under certain circumstances
green = best practice
- chapter header size can be whatever you want to express the style you are trying to achieve...just remember that a lot of people read on small screen sizes (phones) and you may have an unwanted display if your chapter header takes up the whole screen...or worse, only has on line of textr at the bottom.
- in general, don't set left/right margines and/or line-height for the entire book...it is certainly ok to use them for small sections of text.
- you can certainly use a large first letter/dropcap if that is what you need stylistically for that book. Just make sure you test on your target devices/apps to make sure they support it, or, better yet, have fall-back coding (media-queries) to cover the devices that don't look so good.
- I mostly agree with having some kind of fleuron as a section break rather than blank space. With a reflowable ePub you just don't know where the space will appear. If it's at the bottom, or top, of the screen the reader may not know that a section break has occurred without a fleuron. A fixed format ePub doesn't have that concern.
- use a <blockquote> to surround a block-quote (semantically correct). A <div> is used for a generic section of text that does not have a more semantically correct tag to use.
- you certainly can make offset text smaller, especially if you are using a font that is larger by default. Again, remember some users use small screens to read, so don't go crazy with the change in font size.
- you most certainly CAN use embedded fonts, but, again, realize some devices may not support it. Test for your target market and provide fall-back coding if there is a chance it could be read on devices that don't support embedded fonts.
- I concur about the copyright page, but that is more of an annoyance than anything...it's not as if anyone actually READS the copyright page  The funniest thing I see on the copyright page is the Printer's Key.....
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Cheers! |
I've given no opinion. Its all best practices. Remember, an eBook is different to a pBook. So what works for a pBook does not always work for an eBook. For example, having most of the screen taken up with a simple chapter heading is bad practice. A lot of people rea don their phone and the screen being smallish, you can lose most of that to an overly big chapter heading.
I mentioned the overall L/R margins. Of course it's OK to have L/R margins for offset text and other specific things.
As for line-height, there's no need for it as you're not going to be using a dropcap of large first letter. A large first letter does not work properly on a Kindle because you cannot set the line-height to be smaller. So the first line of the chapter and/or section has a different space to other lines. And since Kindles are basically fixed with a line-height, why bother? With a Kobo, I can change the line-height to what I want. Why cripple that?
Dropcap or large first letter don't really work well. Change the font and/or change the line-height and it's a fail. Plus, when they fail, they look awful.
<blockquote> just works. If you like the default, you don't need extra CSS. IT's better then a <div> about the offset text.
The problem with a blank space is that the way most do it, it can be a major fail. If you use a margin to give you that space and it falls at the end/top of a page, the space gets swallowed-up. You need to use padding to have the space not get swallowed. Also, in a pBook you get *** when the space hits the top/bottom of the page. I've seen this translated over to the eBook. So you get *** in the middle of the page and you can still have the space at the top.bottom and again, it's swallowed-up. That's why I do prefer something in that space. But what I really dislike is when there is a graphic used and there is a seperate file for every occurrence of that graphic. I like my idea of a 2px 60% wide black line. I use an <hr/> with the appropriate CSS for this. Looks good and works well. Plus, I don't need any graphics for it.
Most embedded fonts do not work well. A common font is Adobe Garamond Pro and it's a disaster on an eInk screen as it's way too light. Also, on a Kindle, most people won't see your embedded fonts as they don't switch to Publisher Font. There are some cases where an embedded font works, but that will only really work with ePub.
Why do you want pBook specific stuff in the eBook? For example, a note saying that if you got the book without a cover is illegal is senseless.
What I do wish we had on all eBooks is the version number so if it gets updated and we download it again, we'll know it's a newer version.
One thing I did leave out. Do not use % where em will work better.
I do think following my instructions will give a rather good looking eBook.