I did some playing with the issue with kepub converted epubs and missing spaces when italics were used.
Here's the original epub file using span, naked i, naked em and i and em with a class:
Code:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
<head>
<title>Kepub Italics Space Test</title>
<link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/>
</head>
<body>
<p>Jenny. <span class="italic">The </span></p>
<p>Jenny. <i>The </i></p>
<p>Jenny. <i class="italic">The </i></p>
<p>Jenny. <em>The </em></p>
<p>Jenny. <em class="italic">The </em></p>
</body>
</html>
and here is the result of converting to kepub with the 3.7.2 code version of Kepub Output:
Code:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
<head>
<title>Kepub Italics Space Test</title>
<link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<style type="text/css" class="kobostylehacks">div#book-inner { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;}</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="book-columns">
<div id="book-inner">
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.1.1">Jenny. </span><span class="italic"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.1.2">The </span></span></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.2.1">Jenny. </span><i><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.2.2">The </span></i></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.3.1">Jenny. </span><i class="italic"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.3.2">The </span></i></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.4.1">Jenny. </span><em><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.4.2">The </span></em></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.5.1">Jenny. </span><em class="italic"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.5.2">The </span></em></p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
and the last version which using the KoboTouchExtended driver to send the book with conversion on the fly to kepub.epub:
Code:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
<head>
<title>Kepub Italics Space Test</title>
<link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../kte-css/stylehacks.css" type="text/css"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="book-columns">
<div id="book-inner">
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.2.1">Jenny.</span><span class="italic"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.3.1">The</span></span></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.5.1">Jenny.</span><i><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.6.1">The</span></i></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.8.1">Jenny.</span><i class="italic"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.9.1">The</span></i></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.11.1">Jenny.</span><em><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.12.1">The</span></em></p>
<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.14.1">Jenny.</span><em class="italic"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.15.1">The</span></em></p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
It's a bit odd that kepubify and the Kepub Output conversion calibre plugin maintain the spaces but the KoboTouchExtended driver does not.