Quote:
Originally Posted by Slevin#7
Since devices are getting higher and higher in resolution and software is getting better and better at hyphenation, so in my opinion it makes sense to consider justification for the main text. I've also seen that RbnJrg uses justification by default, and who am I to question that.
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Well, just because I do "something" doesn't mean that that "something" is right. At most, I can only say that "something" is right, but only for me.
But I'm going to defend my position. And I'm going to do so based on what's happening with Google Play Books and PocketBook ereaders (which I've seen from your comments that you use).
The following is a screenshot of an epub opened with GPB styled with my .css styles:
What happens when I select from the GPB menu text-align to left? The following:
As you can see, GPB aligns to the left ALL THE TEXT, not only the text in <p> tags but also text in <h*> tags. And what happens if I select justified text? The following:
The text in <h*> tags remains aligned to the left. Now imagine the disaster that would occur if proper alignment weren't included, with paragraphs that should be aligned to the right or center? If you let users set the alignment, they won't get the best reading experience. By adding your own style, you give them a point of comparison between what they can get on their own and what the book can provide by default.
And the same thing happens in PB. The following screenshot is from another chapter in the same book, with the default styles:
Now, PB is smarter than GPB and doesn't allow you to change the alignment unless the user disables the styles built into the .css file. What happens if you disable those styles and set the alignment to left? Well, this is it:
Compare the reading experience with built-in styles and what users can achieve by disabling them.
One more thing: all my
epubs are epub3 with fallback code for epub2. And all my epubs have hyphenation, regardless of whether the e-reader has that feature or not. This is because my epubs have "Hyphenator" built in, a JavaScript program that hyphenates words where necessary. If the e-reader has hyphenation, then Hyphenator doesn't run; if not, it does.
And finally, if the default alignment for <p> elements is justified or left-aligned, you have to consider the language. English is a language of short words, so even without hyphenation, justified text looks good (see the first screenshot, which belongs to GPB, with justified text and no hyphens—I should clarify that there are no hyphens there because GPB is an epub2 reader and doesn't support JS). On the other hand, German is a language of long words, and there, even with hyphens, you have to carefully analyze whether justified or left alignment is appropriate.
The behavior of GPB and PB is practically shared by most e-readers, so if users choose left-aligned text, they have to be prepared for the entire book, not just the body text, to have that alignment (imagine text that should be right-aligned with the opposite alignment; a real disaster).
And regarding font size, you might want to read the following articles:
https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_font_size.asp
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/.../CSS/font-size
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/...nt-size-adjust