Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Polansky
So... Previewer 'works', with the exception of all the exceptions?? 
How is it that this entire 'manuscript to kindle' process is so frustratingly inexact? and why is it tolerated? Surely getting an html page to display properly on a hand held device can't be this hard. |
Steve:
Sure it is. You think this is fun? Wait until you try making ePUBs, if you're not already--that will make creating and testing Kindle books look like "the good old days." I mean, in fairness to Amazon--Previewer is trying to show what a K7 will look like on, what, 8 different devices now? (With html 3.2)
Plus One K8 device,
plus 3 different apps running on different OS's (Fire, Droid, and K4PC/Mac), not to mention K4iPhone/iPad, which is
two more (which are HTML 4.x and 5, respectively, and just for s&g's, plus CSS2 for the 8 and none for the 7). If you're making pop-up text kids' books, (Fire Fixed-Format), now you add a dash of CSS3, with a little sumpin-sumpin' JS thrown in, if you're feeling very
Conan the Barbarian about your skillset. It feels a teensy-weensy bit unfair to expect one Previewer to accommodate all that flawlessly. All things considered, I think it does a reasonable, although, agreed, imperfect, job.
When you get to ePUBs, the fun
really starts: you think you know how to center plain old stuff, like text or images? HA! You
DON'T, just ask Apple. Think you know how to make a heading work, for a sub-header or chapter header?
HA! Wait until you see it on a
Nook, particularly if you, foolish puny human, tried to use a Raised Initial with smallcaps. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! Think ADE of FFReader will remotely reliably show you what you've created, on a KOBO? Nyet, Comrade Bookmaker.
Ve Haff Vays to Make You Suffer. And there's no such thing as a Global ePUB Previewer, despite the fact that most of us use ADE as such--the simpler the layout, the easier the final resolution of conforming the copies--but it's never truly EASY, unless it's just plain-old, plain-old vanilla fiction, and even then, if you used something as simple as a drop-cap,
man your battle stations.
Trust me, I have a table, right next to my desk that's 3' x 3', and it's covered with...
devices. iThis and iThat and several Kindles and Nooks and a few tablets, just for good measure. I didn't buy them for fun, I truly didn't (although I like reading on both the Fire and the NookColor, FWIW).
(Aren't you glad I answered you?)
Hitch