Glo Kobo Glo inconsistent bottom margins?

[robertiv]

I bought a Kobo Glo a month or two ago and have been happy with it for the most part.

But one annoying quirk I've noticed is the bottom margins - every few pages the page ends several lines higher than the rest of them. This isn't a paragraph or line break thing, oftentimes this occurs when the page ends mid-sentence. Sometimes it's just a couple lines, but occasionally several.

Happens across all the books I've tried - both loaded myself and downloaded through Kobo's store. While it's not a dealbreaker it is kind of a sloppy presentation, anyone else experience this? Is there a fix?

I chatted with Kobo support today, they seemed assured that the new firmware update would fix it. After following their instructions for a factory reset and forced update the problem remains....

[PeterT]

This is a common issue; look for discussions of Widows and Orphans.

[robertiv]

Ah thanks, I just read through a couple of those threads. Just one of the reasons I resisted getting an ereader for so long - you gain convenience at the cost of quality issues that would be totally unacceptable in a print book.

So I installed Calibre and converted a couple of my epub files with the added CSS "body {widows: 0; orphans: 0}". That fixed my bottom margin problem apparently, but now I'm unable to change the line spacing via the Kobo menu - no matter how I adjust the slider it remains the same. Not sure if that's a result of the CSS I added or some other setting change by Calibre in the conversion process. Any suggestions?

[GeoffR]

I try to avoid doing a full epub-->epub conversion unless necessary, as it can mess up other things. I just use the Tweak book function in Calbre, explode the book, add the following line to the .css file with a text editor, and then rebuild the book:

body { widows: 0; orphans: 0; }

It doesn't completely fix the problem, but it reduces it to a tolerable level.

[robertiv]

Good to know. I just started using Calibre so am still getting the hang of it. Can you do those CSS tweaks in bulk, or do you have to manually explode and edit each book?

And on closer examination, that CSS line does seem to help a bit but as you say doesn't fix the problem completely. Would really be nice to see Kobo get a fix out for this...

[davidfor]

For line-height, the Kobo respects the CSS in the epub and the setting on the device only have an affect if the CSS doesn't set it. If you are doing conversions in calibre, on the "Look & Feel" page, set the "Minimum line height" to zero. With this, the conversion won't add line-heightbut it also won't remove any for styles in the input.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by robertiv

Good to know. I just started using Calibre so am still getting the hang of it. Can you do those CSS tweaks in bulk, or do you have to manually explode and edit each book?

I don't know any way to do CSS tweaks in bulk, I have just been doing them manually as I add each book to Calibre. An automated script or calibre plugin sure would be nice.

[davidfor]

Select the books you want to change in calibre and do a convert. This will use the bulk convert has a subset of the options for a single conversion. The options we have been discussing are available there.

I would also suggest the "Modify ePub" plugin. This has lots of options to help clean up and tweak epubs without doing an actual conversion. It doesn't do what you need here, but is an extremely useful plugin.

[robertiv]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For line-height, the Kobo respects the CSS in the epub and the setting on the device only have an affect if the CSS doesn't set it. If you are doing conversions in calibre, on the "Look & Feel" page, set the "Minimum line height" to zero. With this, the conversion won't add line-heightbut it also won't remove any for styles in the input.

I did this & strangely the result was to make the minimum line heights (according to the slider) still be fairly large.

I.e. at maximum slider the lines were the expected double-spaced, but even when it was pushed all the way to the left they were substantial (nearly "one-and-a-half spaced") instead of the condensed lines you'd expect.

That's because the line height at the leftmost has something like a value of 1.3, which is still fairly large. I just use the 120% default in calibre, which is slightly less than that.

[guma]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I don't know any way to do CSS tweaks in bulk, I have just been doing them manually as I add each book to Calibre. An automated script or calibre plugin sure would be nice.

you can store default settings for conversion in calibre (preferences: conversions: common options: look and feel). this allows to perform most simple css tweaks, like removing/filtering of styles or adding extra css, in bulk via epub to epub conversion.

I do this with all my books and have not noticed any negative side effects of these epub to epub conversions.

[guma]

Originally Posted by robertiv

I did this & strangely the result was to make the minimum line heights (according to the slider) still be fairly large.

I.e. at maximum slider the lines were the expected double-spaced, but even when it was pushed all the way to the left they were substantial (nearly "one-and-a-half spaced") instead of the condensed lines you'd expect.

in order to make sure that the kobo settings affect the layout you have to remove the line spacing information from the epub instead of changing it.

conversion: look and feel: filter style information

[robertiv]

Originally Posted by guma

in order to make sure that the kobo settings affect the layout you have to remove the line spacing information from the epub instead of changing it.

conversion: look and feel: filter style information

Ah, thanks for the heads-up. When I click on that tab however, I don't see "line spacing" as a checkbox option - what term exactly would I type in the text field there? "line-spacing" doesn't seem to do the trick.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by guma

you can store default settings for conversion in calibre (preferences: conversions: common options: look and feel). this allows to perform most simple css tweaks, like removing/filtering of styles or adding extra css, in bulk via epub to epub conversion.

I do this with all my books and have not noticed any negative side effects of these epub to epub conversions.

I find that if the book has a lot of problems then Calibre's epub-->epub conversion makes things better, but if the book is basically good to start with then a conversion makes it worse. So for books where the only problems are the orphans/widows I would like to avoid a full conversion which can mess up the spacing between scenes and the font sizing.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by robertiv

Ah, thanks for the heads-up. When I click on that tab however, I don't see "line spacing" as a checkbox option - what term exactly would I type in the text field there? "line-spacing" doesn't seem to do the trick.

Try line-height in Other CSS Properties

Maybe also, on the same Look&Feel page, set Minimum line height to zero. This should stop calibre creating any extra line-height css statements.