Aura HD Paragraph spacing on the Kobo Aura (and HD)

[Indigo121]

I'm thinking of buying the Kobo Aura HD, but I've seen videos of it and I understand that many books show with line spaces between paragraphs, where other devices would not show them. They seem wasteful and annoying.

I understand this is mainly an issue with books bought from Kobo. My question is- does this happen with sideloaded non-Kobo epubs as well?

[GeoffR]

The device itself doesn't add any space between paragraphs, it just displays whatever spacing is in the book.

Some sideloaded epubs have spaces between paragraphs, some dont, it makes no difference whether they are bought from Kobo or not. You can edit the book to remove the spaces if you wish.

Some Kobo kepubs have spaces between paragraphs, some dont. Sometimes a Kobo kepub will have spaces when the epub version of the book doesn't. In that case you can just download the epub version and use that instead.

[ShellShock]

Note: to edit the epub you need to remove any DRM first.

[Nick Payne]

I always remove DRM from my epubs and then use Calibre to remove spacing between paragraphs and use a 1.5em indent when beginning a paragraph.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

The device itself doesn't add any space between paragraphs, it just displays whatever spacing is in the book.

Some sideloaded epubs have spaces between paragraphs, some dont, it makes no difference whether they are bought from Kobo or not. You can edit the book to remove the spaces if you wish.

Some Kobo kepubs have spaces between paragraphs, some dont. Sometimes a Kobo kepub will have spaces when the epub version of the book doesn't. In that case you can just download the epub version and use that instead.

There seems to be an exception to this rule. The last book I bought from Barnes and Noble had this filename: "Doctor Sleep.v8.epub". When I sideloaded it to my Kobo Aura it appeared as: "Doctor Sleep.kepub". I hadn't seen that happen before.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

There seems to be an exception to this rule. The last book I bought from Barnes and Noble had this filename: "Doctor Sleep.v8.epub". When I sideloaded it to my Kobo Aura it appeared as: "Doctor Sleep.kepub". I hadn't seen that happen before.

Where did you see that? Browsing the directory list from Windows? Or in the library list on the device? For the former, it probably means you have the standard Windows setting of "don't show extensions". For the latter, the device gets the title from the metadata of the book and suggests the metadata has been changed.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Where did you see that? Browsing the directory list from Windows? Or in the library list on the device? For the former, it probably means you have the standard Windows setting of "don't show extensions". For the latter, the device gets the title from the metadata of the book and suggests the metadata has been changed.

I found it in Finder, I'm on a Mac running Lion. When I bought the book at first I thought it had not downloaded at all because it did not show up at the bottom of the Chrome screen, so I went to my Library in B&N and downloaded it. Finder showed both the .v8.epub and the plain epub about 5 minutes later in the Downloads folder. I sideloaded the the v8 one to my Aura because it was older and I was curious. In "Books" on the Kobo it is listed as "Doctor Sleep.kepub", Calibre not required. It opens just fine with the normal kepub screen.

[davidfor]

If I understand you correctly, the book is on the Aura HD with the file name "Doctor Sleep.v8.epub". And in the library, it is listed with the title "Doctor Sleep.kepub". Then it is opened with the kepub reader?

That is weird and not something I have seen or heard of before. I just tried to reproduce it with another epub using that name, and it didn't happen. I also went to the B&N and got the preview to look at (I'm assuming it is the Stephen King novel). That came as "2981476727661.v4.epub", so it is probably an older version of the novel. Sideloading that gave me an epub with the correct title.

All that says that I have no idea what is happening.

[Percivale]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

The device itself doesn't add any space between paragraphs, it just displays whatever spacing is in the book.

Some sideloaded epubs have spaces between paragraphs, some dont, it makes no difference whether they are bought from Kobo or not. You can edit the book to remove the spaces if you wish.

Some Kobo kepubs have spaces between paragraphs, some dont. Sometimes a Kobo kepub will have spaces when the epub version of the book doesn't. In that case you can just download the epub version and use that instead.

Can anyone please confirm the above conclusion in reference to Aura H2O?
I am about to buy Kobo bur read some test/review in which someone mentions about the issue of paragraph spacing.

I also read that "'...Kobo devices handle widows/orphans (the splitting that happens to prevent having only a line or two of a paragraph be at the end of a page) very badly."
Has there been any patch to help it?

[Desdinova]

Originally Posted by Percivale

Can anyone please confirm the above conclusion in reference to Aura H2O?
I am about to buy Kobo bur read some test/review in which someone mentions about the issue of paragraph spacing.

I also read that "'...Kobo devices handle widows/orphans (the splitting that happens to prevent having only a line or two of a paragraph be at the end of a page) very badly."
Has there been any patch to help it?

On Pt 2, I've had very little issues with widow/orphans. With a patched firmware, you get very fine grained control of spacing...

Most of these issues are the epub/kepub itself, not the reader. That quoted line comes from a three year old post. The firmware has improved significantly in that time

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Percivale

Can anyone please confirm the above conclusion in reference to Aura H2O?
I am about to buy Kobo bur read some test/review in which someone mentions about the issue of paragraph spacing.

I also read that "'...Kobo devices handle widows/orphans (the splitting that happens to prevent having only a line or two of a paragraph be at the end of a page) very badly."
Has there been any patch to help it?

Kobo's devices pretty much follow the ebook's CSS without overiding it. You can do some modifications to override the ebook's CSS but my preference is to edit the ebook and clean up what I personally don't like. And yes, there are ebooks that add a chunk of blank space between paragraphs or combine the blank space and indenting the paragraphs. See previous rants about many publisher's having no clues when it comes to page design, typography, etc.

As for widows and orphans, they should have been left with print media. One of GeoffR's patches which was originally intended to help with RMSDK's long paragraph bug also disables widows and orphans. This may be easier than editing the stylesheet (or in some cases, every html file in the ebook) to remove the widows/orphans settings.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Percivale

Can anyone please confirm the above conclusion in reference to Aura H2O?
I am about to buy Kobo bur read some test/review in which someone mentions about the issue of paragraph spacing.

Nothing has changed regards paragraph spacing -- whatever spacing has been set in the book will be used, the only way to change it is to edit the book, or in some cases (if you bought the book from Kobo) to choose to read the ePub version instead if it has different spacing to the Kobo KePub version.

I also read that "'...Kobo devices handle widows/orphans (the splitting that happens to prevent having only a line or two of a paragraph be at the end of a page) very badly."
Has there been any patch to help it?

The KePub reader now ignores widows/orphans so you won't see any of those problems in KePub books (whether synced from Kobo or sideloaded.)

But for ePub books the choice is either to edit each book's stylesheet (Calibre can be set up to do this automatically, if you choose to use Calibre to sideload your books) or to patch the firmware. The only advantage of patching is that it works with DRM books too, whereas you need to remove DRM in order to edit the book's stylesheet.