Show remaining pages (chapter) with disabled footer

[noap_]

Hi,

this is my first post in this forum, welcome everyone!
I've recently purchased my first e-reader, the Kobo Glo HD. I've set it up so that the whole screen is filled with text, no space is wasted (margins set low, disabled header/footer). I've also disabled showing page numbers, because they seem to be messed up, when disabling header/footer (page numbers show up somewhere on the side of the page, sometimes overlapping with text). But I don't really care for the actual page number, so that's fine.
What I do miss is, that the progress within the current chapter is not shown. I'd like it to show the remaining pages or the current progress (in %) of the current chapter. Is there an option to somehow show this, even with disabled footer?

I see 3 options/alternatives here:
1. Showing progress with disabled header/footer.
2. Showing progress with enabled header/footer, but with tweaked header/footer, so that they aren't that huge, if that's possible.
3. Show the progress in the status bar, which appears if I tap the center of the screen (currently only shows the progress within the whole book).

Any ideas?

[GeoffR]

The main thing to know is that the current-chapter and time remaining progress options only work for KePub books. ePub books always show entire-book progress even if the current-chapter option is selected, and will show page numbers instead of time remaining.

Also, the current chapter progress only works properly if the KePub book has been created to Kobo's guidelines, which means one chapter per internal file.

You can convert ePub books to KePub using the KoboTouchExtended driver in Calibre, but if the book has multiple chapters per file then further work will be needed or else the current-chapter progress will not be accurate.

Note that KePub books have an option to show a lot of other reading stats including a bar chart of the chapter lengths, an estimated time to complete the current and next chapters, as well as the percentage complete of the current chapter. This is shown as a popup so can be used in full screen mode too, but again for this to work properly the book has to be organised as one chapter per internal file.

[noap_]

Thank you very much!

Will have to try that plugin.
How can I tell if a book is organised as one or more chapters per internal file? And if it's more than one chapter per internal file: what can I do to have it show correct chapter reading progress in kepub file format?

[GeoffR]

One way to tell from the device if the book (ePub or KePub) has more than one chapter per file is that the tick mark on the table of contents does not track the reading progress properly. For example if chapters 1, 2, 3 are all in the same file then the tick will get stuck at chapter 1 and not advance until you reach chapter 4.

From Calibre you can explode the book and look at the toc.ncx file, or at the individual html files. I guess you need to be a bit familliar with ePub internals to quickly see what you are looking for though.

Usually doing an ePub --> ePub conversion in Calibre will cause the book to be split into one chapter per file. However in some cases where the publisher has done something unusual Calibre might not be able to recognise the chapter breaks and will need some help, and that can get tricky. Also doing an ePub --> ePub conversion can cause other problems such as preventing the line spacing from being able to be adjusted, so it is best not to do it unless you know you need to.

Most books I have come across have already been properly split into one chapter per file, only about 5% that need to be fixed. But I don't know if that is typical, it perhaps depends on what sort of books you read, which publishers, how old the books are etc.

I've attached a screenshot that shows the KePub reading progress popup. Note that the percentage at the top of the screen is for the entire book, while the other one is for the current chapter. In full screen mode you can also see the current page number by bringing up the <-> navigation menu (works for ePub and KePub.)

Edit: A warning: If you split the internal files or make other structural changes to the book in Calibre, then make sure you delete the old book from the ereader before using Calibre to send the modified one, otherwise the information in the device's database will not match the modified book and various strange things can happen.

[noap_]

Thank you very much for the detailed info!
Will try to install the plugin (Kobo Touch Extended Driver) in the evening and see if the epub I'm currently reading works properly regarding stats.

[Ken Maltby]

The KOReader Status bar has the following options now:

Show all at once
Auto refresh time
Progress bar
Chapter markers
Battery status
Current time
Current page
Pages left in this chapter
Progress percentage
Book time to read
Chapter time to read

There are no KOReader-epubs so it works for all the book formats read using the Coolreader 3 Engine (cr3) [That's a lot], not just a proprietary format that only works for books purchased at their store.

There is also a "Book status" menu option, that brings up a full page status display that includes:
The Book cover image.
The title, author, a progress bar, and the percentage Completed.
A Five Star ratting, with the stars filled in, if you have ratted the book.
A "Statistics" box with: Days, Time, and Read pages.
A "Review" area with a good sized box where you can add your own notes/comments.
An "Update Status" area with Complete, Reading, Abandoned - the current status will be highlighted.

Luck;
Ken

[noap_]

I've installed the KoboTouchExtended plugin and sent an epub to my Kobo. At a first glance it seemed to work fine. Stats are showing.
On the downside I'm not able to manipulate line spacing or margins anymore, only font and size. Besides, text is cut off on the right side.

Am I better off just installing the KOreader?

[Ken Maltby]

Installing KOReader takes nothing away from the stock software (Nickel) and there are features in the Kobo Start Menu (KSM8), (that is used to launch KOReader) that benefit Nickel. You can have Nickel, KOReader, and Coolreader on your Kobo device at the same time and use them as is convenient to you.

Luck;
Ken

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by noap_

On the downside I'm not able to manipulate line spacing or margins anymore, only font and size. Besides, text is cut off on the right side.

The line spacing adjustment doesn't work with some books where the publisher has forced a fixed line spacing in the book's stylesheet. It is also something that can happen after a book has been converted to ePub by Calibre, because of changes Calibre makes to the book's stylesheet during conversion. This can occur both with ePubs and kePubs.

There are two ways to fix it: You can either edit the book's stylesheet before sideloading to remove the offending line-height styles (this can be done automatically during an ePub-->ePub conversion by setting the right conversion options, but doing it manually gives better results if you know what to do), or apply a firmware patch (`Force user line spacing in KePubs`) to allow the publisher's settings to be overridden. See this post for my take on the problem.)


The margin adjustment not working is a problem that affects all KePub books in full screen mode. When you open a KePub book in full screen mode the margin adjustor stops working after you pass the first chapter break.

There is no fix for this problem (it only started happening in the lasted firmware, so it maybe it will get fixed in the next one), but the work-around is to close and re-open the book, which allows the margin adjustor to work again.


The text cut off at the right is another problem that only affects KePubs in full screen mode, but it only happens with some books and not others. It is much more common with sideloaded books because most KePubs synced from Kobo have had their stylesheet modified in a way that prevents it happening.

There are two ways to fix it, either by modifying the book's stylesheet to remove the body margins (this can be done automatically from Calibre), or by applying a firmware patch to override the body margins. (See this post for more details.)


There are other problems you might come across with KePubs, you'll have to decide yourself after a bit of testing whether the advantages of features like the extra reading stats make up for the problems.