What's the name for the swirly imagess used to end chapters

[AlexBell]

I'm pretty sure there have been threads in MobileRead in which such images are not only discussed but made available for download. But I can't remember their name to search for the threads. Can anyone tell me what they're called, and where I can find them?

[FizzyWater]

How about this thread? I searched for "Section Break".

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...=Section+break

[Turtle91]

you can also google the internets for "fleuron"

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm pretty sure there have been threads in MobileRead in which such images are not only discussed but made available for download. But I can't remember their name to search for the threads. Can anyone tell me what they're called, and where I can find them?

Read this post, maybe it can help you:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=216216

Regards
Rubén

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm pretty sure there have been threads in MobileRead in which such images are not only discussed but made available for download. But I can't remember their name to search for the threads. Can anyone tell me what they're called, and where I can find them?

Called End Marks...

https://www.fonts.com/content/learni...yphs/end-marks

[AlexBell]

Many thanks to you all. Fleurons sounds familiar; I'll check there first.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

you can also google the internets for "fleuron"

"Fleurons" are floral derived ornaments. The "swirly images" that aren't floral (e.g. flower and/or leaf motifs) and aren't an embellished letter would be "flourishes".

They would become "end marks" if, and only if, they are used to mark the end of something. End marks can be anything; a letter, a logo, a fleuron, a flourish, a bullet, ... .

There are a number of special fonts built with just these (e.g. http://www.fontspace.com/nymphont/nymphette ). If you use one of these it would likely be best to convert the glyph to an image if you are using it in an ebook or other electronic display.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dwig

"Fleurons" are floral derived ornaments. The "swirly images" that aren't floral (e.g. flower and/or leaf motifs) and aren't an embellished letter would be "flourishes".

They would become "end marks" if, and only if, they are used to mark the end of something. End marks can be anything; a letter, a logo, a fleuron, a flourish, a bullet, ... .

There are a number of special fonts built with just these (e.g. http://www.fontspace.com/nymphont/nymphette ). If you use one of these it would likely be best to convert the glyph to an image if you are using it in an ebook or other electronic display.

Why convert to a graphic? Better to embed and subset the font. Modern eBook formats such as ePub & KF8 support font embedding.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why convert to a graphic? Better to embed and subset the font. Modern eBook formats such as ePub & KF8 support font embedding.

It's true that if, and only if, all of thethe target formats support embedding it may be preferable to embed the font. If left as a live character may will render better when the user invokes colored backgrounds or a "night mode" in their reading app. On the other hand, when the user's device doesn't support embedded fonts and when they opt to disable them the results are likely to be rather horrid. It's one thing if the book is for personal use and another if the book is to be published and widely distributed.

You should also check the size of the font and the total size of the converted images to see which is more compact. If you embed the font it would likely be best to subset the font as a single book is unlikely to use more than 2-3 of the characters. A single image, even when repeated many times, can often be substantially smaller than an embedded font.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dwig

It's true that if, and only if, all of thethe target formats support embedding it may be preferable to embed the font. If left as a live character may will render better when the user invokes colored backgrounds or a "night mode" in their reading app. On the other hand, when the user's device doesn't support embedded fonts and when they opt to disable them the results are likely to be rather horrid. It's one thing if the book is for personal use and another if the book is to be published and widely distributed.

You should also check the size of the font and the total size of the converted images to see which is more compact. If you embed the font it would likely be best to subset the font as a single book is unlikely to use more than 2-3 of the characters. A single image, even when repeated many times, can often be substantially smaller than an embedded font.

The thing is, in most cases that I've seen where graphics are used in place of a properly embedded font, the size of the graphics is off from the size of the text and it looks awful. ePub & KF8 support embedded fonts. Mobi does not. Is there away to embed a font that works for KF8 but shows a graphic for Mobi?

Amazon really needs to dump Mobi so KF8 can be used better than it is or to have a message for the book saying that it's not compatible with Mobi.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The thing is, in most cases that I've seen where graphics are used in place of a properly embedded font, the size of the graphics is off from the size of the text and it looks awful. ...

That is definitely a design problem. It's quite possible to size the graphic to work well at a common display size, but it doesn't scale with the text and can look poor when displayed on overly large or overly small screens.

The problem with embedding a flourish font is that many readers will fail to use the font with the result in a simple alphanumeric character being displayed using the reader's default font and will just look like some coding error as it will be meaningless.

I would never use an embedded flourish font or other symbol font. If I was concerned about the display of a graphic image of a flourish I would simple use a standard character which is likely to display or an HTML item like a horizontal rule.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by dwig

The problem with embedding a flourish font is that many readers will fail to use the font with the result in a simple alphanumeric character being displayed using the reader's default font and will just look like some coding error as it will be meaningless.

It depends on which character is mapped to the fleuron. If it's e.g. * or ~ it may look plain, but not meaningless. If it's ❦ it may even be appropriate (but it may look bad if the default font does not have it).

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Jellby

It depends on which character is mapped to the fleuron. If it's e.g. * or ~ it may look plain, but not meaningless. If it's ❦ it may even be appropriate (but it may look bad if the default font does not have it).

Correct. If it's mapped to a reasonably usable punctuation mark it can look OK. If its mapped to a Latin1 alpha character or a numeral then it could be ugly and confusing.

Before using an embedded font you should consider what the book will look like if the reader fails to use the embedded font and falls back to one of its default fonts and you should expect the default fonts to contain anything other than the basic Latin1 glyphs.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by dwig

and you should expect the default fonts to contain anything other than the basic Latin1 glyphs.

should expect or should not expect

BR