Frustrations with Kobo. Halp!

[Anima Mundi]

I'll try to make this as succinct as possible but it could very well spiral into a long post. I'm a long-time Kindle user who recently switched over to Kobo. I started with a Kindle keyboard in I think 2012 and then graduated to a 2nd gen paperwhite around 2015. The locked down nature of kindle and the paltry number of page formatting options in comparison to kobo is what prompted me to jump ship. I was also irritated with having to convert books to get them the way I wanted (mainly have my text left-aligned and some of my sideloaded books I couldn't change the font if they were mobi). With kobo I was under the impression that I could simply load an epub onto the device and be able to left align or justify text on the fly. Ok, so after much deliberation on what new e-reader to get I went with the Kobo Libra initially. I got it around a month ago. I kept it for a few weeks before deciding that the unevenness in the lighting was something I just couldn't get over. Contrary to what many have reported on here, for me the side of the screen opposite the lip is where it was darker/dirtier looking. Roughly the entire left half of the screen was this darker shade. Try as I might I just couldn't ignore it while reading. I have the unfortunate traits of being sensitive to unevenness of lighting AND being intolerant of it. I'm sure there are many who do notice some parts of the screen being lighter or darker but are able to not be all that bothered by it. I should've taken pictures but I already returned the device. I then decided to roll the dice with a Kobo Clara. I've had it about a week now. The lighting is certainly more even than the Libra but now instead of the lighting being different on left and right side of the screens it's now an issue of top vs bottom. I'm really starting to wonder if I'm just being ridiculous or maybe imagining it to be worse than it is because my paperwhite also has somewhat different lighting from top to bottom but it only seems to bother me in landscape mode. So the lighting is probably my main issue. If it was better I probably would've just kept the Libra. But I'm having some other issues as well. I guess I should mention that the vast majority of my library is side-loaded books. Mainly Delphi Classics, Wildside Press megapackcs, stuff from humblebundle and storybundle. I can't change the justification of raw epubs like I thought, the text on a page can vary from 1-2 lines in length and in some books I couldn't change the font or line spacing. I then tested some of my books after converting to kepub. This improved the situation but presented some new problems too. I could now justify on the fly and the length of text on a page was more consistent (but would still be off by a line here and there), pictures were on the left side of a page unless justification was OFF, and lastly pages became synced with page turns. That last thing I just can't handle. Please, can someone tell me if there's a way to have a kepub file keep the same # of pages regardless of the font size? It drives me crazy. Oh, another thing... since most of my books are very large collections of works the table of contents are massive, as in sometimes 50 pages of ToC on these kobos. On my paperwhite I had... nested? table of contents. I tried to edit the ToC in calibre but alas, they won't nest. I'm also overwhelmed with the number of different things you can install on Kobo. Which should I install? What plugins in Calibre are essential? How can I make text length on pages more consistent? I'm not looking to be spoonfed. I just need some guidance here. Later I may take some pictures of my screen at various brightness and warmth settings as I'm curious to know if I'm just being overly neurotic about the lighting. Thanks 8-)

[geek1011]

The lighting on the recent Claras is as good as it gets right now IMO. And no, there isn't a way to get the page numbering to be consistent without switching to an older firmware version (it was changed along with the new reader recently).

For Calibre, KoboTouchExtended is essential if you want to use the kepub reader (it has faster highlighting, better stats, pop-up footnotes, faster page turns, and a bit more compared to epub, whose only advantage is better typography). If you don't use Calibre, kepubify is another option.

Kobo does support nested table of contents. To make it more noticeable, have a look at the patches.

For Kobo tweaks, a good place to start is with the patches. I'd suggest looking at the ones in nickel.yaml and the header/footer ones in libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml. You'll figure out which other ones you want as you use your Kobo more.

If you want, you can also play around with koreader or plato. Have a look at those threads for more info.

Also, in the future, you might want to split your post into paragraphs instead of having a big wall of text.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Anima Mundi

Ok, so after much deliberation on what new e-reader to get I went with the Kobo Libra initially. I got it around a month ago. I kept it for a few weeks before deciding that the unevenness in the lighting was something I just couldn't get over. Contrary to what many have reported on here, for me the side of the screen opposite the lip is where it was darker/dirtier looking. Roughly the entire left half of the screen was this darker shade. Try as I might I just couldn't ignore it while reading. I have the unfortunate traits of being sensitive to unevenness of lighting AND being intolerant of it. I'm sure there are many who do notice some parts of the screen being lighter or darker but are able to not be all that bothered by it. I should've taken pictures but I already returned the device. I then decided to roll the dice with a Kobo Clara. I've had it about a week now. The lighting is certainly more even than the Libra but now instead of the lighting being different on left and right side of the screens it's now an issue of top vs bottom. I'm really starting to wonder if I'm just being ridiculous or maybe imagining it to be worse than it is because my paperwhite also has somewhat different lighting from top to bottom but it only seems to bother me in landscape mode. So the lighting is probably my main issue. If it was better I probably would've just kept the Libra.

One of the things happening is that the lights are on one edge of the screen and shine across it in a thin layer of plastic attached to the front of the screen. Using some physics tricks (sometimes know as "magic"), the light is deflected down onto the screen to light it. The larger the screen, the harder it is to get an even light. And the light is usually coming from the edge with the widest bezel. On the Clara HD, that is the bottom and the Libra H2O it is the side with the buttons. Getting the light evenly to the other side of the screen is, to me, magic.

But I'm having some other issues as well. I guess I should mention that the vast majority of my library is side-loaded books. Mainly Delphi Classics, Wildside Press megapackcs, stuff from humblebundle and storybundle. I can't change the justification of raw epubs like I thought, the text on a page can vary from 1-2 lines in length and in some books I couldn't change the font or line spacing.

Most of that is an indication that the person who put the books together didn't know what they were doing. Or wanted to push a particular layout on the reader. Not being able to change the font or line spacing is an indication that it is hard-coded in a way that the Kobo ereaders cannot override. They try to respect the books formatting and work with it.

For kepubs, the page lengths are inconsistent because different spacing, font sizes, images or something on the pages. Filling the page exactly the same will only happen if there is no variation on the pages. For epubs, "widows" and "orphans" come into effect. Kobo uses the default of 2 for both of these. That means that if a paragraph goes over the end of a the in a way that only 1 line would be on the next screen, then two lines will actually be moved. Changing this in the CSS for the book to 1 will let the text fill the page.

I then tested some of my books after converting to kepub. This improved the situation but presented some new problems too. I could now justify on the fly and the length of text on a page was more consistent (but would still be off by a line here and there), pictures were on the left side of a page unless justification was OFF,

Which actually means it is doing exactly what you told it to do. The left justification option is overriding the alignment of everything in the book. It makes everything left justified.

and lastly pages became synced with page turns. That last thing I just can't handle. Please, can someone tell me if there's a way to have a kepub file keep the same # of pages regardless of the font size? It drives me crazy.

That's just the way Kobo has decided to make it works. There has been a lot of discussion on this here and elsewhere. Just search for page numbering. But, if you start a thread to discuss the proper way to number pages, please tell me. That way I can ignore the war that you start.

Oh, another thing... since most of my books are very large collections of works the table of contents are massive, as in sometimes 50 pages of ToC on these kobos. On my paperwhite I had... nested? table of contents. I tried to edit the ToC in calibre but alas, they won't nest.

I think you mean "collapse". You want to expand and collapse the ToC based on the nesting level. Sorry, the Kobo doesn't do this. It only show the levels with indentation.

I'm also overwhelmed with the number of different things you can install on Kobo. Which should I install? What plugins in Calibre are essential?

Personally, I have them all installed. And a lot of other plugins. Absolutely none are essential. Just using the built-in drivers with a bit of judicious editing gives a good result. And I say that as the person who create several of the plugins. What you need depends on what you want or what you are missing. It sounds like you have already discovered the KoboTouchExtended driver to send books as kepubs. My Kobo Utilities plugin probably comes as the closest to be essential. But, again, it depends on what you are doing. It will backup the database on the device, fetch or restore the reading status, update covers and metadata and a pile of other things. Look at it and decide if it is interesting.

On the actual device, I have nothing added. I use the device as it comes. No patches or hacks. Other than enabling some hidden options. Others use lots of things. Again, you need to look at what you think is wrong and see if there is a patch or hack that helps.

And, as @geek1011 said, splitting your post up a bit would have made it a lot easier to read and respond to. I'd bet there were people who saw it and stopped reading immediately.