Why does conversion have a 5px margin by default?

[Argon]

I didn't realize until recently, after having read a few converted books on my Kindle Oasis, that Calibre was adding a tiny margin around all edges, and when I reconverted some books without it, I realized that the margin that I assumed was set by Kindle firmware was in fact added, and now I much prefer reading on my Kindle!

[kovidgoyal]

Are you asking why the default is not your personal preference? If so, its because you didnt write the software.

[Quoth]

Also the Kindle minimum margin is massive. Nothing else does that. The Calibre margin can be changed and is sensible on everything except the Kindle. I'm baffled why the Kindle has only 3 margin settings: Large, Enormous and Huge. The problem is Amazon, not Calibre. Only setting negative pixels in the CSS really fixes the stupid Kindle margin,

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Also the Kindle minimum margin is massive. Nothing else does that. The Calibre margin can be changed and is sensible on everything except the Kindle. I'm baffled why the Kindle has only 3 margin settings: Large, Enormous and Huge. The problem is Amazon, not Calibre. Only setting negative pixels in the CSS really fixes the stupid Kindle margin,

But on a Kobo, you don't want ANY left/right margin as you have the slider to adjust to how you want. You cannot go back. You can only go forward. So if you have a margin that you find too large, you would have to edit the eBook to fix that.

I do wish that eBook producers would stop having L/R margins and a line height. It spoils the book and prevents us rom using the settings to change the look to what we want.

[JSWolf]

If one was to set L/R margins to 1em, would the Kindle have even bigger margins at the lowest setting?

[Brett Merkey]

baffled why the Kindle has only 3 margin settings: Large, Enormous and Huge

For the 300dpi Paperwhites that comes out to 50 pixels on each left/right margin. Slicing that off requires that one last edit before side-loading.
100 pixels = 1/3 of an inch, quite noticeable on that narrow device...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Brett Merkey

For the 300dpi Paperwhites that comes out to 50 pixels on each left/right margin. Slicing that off requires that one last edit before side-loading.
100 pixels = 1/3 of an inch, quite noticeable on that narrow device...

You can use negative margins to reduce the margins.

html {
  margin-right: -45px;
  margin-left: -45px;
}

Put that at the top of the CSS and you'll be good to go.

[Brett Merkey]

Put that at the top of the CSS and you'll be good to go.

No, I'll hold out for those last 10 pixels. -50px is what I take back on left/right. And I don't put it at the top of the main CSS file but replace the content of the .css file which contains the useless @page margins.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Brett Merkey

No, I'll hold out for those last 10 pixels. -50px is what I take on left/right. And I don't put it at the top of the CSS file but replace the content of the .css file which contains the useless @page margins.

Do you realize that if you go -50px, you'll be at the edge of the screen? A black bezel with black text is not easy to read without some margin even if it's 5px.

Do you replace the entire CSS? I edit the CSS and I do remove any @page. But I do not replace the entire CSS as I would have to start from scratch and try to figure out what the classes are supposed to do.

[Brett Merkey]

@JSWolf:

The conversion from epub to AZW3 always includes a tiny .css file of 53 bytes that contains only:

@page {
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-top: 0
}

A quick snippet keyboard stroke and that code is gone—to be replaced by something useful.

A black bezel with black text is not easy to read without some margin even if it's 5px

Maybe you are right...I should hold out for another 5px on each side and go for -55px instead, since what I have now is perfectly comfortable.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Argon

I didn't realize until recently, after having read a few converted books on my Kindle Oasis, that Calibre was adding a tiny margin around all edges, and when I reconverted some books without it, I realized that the margin that I assumed was set by Kindle firmware was in fact added, and now I much prefer reading on my Kindle!

Calibre -> Preferences -> Conversion -> Common options -> Page setup, then change what's in the Margins box, lower right.

[Argon]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Are you asking why the default is not your personal preference? If so, its because you didnt write the software.

Touché! But what I actually meant is, why is there a margin by default at all?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Are you asking why the default is not your personal preference? If so, its because you didnt write the software.

Originally Posted by Argon

Touché! But what I actually meant is, why is there a margin by default at all?

I would suspect from Kovid's reply to you, that he likes that margin so he set it as the default. After all, he did write the software.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Argon

Touché! But what I actually meant is, why is there a margin by default at all?

Bezels

Not all screens are precisely placed or made. 5px is really tiny on standard readers and allows 'wiggle room'.
Think this was bad. Welcome to the world of CRT displays, when the electron beam was bent by magnetic coils. and the terms Linearity, over/under scan were also frequently spoken