Same book from different stores but one has lots of typos

[faithbw]

I'm currently reading a book that uses a lot of foreign terms. These terms often have diacritical marks. I have this book in print but bought it as an e-book because it was so cheap. So initially I bought it from the Sony Reader store because Sony had a 40% off coupon at the time. So I started to read the e-book with the Sony Reader app on my tablet but there were so many errors with the transliterated words. The primary error was showing a box with a x in the middle wherever a diacritical mark was suppose to be. So decided to buy the book on the Kindle app. It cost a little more than the book did at Sony (to be fair, Amazon's price is cheaper if the coupon wasn't applied to the Sony copy) but I wanted to see if the same errors would appear. Lo and behold, they didn't. It feels great to be able to read the book as it was intended to be read without squares popping up on every page.

Have any of you encountered something similar? Which bookstore is the worse offender when it comes to typos, bad formatting, etc. Which bookstores tend to get these things right?

[glnnjnsn]

Just curious, but did you try opening the initial e-book with a different reading app? Based solely on the information you've provided, that's probably what I would've done - but then again, I switch between different reading apps pretty frequently. Or is there something not explicitly mentioned here that lead you to suspect the book over the app? If, for example, you've previously encountered those same diacritical marks presented correctly in multiple other works on your Sony Reader app, then the book file is indeed a more likely suspect.

For my experience, I've found the various retailers (and apps) to be equal opportunity offenders. I've found the best predictor of bad formatting and typos to be the age of the source work. Older works are more likely to have been scanned, and picked up mistakes during the digitization process.

And out of curiosity, I have (another) question for you: having found the mistakes in the first e-book a big turn-off, did you send any sort of feedback to the retailer/publisher? Did you leave a warning to other readers in a customer review on the Sony site? No judgement here - I sometimes wonder whether I am doing too much or too little in response when I encounter such problems and am curious what others do.

Glad you are enjoying the Amazon version!

[AnemicOak]

@faithbw, did you try the Sony version with the Sony app, you're 350, ADE, a different app or??? It's possible that it's not the book itself, but something the reading app/device isn't displaying properly and a different display method might work where another did not. I've found that every ePub reader/app has issues/quirks where sometimes a book that displays fine in one (ex. if you used the Sony app try Mantano or Adiko), might not in another. Thankfully most books display fine/okay in all of them.

[calvin-c]

Don't know much about Sony books but could it be they don't embed fonts in their books? That they rely on the correct fonts being installed on their readers? If the actual font isn't installed the software usually substitutes something it thinks is close-and the 'symptoms' sound like a bad font substitution to me.

[faithbw]

Thanks for the replies!

Originally Posted by glnnjnsn

Just curious, but did you try opening the initial e-book with a different reading app? Based solely on the information you've provided, that's probably what I would've done - but then again, I switch between different reading apps pretty frequently. Or is there something not explicitly mentioned here that lead you to suspect the book over the app? If, for example, you've previously encountered those same diacritical marks presented correctly in multiple other works on your Sony Reader app, then the book file is indeed a more likely suspect.

I tried the book in Aldiko. Unfortunately, the same issues occur. I don't usually buy books from Sony. I've only bought a handful to be honest. I normally buy from Kobo or maybe Barnes & Noble. It's only recently that I started to buy from Amazon.

For my experience, I've found the various retailers (and apps) to be equal opportunity offenders. I've found the best predictor of bad formatting and typos to be the age of the source work. Older works are more likely to have been scanned, and picked up mistakes during the digitization process.

This book was republished last year after being out of print for a few years. I've only seen it in e-book stores this year. So maybe the Sony copy is from the old version?

And out of curiosity, I have (another) question for you: having found the mistakes in the first e-book a big turn-off, did you send any sort of feedback to the retailer/publisher? Did you leave a warning to other readers in a customer review on the Sony site? No judgement here - I sometimes wonder whether I am doing too much or too little in response when I encounter such problems and am curious what others do.

Glad you are enjoying the Amazon version!

Honestly, I decided not to send feedback to Sony or even request a refund because the book was so cheap as it is. However, leaving feedback for other customers is a good idea.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

@faithbw, did you try the Sony version with the Sony app, you're 350, ADE, a different app or??? It's possible that it's not the book itself, but something the reading app/device isn't displaying properly and a different display method might work where another did not. I've found that every ePub reader/app has issues/quirks where sometimes a book that displays fine in one (ex. if you used the Sony app try Mantano or Adiko), might not in another. Thankfully most books display fine/okay in all of them.

I think it's the file. I tried it in Aldiko but the same issues still occur.

[jackie_w]

calvin-c is right. Boxes with an X in them indicate that the font being used does not contain those characters.

The usual solutions are either

1. to try using an app which either uses a fuller default font or lets you specify your own better font (which does contain the characters).

2. to embed the better font in the epub yourself, using Sigil or calibre, before transferring to the tablet. This would only work if the DRM was removed first.

[4691mls]

I have bought two different ebooks from Sony which had a problem with the font size not being changeable - I was stuck with only a very large size font. I reported both books to Sony using a "contact us" link on the Sony store website. One book got fixed within a couple days. The other one took longer, and Sony refunded my purchase price. In both cases, once the books were fixed, I got an email notification from Sony and I was able to download the corrected books.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

calvin-c is right. Boxes with an X in them indicate that the font being used does not contain those characters.

The usual solutions are either

1. to try using an app which either uses a fuller default font or lets you specify your own better font (which does contain the characters).

2. to embed the better font in the epub yourself, using Sigil or calibre, before transferring to the tablet. This would only work if the DRM was removed first.

^This
+1

This should fix the situation the OP is experiencing. Usually just an epub to epub conversion would work provided the option is checked to allow embedded fonts.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by jersysman

This should fix the situation the OP is experiencing. Usually just an epub to epub conversion would work provided the option is checked to allow embedded fonts.

Thanks for posting the solution. I didn't think to do so as the OP 'fixed' the problem a different way-but others might experience similar problems. And the solution you posted is way easier than what I came up with. (I'm too used to 'fixes' being complicated.)

[faithbw]

I put the file through Calibre and everything shows up fine. I guess it was the Sony app (that seems so weird and counter-intuitive-why sell a book that doesn't work with the app?). I'll eventually transfer the epub to my tablet via USB but for now I'll continue reading on the Kindle app.

[Tarana]

The first Lord of the Rings had so many errors in the first chapter, my sister stopped reading it. I complained to Amazon and they refunded my $$. Don't know if it is improved. I had no desire to read it again and she picked up used copies at a garage sale.