Kobo typesetting...

[SuperDerpBro]

I havnt used an ereader in quite a while. I'm wondering if Kobo has anything that competes with kindle's enhanced typsetting yet. They did not last time i checked. That was years ago though.

Thanks

[BookCat]

I have kindles and a Kobo. What do you mean by kindle's enhanced typesetting?

Do you mean the ability to use custom fonts? If this is the case then recent firmware updates for kobo have enabled this, plus being able to mess around with the fonts. Also, you can patch the kobos to make them do almost anything you want, appearance-wise.

There's lots I prefer about the kobo to the kindle paperwhites I have.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by SuperDerpBro

I havnt used an ereader in quite a while. I'm wondering if Kobo has anything that competes with kindle's enhanced typsetting yet. They did not last time i checked. That was years ago though.

Thanks

ePub on a Kobo was doing "enhanced" typesetting long before KFX,

[Quoth]

KFX is a marginal change on appearance. It's more about Amazon control and DRM.
The regular epub2 on the Kobo is better than azw3/KF7 and I see no advantage to KFX.

Paperwhite 3 versus Kobos tested include originals H2O and Libra, Kobo Nia and Kobo Sage and Kobo Elipsa.

So many aspects of Kobo are better. I use my Kindle for tests and serial number, it's the target for books bought from Amazon, which now are all KF8/azw3 or mobi/azw depending on book as I only download for PC. The KFX is used for Kindle for PC or direct Wifi/Mobile connection to Kindle (Fire isn't a kindle) and I don't use those.

[JSWolf]

KFX was created by Amazon and the "enhanced" typesetting added to KFX to lock people into Kindle eBooks. KFX has DRM even if the publisher does not want DRM. The DRM cannot be broken in most cases. (IMHO), the line height is forced to be fixed regardless of what the font metrics dictate.

The enhanced typesetting could have been added to KF8 if Amazon has wanted but they created KFX instead to keep you locked in. With KF8, you do not get kerning, ligatures or hyphenation. You can force hyphenation by adding soft-hyphens using the Hyphenate This! plugin or Calibre's Add soft-hyphens using Polish.

Adobe added kerning, ligatures, & hyphenation to RMSDK (underlying code for ADE) without the need for a new eBook format.

[graycyn]

I have noticed ONE difference between KFX's "enhanced typesetting" and reading Kobo epub/kepub.

It's a SMALL difference, but it *is* a difference. And that is that for KFX only (*not* Mobi/AZW3), small-caps called with font-variant: small-caps; in the CSS have a better weight to them and look less like pseudo small-caps.

So, if one reads a lot of books with small-caps, then it might matter, but for most, Kobo epub is just as good. Better, since you have finer control over margins, font size, and line-spacing.

You do lose the ability to zoom images with Kobo epub and you will NOT get pseudo small-caps (unless coded using font-size), and you lose ligatures with Kobo kepub, so there's some decision making to do as to which format you prefer on Kobo. You will also lose pop-up footnotes with the epub format.

I own BOTH Kindle and Kobo devices, and I read epub on my Kobo. It does all I need as far as enhanced typesetting other than the absence of the pseudo small caps. If I have a book that I know has footnotes or is illustrated, those are about the only times I bother with kepub.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I have noticed ONE difference between KFX's "enhanced typesetting" and reading Kobo epub/kepub.

It's a SMALL difference, but it *is* a difference. And that is that for KFX only (*not* Mobi/AZW3), small-caps called with font-variant: small-caps; in the CSS have a better weight to them and look less like pseudo small-caps.

So, if one reads a lot of books with small-caps, then it might matter, but for most, Kobo epub is just as good. Better, since you have finer control over margins, font size, and line-spacing.

You do lose the ability to zoom images with Kobo epub and you will NOT get pseudo small-caps (unless coded using font-size), and you lose ligatures with Kobo kepub, so there's some decision making to do as to which format you prefer on Kobo. You will also lose pop-up footnotes with the epub format.

I own BOTH Kindle and Kobo devices, and I read epub on my Kobo. It does all I need as far as enhanced typesetting other than the absence of the pseudo small caps. If I have a book that I know has footnotes or is illustrated, those are about the only times I bother with kepub.

Because not all reading apps support small-caps, most publishers use a smaller font size for small-caps. A lot of KFX are eBooks that are converted from ePub. So even though KFX supports proper small-caps, most eBooks do not. You cannot edit KFX to change that. But you can with ePub. KOReader and KePub both support small-caps just like KFX. But if the eBook only has some small amount of small-caps, then it really makes little difference. Most eBooks that use small-caps do so for things like A.M. and P.M. and maybe a few words here and there.

[MGlitch]

It should be noted Kepub can be made to use ligatures with a simple config file edit, and with patches the text can be made to look quite good.

Whether it equals or surpasses epub is of course up to the person reading, as there are benefits to kepub that epub doesn't offer.

[Krios]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

It should be noted Kepub can be made to use ligatures with a simple config file edit, and with patches the text can be made to look quite good.

Whether it equals or surpasses epub is of course up to the person reading, as there are benefits to kepub that epub doesn't offer.

But, enabling ligatures and kerning causes more problems, like uneven letter and word spacing when text is justified, and it's has been reported more than 6 years ago, i have lost all hope that Kobo will fix it.

Typesetting should be, one of the most important things in ereader IMO, but most makers don't care.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Krios

But, enabling ligatures and kerning causes more problems, like uneven letter and word spacing when text is justified, and it's has been reported more than 6 years ago, i have lost all hope that Kobo will fix it.

Typesetting should be, one of the most important things in ereader IMO, but most makers don't care.

There’s a patch now that greatly helps with the spacing issues. New to the patches for 4.33

I’ll agree that Kobo ought to focus on typesetting a bit more though the average joe isn’t going to notice ligatures, but they do notice the odd spacing.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

I’ll agree that Kobo ought to focus on typesetting a bit more though the average joe isn’t going to notice ligatures, but they do notice the odd spacing.

And I think that's the thing. Most people using these devices would not know what a ligature is. And if you told them, they are unlikely to care. Unfortunately, that means that a once the it is pretty good, the company is probably not going to do more without a good reason. It will be a case of diminishing returns. Improving the typesetting beyond the current level is probably a lot more expensive than it was to get to this point.

[Deobulakenyo]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

There’s a patch now that greatly helps with the spacing issues. New to the patches for 4.33

I’ll agree that Kobo ought to focus on typesetting a bit more though the average joe isn’t going to notice ligatures, but they do notice the odd spacing.

Thank you for mentioning this. It made me aware of the new spacing patches and decided to use one (10-line)

Update: didn't likr the 10-line spacing so i used the 24-line one and within the hour, two instances of freezing of my Libra 2.

I used the word spacing patch and removed the line spacing one(s) and no freezes.

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by graycyn

You do lose the ability to zoom images with Kobo epub

I used to think this till it was pointed out that kepubs enable image zooming. It's a bit tricky at first, but just tap twice on the image and an 'image viewer' appears. This allows turning the image and zooming in even more.

The simplest way to turn epub to kepub is to use Kepubify.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I used to think this till it was pointed out that kepubs enable image zooming. It's a bit tricky at first, but just tap twice on the image and an 'image viewer' appears. This allows turning the image and zooming in even more.

The simplest way to turn epub to kepub is to use Kepubify.

Actually, the simplest way to go ePub > KePub is with the KoboTouchExtended driver in Calibre as it does the conversion on the fly when you send ePub to your Kobo. You also don't end up with a KePub copy on your computer.

[Boogus]

Originally Posted by SuperDerpBro

I havnt used an ereader in quite a while. I'm wondering if Kobo has anything that competes with kindle's enhanced typsetting yet. They did not last time i checked. That was years ago though.

Thanks

I actually recently moved from kindle oasis 3 to kobo libra2!

And my reading habits relied heavily on KFX's Enhanced-Typsetting (Almost OCD in my case).

after trying the kobo, I really really liked the native epub support and dropbox integration, since most of my collection is in "epub format".

After trying the kobo epub format I was somewhat disappointed because features for optimizing text Legibility were disabled by default.

You can stick with epub and call it a day but I really wanted those kepub features and the Enhanced-Typsetting equivalent, so my only solution was to try patching the firmware to my liking.

And many thanks to those who have made it possible to make patching easy (literally editing the files Yes and No options), I am now very satisfied with my setup that I don't think I will go back to the kindle Ecosystem.

Screenshots with Lables for comparison!

ps: the latest patching pack made it possible to adjust word spacing making justified text now more acceptable (Fewer white spaces), before this patch I was Only using ragged right alignment.

pps: the Kindle Handles "Drop Caps" better than kobo's kepub reader and kobo's epub reader sometimes doesn't even recognize it, KOreader is amazing but I decided that I will not use it mainly because changing any text related settings takes forever! every single option every single time!! (it was exhausting, probably because large epub pages <7k ~ 15K>) >> not a problem on native readers!!