Interesting Kindle Upgrade

[7hir7een]

Hyphenation support appears to be added via

body {
	-epub-hyphens:auto;
	-webkit-hyphens:auto;
	}

Hopefully this code support makes it over to the e-ink Kindles soon. It'd simplify my book-loading process. Much easier to automatically add a line of css when converting to embed fonts in Calibre, instead of converting then running an additional plugin.

I'd like to see the Bookerly font as well. It is rather nice.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Nope. Whatever peas (within reason) were available would be eaten by whatever utensil I currently had at my disposal.

When it comes to books, my loyalty is reserved primarily for the content. I'm just OCD enough to spend waaaaay too much time analyzing and futzing over typography (e or p) if I'm not careful. So I do my best to ignore it and just read books. I prefer full justification and hyphenation, but I'm not married to it. I'm flexible. The typography in print books (at least the ones I bought) varied pretty wildly too, and I survived reading them for decades. I see no reason why ebooks should be any different. *shrugs*

I still read plenty of paper books, most of them used and with brownish pages. If I can enjoy those, I can enjoy whatever typography the ereaders throw at me. So, I'm with you on this topic: enjoy the content and don't fuss about the medium. Why make trouble for yourself when life makes more than enough?

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I can eat peas (feel free to insert a food you love here) with a spoon or a knife or a fork. I prefer a spoon.

You eat your peas with a spoon? I'm putting you on my ignore list!





JK!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Compared to what Kobo provides, this is too little too late.

The Kindle needs a lot more fonts, and a lot more adjustments to set typography to the user's preference, IMHO.

It's one thing to say that your personal preference would be to have more fonts and font settings; it's quite another to say that it "needs" to have them. Can you explain why you feel that the Kindle needs to have these things, as opposed to it being your preference that it have them? Do you think that it's not a commercially successful device without them?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Waylander

Saw this in my daily The Passive Voice email:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3046678/...at-doesnt-suck

From the article ...

While Bookerly's not an entirely new typeface—Amazon silently soft-launched it on the Kindle Fire earlier this year, a development only a few people noticed

Huh? I noticed it immediately. It was pretty hard to miss (there was a pop-up announcement). It's the only font I use on my Fire.

[crane3]

A more interesting upgrade for the Fire HDX to 4.5.4 is that the Fire can be really charging when viewing youtube.

After the 4.5.4 upgrade, I viewed a couple of youtube "videos" & after getting out of youtube, the battery showed 80% as it was 69% prior to youtube.

The thing is that the videos were 2 of Haydn's Piano Trios in a videoed live performance; so don't know if the increase in battery charge was because of not much "action".....

[Cthulhu4u]

How about updating the fire tablets to have collections? Let's work on that.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's one thing to say that your personal preference would be to have more fonts and font settings; it's quite another to say that it "needs" to have them. Can you explain why you feel that the Kindle needs to have these things, as opposed to it being your preference that it have them? Do you think that it's not a commercially successful device without them?

To be honest, I think the typesetting of the Kindle is very poor. I'm used to books (hardcovers) that have been typeset meticulously, including ligatures and all.

Have you ever seen a document typeset by LaTeX, and then compared it with a similar document typeset using the default styles in Word (or any other word processor for that matter)? A LaTeX document is a thing of beauty, ready to be bound in a hardcover to look professional. A Word document, at least, in the default formatting that most people seem to use, is only fit to have a staple slammed through its upper left corner.

That is the feeling I get when comparing an e-reader to a real book, but the advantages outweigh this one disadvantage.

I was hoping the Kobo readers would do a better job, but I don't know if I should try, as Kobo seems intent on using their own wacky KEPUB format, which is only badly/intermittently supported in Calibre now, because the person maintaining it has (almost) stopped doing so.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

To be honest, I think the typesetting of the Kindle is very poor. I'm used to books (hardcovers) that have been typeset meticulously, including ligatures and all.

Have you ever seen a document typeset by LaTeX, and then compared it with a similar document typeset using the default styles in Word (or any other word processor for that matter)? A LaTeX document is a thing of beauty, ready to be bound in a hardcover to look professional. A Word document, at least, in the default formatting that most people seem to use, is only fit to have a staple slammed through its upper left corner.

That is the feeling I get when comparing an e-reader to a real book, but the advantages outweigh this one disadvantage.

I was hoping the Kobo readers would do a better job, but I don't know if I should try, as Kobo seems intent on using their own wacky KEPUB format, which is only badly/intermittently supported in Calibre now, because the person maintaining it has (almost) stopped doing so.

Just the fact that you don't consider an ebook a "real book" causes me to dismiss every other thing that you've said.

Shari

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by shalym

Just the fact that you don't consider an ebook a "real book" causes me to dismiss every other thing that you've said.

Shari

That's ridiculous. You know exactly what I mean. Then read 'paper book' or 'physical book' instead of 'real book.'

(And still, IMHO, an e-reader/e-book stands to a physical book like a player/mp3's stand to a physical CD. In the latter case, both versions are music albums, in the former case they are both written stories.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

(And still, IMHO, an e-reader/e-book stands to a physical book like a player/mp3's stand to a physical CD. In the latter case, both versions are music albums, in the former case they are both written stories.)

I don't have a pony in this race, but...

That analogy doesn't quite fly; most digital music files are a degraded version of the original CD which itself is an imperfect capture of the original performance. Book sniffers aside, ebooks do carry the full scope of the original narrative.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I don't have a pony in this race, but...

That analogy doesn't quite fly; most digital music files are a degraded version of the original CD which itself is an imperfect capture of the original performance. Book sniffers aside, ebooks do carry the full scope of the original narrative.

I disagree with your disagreement!
Substitute a lossless audiophile grade digital format for mp3 and studio produced music created for recording, as some artists make, and it amounts to the same thing. Plus, sometimes ebooks do make compromises on layout and typography, which may be important to the communication (e.g. in some forms of poetry, etc.) and you have you equivalent of mp3 loss.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I don't have a pony in this race, but...

That analogy doesn't quite fly; most digital music files are a degraded version of the original CD which itself is an imperfect capture of the original performance. Book sniffers aside, ebooks do carry the full scope of the original narrative.

I should have known.

First, my music collection is lossless FLAC (I used MP3 because many people don't know what FLAC is), and second, most e-books I have don't come near the 'real book' regarding formatting, and especially, if available, illustrations. I, for one, count these things as part of the book.

It's much easier to create a digital representation of a CD (use FLACs, fill in metadata, and use high resolution cover art) than it is to create a digital representation of a book. Metadata, and high res covers/illustrations can be done quite easily actually, but text accuracy, formatting and typesetting are often neglected.

And then, when converting, the conversion will not be lossless. Converting from format to format might mess up the book beyond recognition, while converting music from one lossless format to another will normally be perfect.

[DiapDealer]

I'm glad I got over that "real book" dogma long ago. Much easier to enjoy the books when I don't have to waste energy convincing myself that things that clearly don't really bother me, do.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I should have known.

First, my music collection is lossless FLAC (I used MP3 because many people don't know what FLAC is), and second, most e-books I have don't come near the 'real book' regarding formatting, and especially, if available, illustrations. I, for one, count these things as part of the book.

It's much easier to create a digital representation of a CD (use FLACs, fill in metadata, and use high resolution cover art) than it is to create a digital representation of a book. Metadata, and high res covers/illustrations can be done quite easily actually, but text accuracy, formatting and typesetting are often neglected.

And then, when converting, the conversion will not be lossless. Converting from format to format might mess up the book beyond recognition, while converting music from one lossless format to another will normally be perfect.

I'm so glad that I am able to truly enjoy music and books without worrying whether or not they are in a "lossless" format. I've really truly tried to hear the difference between music in mp3 and flac format, and I can't hear it. I also really don't care about the format of a book, as long as I can read it. Unfortunately, sometimes when publishers try to add fancy fonts and other formatting the book becomes unreadable to me (because of size, or in one particularly horrifying case, an author specifying text *color* which made the text appear faded when read using e-ink)

Shari