Adjusting word spacing for justified text – kepub

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Tbf it’s sometimes more than one line spacing. But I believe that if you don’t patch line 10/24 spacing it’s less likely to be an issue you see. If that’s the case I’d be surprised if there was a patch to fix this issue since it’d either be one created or at least exacerbated by the user. I also think it’s further exacerbated by using your own fonts.

I might actually take a look at Literata Books line spacing and see if it’s done properly, I suspect it is thought I’d also have thought Bookerly would have been as well. I’d look at Charink but I trust Jon is fastidious enough to have set them correctly. I also didn’t notice this being an issue with my settings for charink.

I do patch with 24 line spacing values and use a custom font exclusively. And I have pretty narrow line-spacing, but I've fine-tuned it so I never see those half-lines. But then I don't use the smallest values of the patch.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that's not what I want. I don't want a larger space between lines. I want a way to fix the bug.

Do you use the 24-line-spacing-values patch? I've found it helps to fine-tune the line height so that the half lines disappear, but line-height is still pretty narrow. The default, unpatched values increase/decrease the line height too much and with some fonts the smallest line height is still far too large. The patch helps with those as well.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I do patch with 24 line spacing values and use a custom font exclusively. And I have pretty narrow line-spacing, but I've fine-tuned it so I never see those half-lines. But then I don't use the smallest values of the patch.

Yeah it's only with the smaller settings that it becomes an issue, the mid-range is pretty free and clear of the issue. I've only seen it once recently with Literata Book, which is what makes me now want to look at the line spacing for that font.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

You won't need to lose your kepub ligatures. We now have a new option for the Kobo config file.

Hey, that would be great.

The discussion started in the main fw 4.32.19501 thread (post #308) about a week ago but I summarised here in the main kobopatch thread.

I was following that for a while, but to be honest, most of it went over my head.

So if I understood post #34 correctly, in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml file, I would just add:

[Reading]
webkitTextRendering=optimizelegibility

Is that right?

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Hey, that would be great.



I was following that for a while, but to be honest, most of it went over my head.

So if I understood post #34 correctly, in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml file, I would just add:

[Reading]
webkitTextRendering=optimizelegibility

Is that right?

Sorry, it's late lemme try this again

No, you'd add it to Kobo eReader.conf in the kobo directory which is in the .kobo directory in the root of your Kobo.

You can then add the patch Jackie added in her post for word spacing, to libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml and enable it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

No, you'd add it to Kobo eReader.conf in the kobo directory which is in the .kobo directory in the root of your Kobo.

You can then add the patch Jackie added in her post for word spacing, to libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml and enable it.

Got it. Now to just remember it when the inevitable 4.33 firmware rolls out.

[Lykke]

With the new word spacing patch justified Norwegian text in KePubs look much better now. Almost like a professional product...

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Got it. Now to just remember it when the inevitable 4.33 firmware rolls out.

Well optimize legibility patch will be retired and I’d bet there’ll be a note on why so don’t worry about remembering

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

So if I understood post #34 correctly, in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml file, I would just add:

[Reading]
webkitTextRendering=optimizelegibility

Is that right?

The first line, [Reading], is a section header. It's almost certain to already exist in your Kobo config file. In which case you only need to add the second line at the end of the other lines you see under [Reading].

I've updated my earlier summary to be more explicit.

@MGlitch is correct. At the next fw update there will be a note repeating the rationale for retiring old patches. The only likely problem will be @geek1011's penchant for creating the new kobopatch thread in the middle of my night (GMT). Any notes I add can end up halfway down page 2 by the time I'm compos mentis.

[mathil]

I experimented a bit today with the optimizelegibility option and the word-spacing patch created by Jackie (I also installed John's improved hyphenation dictionary). Previously I'd always avoided using the optimizelegibility patch because I prioritize fully-justified text over ligatures. At first I tried with the default -0.05 setting and still had some issues, though definitely fewer than before; I then gradually went up to -0.09 and it seems to be working quite well now; I don't know if it's disappeared completely but it's definitely reduced to a point where I see it rarely, which is good enough for me.

It's definitely great to be finally reading with kerning and ligatures in kepubs Jackie, thank you very much for your work!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Do you use the 24-line-spacing-values patch? I've found it helps to fine-tune the line height so that the half lines disappear, but line-height is still pretty narrow. The default, unpatched values increase/decrease the line height too much and with some fonts the smallest line height is still far too large. The patch helps with those as well.

Yes, I do use the 24-line spacing patch. I also customize a few of the initial numbers. The problem is that these numbers I use work fine with ePub but not so well with KePub.

What I'd like to know is what value is the smallest that can be used without seeing any of the first line of the next page on the current page?

[JSWolf]

jackie_w, thank you for fixing some of the problems with KePub rendering. I'll have to give it a try when I am at home where the patches are. I'm hoping I can get KePub to look close enough to ePub.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I'd like to know is what value is the smallest that can be used without seeing any of the first line of the next page on the current page?

It’ll vary by font. Likely having to do with the height of the glyphs and the line spacing set.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Lykke

With the new word spacing patch justified Norwegian text in KePubs look much better now. Almost like a professional product...

Yeah, it does make a difference.

[MGlitch]

Just wanted to come back and say I’ve yet to see an issue with the patch. Oh except that if anything I’m reading faster now which means I’ll have to buy even more books.