@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }

[cybmole]

most - maybe all of my ebook conversions contain this line, before the html body
@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }

is it put there by calibre ?

does it do what I think it does - i.e. force a top & bottom margin- if so can I override it with the extra CSS option rather than edit each books contents, so that I have no wasted white space at top / bottom when converted for Kindle ?, or is there a better way to countermand it please ?

PS - google found me this, in an old thread- does calibre still have no override or workaround ?

"Ah, the real problem here is one of calibre's slightly annoying quirks.

Calibre places an @page rule in the header of each html file, and this overrides any @page rule in the css.

The solution is to edit all your html files and remove the style that calibre has inserted at the top. It will look like this:

<style type="text/css">
@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }</style>
Once this has gone, then you can control the top and bottom margins from the @page rule in the css file."

PPS I read elsewhere that Kindle ignores or does not support bottom margin - it that's true , then this becomes a question only about controlling top margin,
also ( running out of PPPS's here ) googling "@page rule" suggests that it only applies to printed paginated media, so what is the code for in an .epub ?, and is messing with it a pointless exercise for books destined for e-readers?

[kovidgoyal]

It's there for those epub readers that support top and bottom margins and you can control it via the page setup options under conversion settings.

[cybmole]

ok - so you're saying that values specified on the pages setup screen generate the margin top & bottom values in the @page code ?. makes sense, but how come then, that margin left, margin right elements are not also present in the @page line ( as all the page setup defaults are 5pts ? )

I can't view converted .mobi code, but does calibre add a similar @page line to its mobi output, or is this an epub-specific thing ?

last Q: where would I find more info on which epub readers that support top and bottom margins. my son has a sony 350 - does that ?

[Agama]

It would be useful to have an option to switch off this @page per html file. Then any @page specified in the stylesheet would automatically apply to all pages. I use an entry in my CSS with units of "px" which means I then have to regex out all the @page blocks which calibre has inserted into the html files.

My Sony reader, (PRS-300), supports @page, so maybe all Sony readers do.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Agama

It would be useful to have an option to switch off this @page per html file. Then any @page specified in the stylesheet would automatically apply to all pages. I use an entry in my CSS with units of "px" which means I then have to regex out all the @page blocks which calibre has inserted into the html files.

My Sony reader, (PRS-300), supports @page, so maybe all Sony readers do.

if I have understood Kovid correctly, you can remove it by setting zero values on the page setup options then converting epub to epub - I have not tested that, but if it works it would be faster than regex page by page.

i don't get the design logic though - why does calibre add it to each html file rather than set it once, globally in css ?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by cybmole

i don't get the design logic though - why does calibre add it to each html file rather than set it once, globally in css ?

Because different pages can sometimes need different margins. Think of dedication pages or other head matter.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Because different pages can sometimes need different margins. Think of dedication pages or other head matter.

Interesting. I have also always wondered why the @page info is in each html file. Most of the non-calibre-created epubs I've needed to tweak seem to just use different css classes for special pages such as front and back matter.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Interesting. I have also always wondered why the @page info is in each html file. Most of the non-calibre-created epubs I've needed to tweak seem to just use different css classes for special pages such as front and back matter.

You cannot use a CSS class for an @page rule as far as I know. And setting a top and bottom margin on body is pointless since you want the margins on each screenful of text, bot just the start and end.

[jackie_w]

Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Most of the epubs I've looked at haven't used @page at all, they've used CSS to force a new page and then applied a large margin-top to the first paragraph. A lot of frontmatter is a bunch of individual single pages. Mind you I mainly read novels.

[kovidgoyal]

Ah, well calibre's strategy is a lot more flexible.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Because different pages can sometimes need different margins. Think of dedication pages or other head matter.

ok - so you could manually edit the @page values for specific parts of a book after calibre has added them e.g. by editing the epub with sigil.

but next time you run the book through calibre - say to get a .mobi version - it's going to re-insert the default code into every file ?

or am I misunderstanding, still ?

( I did partially test this - I removed all the @page stuff from a book with sigil , saved , then re-converted epub to epub with calbre , & saw that it has all been put back again. i did epub to epub to that I could re-examine the output file code. For real, I'd be wanting to do e-pub to mobi. I did not test the effect of altering some of the margin values in some of the files only though )

[kovidgoyal]

MOBI does not support top and bottom margins.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

MOBI does not support top and bottom margins.

Hmm- well Kindle mobi does in that I can go to an epub css, add top / bottom margins to any of the .calibre styles, and those changes will show up after converting to mobi & sending to Kindle - the ignore margins option in Kindle output does not negate those

e.g. these margin top settings ( from an actual epub book) both work OK in that I can see them being applied within the Kindle display.

calibre14 {
    display: block;
    margin-bottom: 0;
    margin-left: 0;
    margin-right: 0;
    margin-top: 1em;
    text-align: justify;
    text-indent: 0
    }
.calibre15 {
    display: block;
    margin-bottom: 0;
    margin-left: 0;
    margin-right: 0;
    margin-top: 11pt;
    text-align: justify;
    text-indent: 0
    }

so top / bottom is supported at a paragraph / style level. do you mean it is not supported at a @page level ?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by cybmole

do you mean it is not supported at a @page level?

Not only is that what he means but that is what he stated throughout this thread.

[Agama]

Originally Posted by cybmole

if I have understood Kovid correctly, you can remove it by setting zero values on the page setup options then converting epub to epub - I have not tested that, but if it works it would be faster than regex page by page.

Unfortunately not, it doesn't actually remove the @page data. Calibre simply adds @page { margin-bottom: 0.000000pt; margin-top: 0.000000pt; } to every file.