EPUB without fonts

[roger64]

Hi

I am used to produce EPUB with embedded fonts. I would like to add EPUB without fonts. It's easy to suppress any information about font-family. But for styles, if I wish to give a clean EPUB without font, I need to transform the small-caps styles to reduced capitals styles.

This must be done for paragraph and character styles (spans), probably best in Sigil.

Has somebody any advice to make this transcription automatic?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by roger64

Hi

I am used to produce EPUB with embedded fonts. I would like to add EPUB without fonts. It's easy to suppress any information about font-family. But for styles, if I wish to give a clean EPUB without font, I need to transform the small-caps styles to reduced capitals styles.

This must be done for paragraph and character styles (spans), probably best in Sigil.

Has somebody any advice to make this transcription automatic?

You have to do it by hand. You have to retype the letters in uppercase. Then apply a span with a class that uses a 75% smaller size.

in CSS...

.smallcaps {
font-size: .75em
}

in the XML...

<p>Here are some <span class="smallcaps">SMALLCAPS</span> for your enjoyment</p>

[Jellby]

It becomes interesting when you have MIXED CASE smallcaps...

Usually, it's not critical to have the letters shown as actual smallcaps, in those cases I just set the conditional styles (ADE only) to use bold (for instance) instead of smallcaps. Readers that support smallcaps will ignore the ADE-only style, and when (if) ADE supports smallcaps I'll simply remove the conditional styles.

[roger64]

@JSWolf.

This is the downside of small-caps... You can't easily get rid of them...

@Jellby

I have still things to learn to understand your reply. Yes, I enjoy using - sparingly - these mixed case words with true small-caps. And the nicest they are, the hardest to go...

How do you write your mixed case word without true small-caps? Do you need four spans to describe: mixed case? One for M, one for ixed, one for C, one for ase?

[JSWolf]

M<span class="smallcaps">ixed</span> C<span class="smallcaps">ase</span>

That's how you do mixed case smallcaps when simulating them. Just two spans are needed in Jellby's example.

[roger64]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

M<span class="smallcaps">ixed</span> C<span class="smallcaps">ase</span>

.

OK. Thanks.

[mmat1]

Originally Posted by roger64

OK. Thanks.

should read:
M<span class="fakesmallcaps">IXED</span> C<span class="fakesmallcaps">ASE</span>

(with CSS: .fakesmallcaps { font-size: 0.7em } )

[roger64]

Originally Posted by mmat1

M<span class="fakesmallcaps">IXED</span> C<span class="fakesmallcaps">ASE</span>

(with CSS: .fakesmallcaps { font-size: 0.7em } )

Thanks for this.

I have a shortcut. I will leave my CSS style-sheet as it is except for this change: search for the small-cap font

 font-family:'Linux Libertine O C';

and replace it with:

 font-size:0.7em;

I'll have to process one style after another because I need to check if there is no other font-size specified. And rewrite the text inside in capitals.

For mixed cases though, I should have to parse manually the occurences in the xhtml files and correct them... I think I will probably forget them and leave everything as a fake small-cap... :-)

[Jellby]

That's risky, the "text-transform" property is not in the ePub spec, some readers may support it though (I'm not sure about ADE, but I believe it doesn't?)

[roger64]

Originally Posted by Jellby

That's risky, the "text-transform" property is not in the ePub spec, some readers may support it though (I'm not sure about ADE, but I believe it doesn't?)

I just came about to realize it. You are right again. It does not work. I have to write manually in capitals as mmat said...

I correct my previous message

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mmat1

should read:
M<span class="fakesmallcaps">IXED</span> C<span class="fakesmallcaps">ASE</span>

(with CSS: .fakesmallcaps { font-size: 0.7em } )

.75em is fine and .smallcaps is also fine. No need to make it .7em and no need to use .fakesmallcaps.

roger64, do use .75em if you want your smallcaps and not .7em.

[frostschutz]

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EPubHacks also contains some suggestions about small caps.

Seems to me though as if there just isn't a good solution.

My current calibre settings would filter your smallcaps hack right out. There are too many books with whacky font sizes defined in them - on Smashwords probably because they use Word/DOC as a source? - so font size is one of the properties I filter out when converfixing books.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EPubHacks also contains some suggestions about small caps.

Seems to me though as if there just isn't a good solution.

My current calibre settings would filter your smallcaps hack right out. There are too many books with whacky font sizes defined in them - on Smashwords probably because they use Word/DOC as a source? - so font size is one of the properties I filter out when converfixing books.

ePub > ePub in Calibre can be a really bad idea. Don't do it. Power up Sigil and fix the ePub from there. Besides, if the ePub is made correctly, there's no need to ePub > ePub.

As for the smallcaps using a font size being a hack, it's how nearly all ePub do it. So if you ePub > ePub all of you do ruin some things like smallcaps.

[mmat1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

.75em is fine and .smallcaps is also fine. No need to make it .7em and no need to use .fakesmallcaps.

roger64, do use .75em if you want your smallcaps and not .7em.

0.7, 0.75 or 0.8; this doesn't make much difference, it's just a matter of personal taste. How to name the class is of minor interest. I just used a quite common term, which is pretty selfexplaining.

The point is, that the letters within the <span> MUST be converted to uppercase (Look at your example a few messages above (#5)). This is the major difference between small caps (Font) and fakesmallcaps.

[JSWolf]

When I have an ePub that has enough instances of smallcaps, I do convert them to lowercase and use a real smallcaps font. Definitely looks better. I use Charis SIL most of the time and I have a smallcaps version.