Aura HD Kobo Aura HD

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by skip_sands

But doesn't it also say that the plugin does not work with the Aura HD? Has anyone tested it successfully?

I had forgotten that Joel stated that. But, I can't see anything in the code that will stop it. With the main driver now supporting the Aura HD, the extended driver should be OK as well. Trying it won't break anything. At worst, a book that gets copied over won't work properly in the device.

[skip_sands]

I had forgotten that Joel stated that. But, I can't see anything in the code that will stop it. With the main driver now supporting the Aura HD, the extended driver should be OK as well. Trying it won't break anything. At worst, a book that gets copied over won't work properly in the device.

Thank you. Will be happy to try the plugin once my aura has arrived. Waiting.......

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by skip_sands

But doesn't it also say that the plugin does not work with the Aura HD? Has anyone tested it successfully?

All current Kobo eReaders are running the same firmware...... so..... why wouldn't this work!

[Katsunami]

Because each device has its own ID. This makes each device unique. The plugin may not recognize the device as a Kobo one, despite it running the same firmware. The device ID of the Aura probably needs to be added to the plugin.

[taming]

The epub to kepub plugin currently results in books that cannot be accessed/opened from the home page on the Aura. Their covers do not display on the home page, either. The books are fine when opened from the library.

EDIT: I was wrong. I had configured David's plugin but did not do the configuration that appears as a drop down next to the device icon. When I did that, I was magically healed.

[lioslaith]

I know it is probably a stupid question - but what the difference between a regular epub and kepub? Apart from the name ofcourse.

[jiminrussell]

Originally Posted by taming

The epub to kepub plugin currently results in books that cannot be accessed/opened from the home page on the Aura. Their covers do not display on the home page, either. The books are fine when opened from the library.

Are you sure of this Taming? I just tried it with one book and I can open it from the home page just fine and it has a cover showing as well on the home page.

Edit: I do see one issue though, each time I open the book the bottom line of text is cut off, as soon as I page forward and then back again the text shows properly and I don't see the issue again until I open the book again.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lioslaith

I know it is probably a stupid question - but what the difference between a regular epub and kepub? Apart from the name ofcourse.

The Kobo Touch/Glo/Mini/Aura ereaders have two different rendering engines for displaying the ebook on the screen. The extension determines which one will be used. The Kobo rendering engine implements quite a few of the ePub 3 directives such as text direction, displays the amount of pages in the current chapter instead of the entire book, etc. It also implements Kobo's own DRM scheme. The Adobe Reader Mobile renderer allows you to read Adobe DRM protected books such as the ones you download from the library or purchase from sites that make use of it.

Regards,
David

[taming]

Originally Posted by jiminrussell

Are you sure of this Taming? I just tried it with one book and I can open it from the home page just fine and it has a cover showing as well on the home page.

My sideloaded books are on the sd card. Those epub to kepub conversioned books do NOT open from the Aura home page and the images do not show up on it either. I don't know if things are different if loaded into main memory--I think they might be. I'll load a book there to see.

EDIT: yup, that is it. Books that have had the epub kepub conversion show up on the home page, can be opened from the home page just fine when they are in main memory, but not from the SD card.

EDIT: I was wrong. I had configured David's plugin but did not do the configuration that appears as a drop down next to the device icon. When I did that, I was magically healed.

[jiminrussell]

Originally Posted by taming

My sideloaded books are on the sd card. Those epub to kepub conversioned books do NOT open from the Aura home page and the images do not show up on it either. I don't know if things are different if loaded into main memory--I think they might be. I'll load a book there to see.

Thanks, mine is on the main memory so perhaps that is it.

Here is image of the cut off text I see at the bottom of kepubs created using this epub to kepub plugin, not sure if it does this only Aura HD or not, but paging forward and then back again resolves the issue.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jiminrussell

Thanks, mine is on the main memory so perhaps that is it.

I just checked with my Touch and it had no problems whether the book was on the card or the main memory

Here is image of the cut off text I see at the bottom of kepubs created using this epub to kepub plugin, not sure if it does this only Aura HD or not, but paging forward and then back again resolves the issue.

I saw something like that a while ago. It turned out to be the font I was using. Or maybe the font that was in the book. Try changing fonts and see what happens.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Sigh. OK. I'll think I'll pass this Kobo up too.

To be honest, it's #$%@$#% ridiculous that the Paperwhite is a better epub-reader than a real epub-reader, when converting the epubs using Calibre. At least for me it seems to be. (The only thing I'd like the Paperwhite to do extra is to actually display the book description that i put in <dc:description> (in my source epub), but maybe mobi/azw does not have a similar tag. The Kindle tries to connect to the internet to display the description.)

With all those bugs and using different readers, I have a feeling that Kobo is making things a lot more difficult for themselves than need be, with their extra kepb format.

And having things like title and pagenumbers displayed all the time without the possibility to turn that off and use the space for text is just dumb IMHO. The page number could be down in a corner, in the same size as the book itself. Maybe, just maybe, put a blank line in between. Or if the user sets enough margin, put it in there. There is no need whatsoever to continually see the title of the book.

The Kobo readers have a lot of great and very advanced features with regard to readability (such as many fonts, sizes, and even weight and sharpness adjustment), but they leave out some elementary stuff like setting the line spacing to 1.0 and removing unwanted stuff from the screen.

I find it a pity, because with regard to font options, layout options, screen size, resolution, and looks (especially the warm-white front light), I really like the Aura HD.

I usually don't quote an entire long post just to say I agree, but you basically said everything I want to say. My feelings exactly!

They really make some unfortunate choices with their software. I notice with ePub , without the title there is almost no margin at top, but still large empty space at bottom. It looks very unappealing. Kepub at least has the virtue of symmetry; unfortunately, it's symmetry of wasted space.

People talk about the home screen and library view and organizing and all that, but those are all minor consideration for me. The reading screen has to be right, otherwise it's no go for me

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Fourl29

All good points all around.

I intensely dislike caecilia too, and find futura and helvetica not great either.

One of the reasons I opted for the kindle was exactly all that wasted space on the kobo, that ridiculous wasted 2 cm space.

I've not yet bothered to use the font tweak for the kindle, although I thought it was one of the first things I thought I 'd install. Although I am fully aware that it's urgently required, and that amazon has done very averagely when it comes to available fonts, and margins, even worse than average maybe. I 'll get around to it I guess soon. But it did sway me toward the kpw, as I knew that were the kobo had an edge, one could get that easily with a tweak in the kpw.

At the end of the day I ended up really liking the overall reading and software experience. (as an aside, I also really like how I have the store built in and I can check out some of the reviews when I am reading a book. And I have been very positively impressed by the experimental browser.)

Thanks for the link you very nicely provided in another thread http://www.displaywars.com/6-inch-4x3-vs-6,8-inch-4x3

I don't think 1 or two cm vertically is a deal breaker when it is carefully considered.

I calculate the difference as 1.6 cm vertically and 1 cm. horizontally (portrait mode)

It is only 1 cm for the line number with epubs I believe and I like the line number displayed. I do not like to have to push a button or tap in an area to see it. Personal preference I know.

The added horizontal space is just as significant to me, maybe more so and it seems to be largely ignored. More characters per line = more characters per page and no extra space is taken up by the spacing between lines.

The increased resolution means either a smaller font size that I can read or more importantly a wider range in which to find my most comfortable reading settings.

The missing 1 cm. (2 cm if you use kepubs?) means I will have to turn an extra page about every 20 or 30 pages. I am sure there is someone who keeps track and says to themselves oh no there is that extra page turn again, but not me:0.

I am not a big Kobo fan and I don't hate kindles, all things being equal I would buy Sony, but fickle me, I will go for the superior hardware every time and hope that the software catches up.

Helen

[taming]

I just compared across Aura vs Glo using the same book and found that the Aura had 4 more physical lines on the page, but 8 more lines worth of content than the Glo with the same font/line spacing/margin settings.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I for one would really appreciate that Amazon would add more (official) font options, and even go as far to add the weight and sharpness settings the Kobo as.

That is the one thing I find the Paperwhite lacking in. Even the Cybook Gen3 from 2007 offered custom fonts. Officially. The Kindle can do it using a trick, but Amazon could take that out at any moment. Most of the fonts that are on the Kindle have one or more problems:

- The lines are spaced too wide. For example, Palatino has a line height that it twice that of my custom "DejaVu Serif Fat" font.
- Some fonts are too thin, mainly Palatino and Baskerville.
- Some fonts have a decent line height and are heavy enough, but they're just plain ugly, such as Caecilia. And it's too wide too.
- Futura and Helvetica are, IMHO, just hard to read.

I always have the feeling that Amazon designed the Paperwhite, and at the end came to the conclusion that they needed to provide fonts too, for... you know... reading.

The font settings and capabilities of the Aura are one of the main reasons why I consider this reader, but not if it wastes copious amounts of space by constantly showing me the title of the book I'm reading, the page I'm on (and not down in a corner, but prominently taking up 2cm or so of the bottom of the screen), and using a ridiculous line height. If the Kobo fits only 10% more text than the Kindle because of that, then its larger screen is wasted, IMHO.

As long as the Kindles USE_ALT_FONTS trick keeps working, that is. Then I can put my own font onto the reader, after tweaking it on the computer.

As long as you have the proper software and know what to do, you can tweak the fonts you embed or use on your PW so the line spacing is not too large. I've done this three different mods of Charis SIL including increasing the weight.