Bug of the long paragraph

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

If this is the same bug I keep seeing constantly, it's not just long paragraphs. I've seen separate short paragraphs kicked to the next page for just 3 lines, then continue on to another page (and there's nothing in the css to cause this, no different style from the rest of the text such as a forced page break or a space after the last line).

I also see a lot of ending paragraphs in a chapter for only 3 lines that gets kicked to the next page, when the previous page has 3-4 lines left to fit it in easily. And again, there's nothing special in the code such as a forced blank line after the last line or anything different.

This happens frequently in every book, it's not a rare occurrence. And yes, it's very annoying and needs to be fixed.

All that sounds like the widows and orphans in the CSS is not set to zero. The device uses 2 or 3 as the setting for them. That means that if a paragraph starts near the bottom of the screen, and less than that number of lines of the paragraph would be left on the screen, the whole paragraph is shifted to the next screen. I usually edit my epubs and change the CSS to set these as zero. With that, the screen is filled.

[Ripplinger]

The epub itself has no references to widows or orphans at all. I've already opened it (and other epubs) to check that wasn't causing an issue. So it's using whatever the Kobo uses as default, which is probably 3 as you said. I've seen enough end of chapters to be pretty sure of that.

I don't mind the 3 for widows and orphans, but I do mind when it creates a new page for the last one sentence paragraph of 3 lines at the end of the chapter when there's still 4 lines remaining free on the previous page. I've seen that many times on the Kobo (and zero times on Sonys in almost 2.5 years, pretty sure Sony's default is 2 for widows and orphans).

But when it breaks up paragraphs mid-chapter leaving 3 lines on one page, then stops to continue on yet another page is much more annoying than the chapter end. I can live with the chapter end, even though it still shouldn't be happening.

Edit: Apparently the software doesn't always listen to the 3 widow/orphan defaults either. I just hit the end of a chapter where only 1 line was on the last page instead of the usual 3. Nothing different in the stylesheet to cause it.

[guma]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

The epub itself has no references to widows or orphans at all. I've already opened it (and other epubs) to check that wasn't causing an issue. So it's using whatever the Kobo uses as default, which is probably 3 as you said. I've seen enough end of chapters to be pretty sure of that.

you can avoid the - in my opinion - unfortunate kobo defaults by setting widows and orphans to zero in the epub. this is rather easily done in calibre. there will still be some rendering problems if a book contains very long paragraphs. but in my experience you will not encounter that too often. (whereas the kobo default settings lead to wasted space on almost every page.

[treadlightly]

I do set widows and orphans to zero and it does not solve the end of chapters bug.

[Ripplinger]

I tried the same book setting widows and orphans to 0, and while it stopped 3 lines from being split to another page when there is more than enough room on the previous page, you can end up with one or 2 words on their own line and quite often.

So for me, it's just trading one annoyance for another and not really a fix of any kind. At least not one I'm happy with at all and don't see as a remedy.

[guma]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I tried the same book setting widows and orphans to 0, and while it stopped 3 lines from being split to another page when there is more than enough room on the previous page, you can end up with one or 2 words on their own line and quite often.

So for me, it's just trading one annoyance for another and not really a fix of any kind. At least not one I'm happy with at all and don't see as a remedy.

Interesting. I'm seeing that problem very rarely (maybe once in 1000 pages). But I routinely remove all style information and set the orphans and widows to zero for all my epubs. Thus the issue might be caused by how some style settings (margins maybe?) are handled by the rendering engine.

Whatever may cause the problem it should have been fixed by KOBO a long time ago. Can't be overly complicated since other readers do not seem to be affected by this bug - even though some of those are (supposedly) using the same rendering engine ...

[Ripplinger]

It probably depends on the size font you use. With my crappy eyes and often reading outside without proper reading glasses, my font is probably larger than yours. If I used a smaller font, I can see that minimizing being left with only one or two words on the last page.

[scoobertron]

I use rockwell, no margins and a pretty small font size, and still routinely get widow/orphan problems. Most notably at the beginning of chapters where the chapter number appears on a page on its own and the text begins on the next page. This seems to happen even if I alter the css.

I recently finished feedbooks' epub of "The Cossacks", and this was full of empty chapter pages. (http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1528/the-cossacks)