Aura HD How to modify the top margin?

[scoky]

Hi guys, do you know how to change the top margin. I have used kobopatcher to reduce the bottom margin, however I didn't find how to modify the top margin.Could you know it? Thanks.

[GeoffR]

The epub reader has only a very small top margin built-in, in firmware 3.2.0 it is just 15 pixels on the Glo, or less than 2mm. So, if you are reading kepubs, then one way to reduce the top margin is to sideload the book as an epub.

If you are already reading epubs and your top margin is larger than 2mm, then you can edit the book to remove the @page margin/padding. But if you want to remove the remaining 2mm top margin from the built-in epub reader, then I don't think anyone knows how to do that yet.

Edit: Attached a screenshot from my Glo showing a page from an epub with no extra top margin/padding in the book, just the 15 pixel top margin built in to the epub reader.

[scoky]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

The epub reader has only a very small top margin built-in, in firmware 3.2.0 it is just 15 pixels on the Glo, or less than 2mm. So, if you are reading kepubs, then one way to reduce the top margin is to sideload the book as an epub.

If you are already reading epubs and your top margin is larger than 2mm, then you can edit the book to remove the @page margin/padding. But if you want to remove the remaining 2mm top margin from the built-in epub reader, then I don't think anyone knows how to do that yet.

Edit: Attached a screenshot from my Glo showing a page from an epub with no extra top margin/padding in the book, just the 15 pixel top margin built in to the epub reader.

Thanks! However, actually I want to increase the top margin.....

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by scoky

Thanks! However, actually I want to increase the top margin.....

Not sure which Kobo model you have but if you're a calibre user this method will work for standard epubs (not sure about kepubs)

Just add something like the following to your custom kobo_extra.css file:

@page {margin-top: 10pt; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0}

where the red bit is as big/small as you want it to be.

Edit: You will also need to re-send-to-device all your epubs from calibre to the Kobo afterwards for the bigger top margin to take effect.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by scoky

Thanks! However, actually I want to increase the top margin.....

Well that is a nice change :-) Editing the book's stylesheet the way jackie_w suggests is probably the best way to go, that is what I do.

However I do have a patch for the epub reader's built-in stylesheet if anyone wants to try it. Although it has the advantage that the books don't need to be edited and sideloaded again, it has the disadvantage that the page margin set in the built-in stylesheet overrides any page margin set in the book, which means the book can't use a smaller margin. (Some books use a zero margin for the cover page, for example).

Here is the patch for firmware 3.2.0.

Spoiler:

<Patch>
# Apply this version of the patch with kpg.exe
patch_name = `ePub stylesheet additions (page margin example)`
patch_enable = `yes`
replace_xor_00 = 1181FAA, `\x00\x00watchout, your CSS is about to get truncated!\x00\x00\x00`, `\n@page {margin: 25px 0px 0px 0px}\n\x00`
</Patch>

<Patch>
# Apply this version of the patch with patch32lsb
patch_name = `ePub stylesheet additions (page margin example)`
patch_enable = `yes`
replace_string = 1181FAA, `\x00\x00watchout, your CSS is about to get truncated!\x00\x00`, `\n@page {margin: 25px 0px 0px 0px}\n`
</Patch>

Edit: I have been looking into a way to make the top margin adjustable, i.e. so that when you adjust the left/right margins the top margin changes to match. I think it is possible to do it, and if I had the source code I think I could add this feature in 5 minutes, but it is an awful lot more work to do it with a patch :-(