ePub vs KOBO ePub

[fen-sawn]

I'm creating a reflowable ePub of my novel to upload through Writing Life and be available on the Kobo store.

The ePub's I download through kobo ("KOBO EPUB"s) seem to all have a fluid page-numbering system, i.e. when you change the size and spread of the text on the reader, the page numbers adjust accordingly. They also seem to have the book title as a header on each page, and consistently use all the available space on each page (see image).

I haven't been able to recreate the same features (fluid page numbers and consistent use of page space) with html code (I'm using Calibre's editing tool) and I was wondering whether it was something that was taken care of on Kobo's end, i.e. once I've uploaded my ePub to Writing Life.

[AnemicOak]

ePub's use a completely different rendering engine than kePub's on Kobo devices (Adobe's RMSDK instead of Kobo's Access).

The page numbering thing has to do with the way each engine handles such things. In the Access renderer one page equals one screen. With the RMSDK pages can be handled two ways. If the ePub has a page map then the pages can be mapped to page numbers in a print edition of the book. In the absence of a page map it assumes that every 1024 bytes is a page. Either way a "page" in an RMSDK rendered book can be, and usually is, multiple screens on a device depending on screen size, font size, line spacing, etc.

NOTE: There are others here more well versed in this and some of my info may not be exact.


The spacing at the bottom of some pages with ePub's can be due to a few things IIRC (which I may not as I use sideloaded Calibre kePub's on my device for everything). One is the files widows & orphans setting and the other can have to do with the length of the paragraph. Like I said I might not be recalling this correctly, but someone will be along who is.

[fen-sawn]

Thanks for the reply.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

In the Access renderer one page equals one screen.

So does this mean that the ePub I submit to kobo will be changed automatically into a "kePub", and have a 1:1 page numbering system as you've described? I've read before about the 1024-bytes-to-a-page rule elsewhere, is there any ereader that would actually favor this?

Also how do I disable autocorrect in the reply box here it's driving me nuts.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by fen-sawn

Also how do I disable autocorrect in the reply box here it's driving me nuts.

I am pretty certain that's being done by your device or browser or an extension (add-on) rather than the MR website.

BR

[fen-sawn]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I am pretty certain that's being done by your device or browser or an extension (add-on) rather than the MR website.

BR

You're correct, my apologies. I don't use Safari unless I want cookies and scripts automatically.

[fen-sawn]

Also, for anyone kind enough to reply, my ePub won't justify text on iBooks or ADE.

I'm opening up in calibre edit and trying to imitate other ePubs where you have the option to justify / left align on the kobo (I have a kobo touch mini), and it automatically justify, with the option to left-align in iBooks, but I can't figure it out.

For the 1 to 3 or 4 line gaps at the bottom of my pages, I've been looking at orphans and widows, namely set to 0 or 1, in the CSS, but that isn't working for me, possibly because I'm not doing it correctly.

This is what the CSS for my first chapter looks like. All the "page-break: avoid" and "margin-bottom" commands are earlier failed attempts of mine to knock out the empty lines at the bottom of my pages when viewed on the kobo.

<style type="text/css">
  p + p {
    text-indent: 2em;
    margin-top: 0;
    padding-top: 0;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  p {
    margin-bottom: 0;
    padding-bottom: 0;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  h1.chapter-heading {
    text-indent: 0;
    text-align: center;
    font-weight: bold;
    font-size: 1.5em;
    margin-top: 50%;
    margin-bottom: 2em;
  }
  p.star-break {
    margin-top: 1em;
    margin-bottom: 1em;
    text-align: center;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  p.star-break + p {
    text-indent: 0;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  p + p.star-break {
    text-indent: 0;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  p.poem {
    font-size: 75%;
    text-indent: 0;
    padding-left: 2em;
    margin-top: 2em;
    margin-bottom: 2em;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  p.poem + p {
    text-indent: 0;
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    page-break-after: avoid;
    page-break-before: avoid;
  }
  .no-page-breaks {
    page-break-inside: avoid !important;
  }
  </style>

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by fen-sawn

(I have a kobo touch mini),

If you are using a Kobo Mini and haven't taken steps to update it manually then it will probably be running a very old firmware version (3.4.1) that behaves quite differently to the firmware version used by all other Kobo devices.

In particular, the Mini firmware has a bug in the Adobe ePub reader that causes long paragraphs to start on a new page, and it uses a different page numbering system for Kobo ePubs. In the current firmware that bug has been fixed, and the page numbering used for Kobo ePubs is similar to the method used in the Adobe ePub reader.

[fen-sawn]

@GeoffR

Thanks for the reply. My kobo updated recently when I bought a book for the first time from kobo.

I've recently opened up some free kePubs that don't seem to have any special CSS, in fact almost none at all (Gutenberg classics) yet display on the kobo without any of the problems I've been experiencing, and I've saved them as copies without changing anything then dropped them onto my kobo, and behold: non-fluid page numbers, bottom-margin gaps, no headers.

So this indicates to me that much (if not all) of my present headaches will be solved once I've uploaded my ePub to kobo and it's put up on the store as a "kePub".

Please feel free to reply with any further suggestions I'll be following the thread just in case, thanks again to everyone who replied, you've been great.

[GeoffR]

If you want to test how the formatting will look as a Kobo ePub (KePub), you can change the filename extension of the book from .epub to .kepub.epub before copying it to the device. That will cause it to be opened with the KePub reader instead of the Adobe ePub reader. Some things like highlighting and reading stats won't work properly, but it will give you an idea of what the formatting of the book will look like.

This should be all you need to add to your stylesheet to avoid the unsightly gaps at the bottom of the page in ePubs:

p {
  widows: 1;
  orphans: 1;
}

Edit: And beware that the KePub reader completely ignores page-break-before and page-break-after styles. The only way to force a page break in the KePub reader is to begin a new html file.

[fen-sawn]

@GeoffR

Huge, huge help, thank you.

[fen-sawn]

Also what hyphenation settings would you recommend and what would it look like as CSS? Mine has apparently no hyphenation, but it's justifying the lines too much to be attractive.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

In particular, the Mini firmware has a bug in the Adobe ePub reader that causes long paragraphs to start on a new page, and it uses a different page numbering system for Kobo ePubs. In the current firmware that bug has been fixed, and the page numbering used for Kobo ePubs is similar to the method used in the Adobe ePub reader.

No, the per-chapter page numbering is still there for kepubs. They added the per-book numbering as an option in the settings.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by fen-sawn

Also what hyphenation settings would you recommend and what would it look like as CSS? Mine has apparently no
hyphenation, but it's justifying the lines too much to be attractive.

Other than turning hyphenation off, I don't think you can control it in the book. And turning it off would probably make it worse. Changing the font, font size or margins on the device will change the spacing.

Personally, I don't want things like this added to the book. Let the user and device handle it. Same goes for justification. Leave it off in the book and allow the reader to turn it on or off as they prefer.

Also, you probably have what you need. But, https://github.com/kobolabs/epub-spec is what Kobo put out about preparing an epub for publication publication as a kepub. I would hope it is available in the Writing Life site, but I don't have access to it.