Firmware Update - 4.5.9587

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

Why? I haven't read any epubs on my Kobo ereaders. What does it offer that kepub does not? I was under the impression that pages per chapter (my favorite progress setting) was only available on kepub. And the adjustable font weight was also only available on kepub. Are these true? If that is then for me kepub is the superior format on Kobo.

(Edit: Adjustable font weights work in the ePub reader too.)

It will depend a lot on your reading preferences (justified vs ragged-right, line spacing, etc.) and which features are more important to you, but these are a few of the reasons I prefer the ePub reader over the KePub reader:

Justification: The KePub reader often fails to justify the line properly if it contains a word-joining character such as em-dash or ellipsis, and can add extra space after some characters such as right-double-quote resulting in uneven word spacing. The ePub reader can both reduce or increase the word spacing to justify the line, but the KePub reader only ever increases the spacing.

Hyphenation: The KePub reader doesn't properly handle some word-breaking characters such as forward slash, so you can end up with a hyphen added after a forward slash. The KePub reader doesn't read the settings from the hyphenation dictionary correctly (this problem can be worked around by editing the hyphenation dictionary, but it is still a problem if you want to read both KePubs and ePubs.)

Line spacing: The KePub reader chooses the wrong page break position if the line spacing is narrower than a certain level (depends on font used), which can result in part of a line being split between pages.

Page breaks: The KePub reader doesn't support these CSS styles: @page, orphans, widows, page-break-before, page-break-after, and (most important IMO) page-break-inside.

Ligatures: The KePub reader doesn't support ligature substitutions. (There is a patch to enable, but it has bad side-effects on justification.)

Full screen mode; The KePub reader has a number of problems in full-screen mode. (There are patches to fix some of them, but not all.)

(Some of these I can work around if I compromise, e.g. I restrict myself to fonts that don't depend on ligatures when reading KePubs.)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

It will depend a lot on your reading preferences (justified vs ragged-right, loine spacing, etc.) and which features are more important to you, but these are a few of the reasons I prefer the ePub reader over the KePub reader:

To add in another item, if someone has the same epub file as I do, the page numbers (either from page-map, pageList or Adobe's synthetic page number algorithm) are the same regardless of font size, etc. A kepub displays each screen as a page so changing the font size, line spacing, margins or any other option that affects the amount of text on a page changes the page number.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DNSB

To add in another item, if someone has the same epub file as I do, the page numbers (either from page-map, pageList or Adobe's synthetic page number algorithm) are the same regardless of font size, etc. A kepub displays each screen as a page so changing the font size, line spacing, margins or any other option that affects the amount of text on a page changes the page number.

You can go to full book page numbering for kepubs. And that will get you a fixed page count similar to an epub. But, it won't give the same page counts as the equivalent epub.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Page breaks: The KePub reader doesn't support these CSS styles: @page, orphans, widows, page-break-before, page-break-after, and (most important IMO) page-break-inside.

I've never had a problem with page-break-before in the kepubs I have built. Can't comment on the others as they are not ones I habitually use.

BobC

[haydnfan]

Thank you GeoffR. I use ragged right and I haven't had any issues with the page break styles (to the best of my knowledge). They sound like subtle differences between the formats and not night and day like JSWolf implied.

[haydnfan]

Originally Posted by DNSB

To add in another item, if someone has the same epub file as I do, the page numbers (either from page-map, pageList or Adobe's synthetic page number algorithm) are the same regardless of font size, etc. A kepub displays each screen as a page so changing the font size, line spacing, margins or any other option that affects the amount of text on a page changes the page number.

I never understood this point. Physical books have page counts completely dependent upon font size. Why should it be different for ebooks? Why is it is so important to have an absolute measure? As an example the current mass market paperback edition of Dune is 894 pages long. The hardback copy in my shelf is 507 pages long.

If it is to be able to estimate a time to read, well Kindle and Kobo provide that figure directly in hours based on the average reader.

I can't imagine anything as imprecise as epub pages and kindle's "real page numbers" which both advance non-linearly. Every 2-3 pages (depending upon font setting), sometimes immediately with a chapter break. With the Kobo, every time you turn the page, the page count increments. With Kindle, every time you turn the page, the location count increments (based on how much text was on the screen). Those are meaningful figures to me.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I never understood this point. Physical books have page counts completely dependent upon font size. Why should it be different for ebooks? Why is it is so important to have an absolute measure? As an example the current mass market paperback edition of Dune is 894 pages long. The hardback copy in my shelf is 507 pages long.

If it is to be able to estimate a time to read, well Kindle and Kobo provide that figure directly in hours based on the average reader.

I can't imagine anything as imprecise as epub pages and kindle's "real page numbers" which both advance non-linearly. Every 2-3 pages (depending upon font setting), sometimes immediately with a chapter break. With the Kobo, every time you turn the page, the page count increments. With Kindle, every time you turn the page, the location count increments (based on how much text was on the screen). Those are meaningful figures to me.

It's handy if you have to cite something from a book and are required to include page numbers. If the eBook page numbers depends on your font settings a quote you claim to be on page 45 might be on page 65 in the teacher's copy or on page 25 in the physical version. Kindle's real page numbers are based on an actual paper edition. If someone has that same paper edition then a quote on page 45 in the kindle version should be in that exact paper version as well. No it doesn't work for any edition but it's better than nothing.

Kindle locations are similar in that they are absolute but they have never have a corresponding physical version and don't have any sort of corresponding version in non-Kindle readers. They are also sort of confusing to people who have never used a Kindle before.

[JSWolf]

If you have to cite from an ePub, it has to be the ePub as it comes from the publisher. No making any changes to it to make it more readable. Also, you want to have the page numbers in the right margin turned on. Kobo Readers have such an option with ePub. The issue is that a page could end in the middle of the screen.

Do Kindle page numbers allow you to see where on the screen the page end/begins? If not, the page numbering for Kindles isn't acceptable for citations becuse you could get the page number incorrect.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I never understood this point. Physical books have page counts completely dependent upon font size. Why should it be different for ebooks? Why is it is so important to have an absolute measure? As an example the current mass market paperback edition of Dune is 894 pages long. The hardback copy in my shelf is 507 pages long.

If it is to be able to estimate a time to read, well Kindle and Kobo provide that figure directly in hours based on the average reader.

I can't imagine anything as imprecise as epub pages and kindle's "real page numbers" which both advance non-linearly. Every 2-3 pages (depending upon font setting), sometimes immediately with a chapter break. With the Kobo, every time you turn the page, the page count increments. With Kindle, every time you turn the page, the location count increments (based on how much text was on the screen). Those are meaningful figures to me.

The epub page number should change immediately on a chapter break if the ebook is using the chapter per file format. As for epub page numbers being imprecise? If you are using the display page numbers in the margin, it is reproducible and consistent between devices whether the page numbers come from page-map or Adobe's synthetic page number algorithm.

As for why the page numbers? In a couple of my daughter's classes at university, the professor allowed the students to use the ebook version of the textbook (epub and pdf). He gave page number references and expected his students to reference those page numbers in their work. The deadtree and pdf versions weren't an issue with most of the epubs using Adobe's page-map to give page numbers that matched the other versions. In a couple of cases, the epub did not use page-map and he gave dual page number references which worked since the synthetic page numbers were consistent regardless of whether it was my daughter reading at flyspeck 3 font sizes (on my Aura One, she triggered the dual column mode) or one of her classmates who has vision issues and read with 2-3 lines of text on the display.

For textbooks, what is the time to read? The whole term if I only read what is needed? A couple of hours if I read the whole book in one session?

Personally, a good percentage of my ebook collection is cookbooks and I look up specific recipes, often in multiple books. Time to read is a meaningless number. For many other books, I find the time to read numbers to be, at best, nothing but a source of humour. Any relationship between the time shown to finish a chapter and the actual time is coincidental. Looking at my reading stats since the last time I reset them, I see 148 books read in 392.2 hours or about 2.65 hours per book. If I am reading as I often do while watching CFL football or hockey on TV, I will read during commercial breaks. Unless I immediately sleep my ereader at the end of the commercial, the time spent watching the game will be included in my reading time again making the numbers less than accurate.

[Frieda]

Fixed:
On some devices, swiping to adjust brightness could only go down to 1%, instead of 0%

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Yes, which *I* see as a bug.

The slider jumps in steps, depending on where you start. When you're unlucky and slide too far down, the light turns off, and you'll be unable to turn it back on again if you're reading in total darkness.

I'm glad I'm not the only person to have thought that bug was a feature. I don't want to turn the light completely off with the slider. It's now pretty much impossible for me to set the light to 1% without using the menu, so with the new firmware, I've had to turn off the left-edge slider entirely. I want my slide-to-1% option back!

Changing the light settings in the dark with the slider was useful if I couldn't inadvertently turn off the light, because the only direction I'd need to slide was usually down. Sliding back up and down to try to get it right now means I alternate between full dark and flashlight-in-the-face. Maybe we could at least get lower sensitivity on the slider so that it doesn't jump so far on a single swipe?

[JSWolf]

I have the perfect solution. Have an option in setting to allow sliding to off to sliding to 1% but when you slide to 1%, another slide goes off.

[koboy]

have a tick box option in settings for the light to only go down to 1% instead of 0% completely off .

best wishes koboy

[lkmiller]

Yes, please don't let them take my swipe to off away again! For me, the best thing about this update was getting it back. But JSWolf's suggestion of a second swipe to off would be fine as well.

[Fpaiy]

Originally Posted by Frieda

I'm glad I'm not the only person to have thought that bug was a feature. I don't want to turn the light completely off with the slider. It's now pretty much impossible for me to set the light to 1% without using the menu, so with the new firmware, I've had to turn off the left-edge slider entirely. I want my slide-to-1% option back!

Changing the light settings in the dark with the slider was useful if I couldn't inadvertently turn off the light, because the only direction I'd need to slide was usually down. Sliding back up and down to try to get it right now means I alternate between full dark and flashlight-in-the-face. Maybe we could at least get lower sensitivity on the slider so that it doesn't jump so far on a single swipe?

Agreed. It was so glaring especially when in the dark. Perhap have a night mode where the increment would be by 1% to 5 % increment per slide.

[Fpaiy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have the perfect solution. Have an option in setting to allow sliding to off to sliding to 1% but when you slide to 1%, another slide goes off.