overriding someone else's css

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

As for books looking the same, for me its about the story. The typesetting isn't important as long as it isn't distracting or annoying.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

This... unless its poetry, a script, or a techie text.

BR

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by radius

On a technical level I don't think there are major problems with your "hack", though it is quite inelegant.

But...

I personally only go in to change specific items that annoy me (like too small line spacing, too small font size for regular text, mega-large margins etc) because I want to preserve as much of the existing formatting as possible. I want to believe that the "type-setting" of each book had some thought put into it to match the subject and mood etc. I don't want the responsibility of being the one who decides that, and I don't want ever book I read to look the same.

I also tend to edit books for wide margins -- do I need to waste 2.5cm on each side of the screen leaving a 2.68cm column for displaying text (Kobo Aura One) as measured by my em ruler? Is double spacing lines necessary? Are those ugly drop-caps really needed? Do I need to waste 2/3 of the screen to display the chapter number? Do I find the basic layout aesthetically disgusting?

As for some thought in the "type-setting" of each book? I tend more to the belief that if it was common to have someone who had some experience in typography and page layout involved, I'd be editing a lot fewer books. This is especially noted with the books that are generated in a word processor and then converted to an ebook--rather often using calibre. Who has fonts such as Times New Roman, Calibri or Arial Dark on their ereader? For the most part, they are reflowable ebooks that are never going to be printed yet they are laid out as if a fixed page was desirable. Then there are the ebooks that use a mass of media queries which don't work too well on most ereaders using RMSDK based renderers leading to such odd looking items such as having both a swoosh and a "* * *" for scene breaks. Then we have the dear folks who love to specify everything in absolute units.

Yes, I will admit that quite a few of ebooks I edit for my personal use tend to have consistent page layout and typography (sounds ever so much better than boring ). For me, it's the words that matter though it was fun figuring out how to display spiral text for one ebook.

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

I agree, but so far it's fixing a large majority of the books and thus saving me the effort of eyeballing and analyzing the css.

Well, there's your feedback. It seems to work for you a lot of the time. Good.

[radius]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I also tend to edit books for wide margins

Then we have the dear folks who love to specify everything in absolute units.

I'm curious how you specify margin width? I don't like using em units because I don't want my margin to change depending on my displayed font size. I usually go with pixels since I'm just quick and dirty editing for display on my personal devices.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by radius

I'm curious how you specify margin width? I don't like using em units because I don't want my margin to change depending on my displayed font size. I usually go with pixels since I'm just quick and dirty editing for display on my personal devices.

I tend to specify margins in % so the amount of screen space used is somewhat consistent across my devices. Pixels are a pain when the screens vary from 600x800 to 1440 x1920 just for my eInk devices.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I tend to specify margins in % so the amount of screen space used is somewhat consistent across my devices. Pixels are a pain when the screens vary from 600x800 to 1440 x1920 just for my eInk devices.

Exactly what I've read elsewhere; use percentages.

[Turtle91]

For your own personal use - use whatever you want - em or even %/px/in *shudder*.

If you are going to sell it, you don't have to define ANY indents....that's the whole reason the apps/readers/users can adjust the indent to THEIR preference.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

For your own personal use - use whatever you want - em or even %/px/in *shudder*.

If you are going to sell it, you don't have to define ANY indents....that's the whole reason the apps/readers/users can adjust the indent to THEIR preference.

Kobo cannot adjust indents and apps that do, get it wrong. They tend to screw up indents of 0 as in a new chapter or start of a section break. It's best to use indents. A lot of publishers use 1.2em and some use 1.5em. I have seen 1em but don't like 1em. 1.2em is best (IMHO). A % is much more noticeable with different screen sizes. Someone could create the eBook using a % that works on a 6" 800x600 screen but read the same eBook on a 7" 300DPI screen and the indent may not look good. em is the best as you as the reader will usually use the same font size on your Reader.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Exactly what I've read elsewhere; use percentages.

What I meant about using percentages is when you're specifying the margins for things like blockquotes. Not the margins for the entire page, which I'd rather have at 0 so I can adjust them on the ereader.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

What I meant about using percentages is when you're specifying the margins for things like blockquotes. Not the margins for the entire page, which I'd rather have at 0 so I can adjust them on the ereader.

I agree that using no margins is the way to do it. It's only old readers like Sony Readers where you have no option to change the margins. That's one reason why I went for the red because if the text is up against the bezel, it's still readable because it's not black on black (or almost black).

[AliceWonder]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Wouldn't the selector "body p" get only top level paragraphs and not the ones inside blockquotes, divs, etc.?

I use "article p" and it gets all paragraphs inside "section" etc. while still allowing me to do "section.whatever p" to specifically override in a specific section.

But I don't see what the difference between "body p" and just "p" would be - they both would always match every "p" as you can not have a "p" that isn't a child of "body".

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by AliceWonder

I use "article p" and it gets all paragraphs inside "section" etc. while still allowing me to do "section.whatever p" to specifically override in a specific section.

But I don't see what the difference between "body p" and just "p" would be - they both would always match every "p" as you can not have a "p" that isn't a child of "body".

When you start having overlapping styles, you have to take into account CSS Specificity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0kfcP_nD9E

The more specific thing wins.*

* (For the most part, there are a lot of edge cases... which is why it's a good idea to keep your CSS simple instead.)

[lumpynose]

I think I should have said "body > p" rather than "body p". The first is immediate children, the second is all descendants. Specificity often trips me.

I try to keep my CSS simple but I also want to have HTML that isn't full of tags with class="whatever".

[JSWolf]

Actually, I find it easier to just define p as what most p is going to be and use classes for when I need/want to change p. I don't like any CSS where you cannot change the order of the classes or it fails for work correctly. That makes things more complex and the idea is to keep the CSS as simple as possible. No need to make things more complex. body > p does make thing more complex as you should be using a header for the chapter titles.

Also, sections are ePub 3. Keep it simple and keep it ePub 2 compatible unless you can't. But the way it sounds, you might be making it more complicated. A lot of reading software doesn't do ePub 3 and if you make it be specifically ePub 3, it won't display properly. So the question is, do you really need to make this eBook ePub 3 specific?