Font Best Practices

[theducks]

alice
In the high tech world we used the term: 'Bleeding edge"
Designers of product for use with older devices should stay far-far away from the edge.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

alice
In the high tech world we used the term: 'Bleeding edge"
Designers of product for use with older devices should stay far-far away from the edge.

Very well said.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One reason I like some uniform formatting is that the overrides then work much better. No line hight and I can use the line height slider. No margins and I can use the margins slider. No embedded fonts and I can use the font selection.. Leaving the body font at the default seize and I get the size that works for me with the font slider.

Isn't that simply due to the device/app you are using? My reading app allows me to overide even when all those things are set in the CSS...

I understand that some of the older devices are limited in what they can do, and I understand the argument of wanting to sell to the biggest range of people possible, etc. However, at some point, users need to realize that they may want to update from their palm-pilot if they want to get a more enjoyable experience...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Isn't that simply due to the device/app you are using? My reading app allows me to overide even when all those things are set in the CSS...

I understand that some of the older devices are limited in what they can do, and I understand the argument of wanting to sell to the biggest range of people possible, etc. However, at some point, users need to realize that they may want to update from their palm-pilot if they want to get a more enjoyable experience...

My Reader is a Kobo Aura H20 and it's not out of date or too old. The firmware gets updated. It's the way the settings work. I can increase the margins and the line height, but I cannot decrease them. Kobo is one them the best selling ePub Readers out there.

[BetterRed]

This is beginning to read like a transcript of a pub conversation on whether Willy Mays or Don Bradman were better batter/batsmen than Christian Yelich and Steve Smith - respectively

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

My Reader is a Kobo Aura H20 and it's not out of date or too old. The firmware gets updated. It's the way the settings work. I can increase the margins and the line height, but I cannot decrease them. Kobo is one them the best selling ePub Readers out there.

I wasn't trying to imply your device was too old. I was saying that the ability to override is based on the devices/apps capabilities. Even if a device sells twice as many as all other models combined, if, for example, it continuously inverts every other character....then, in my book, that's a bad device. I would tell any one who owned such a bad device that they should 1) get their money back, and/or 2) buy a better device. I am certainly NOT going to come up with some convoluted CSS/HTML/SPAN bloat to "uninvert" (revert??) those characters for that inferior device.

Spoiler:

Sorta like those poor clods who bought a Mac... they are stuck with it and can't participate in all the awesomeness that is Windows or Linux...

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

This is beginning to read like a transcript of a pub conversation on whether Willy Mays or Don Bradman were better batter/batsmen than Christian Yelich and Steve Smith - respectively

Sorry Red, all I have is a blank stare for those names....except wasn't Willy Mays Hayes in a movie??

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that's just really bad code. That's not one of those "Oh dear, I didn't check what would happen when the font was made really big". That was "I made this mess on purpose".

True, the mess was made on purpose though I'm not sure why the capability to produce this abomination was builtin in the first place. Depending on your base font size, you can get Chapter One on a single line and Chapter Four split across two lines. Even if my wife chooses a small base font size, the header is justified across the entire page width which is (IMNSHO) extremely ugly even without a half page of wasted space above the header and a page break after the header.

The author does not check her output from Vellum other than the on screen view and running it through epubcheck before submission. I've added her output to the list of sins the developers of Vellum should have to answer for.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Isn't that simply due to the device/app you are using? My reading app allows me to overide even when all those things are set in the CSS...

The argument over whether Kobo firmware respecting publisher CSS is a GOOD THING or a BAD THING has been going on for years. Yes, it would be nice to be able to override publisher CSS at times but I've used several reading apps that totally disregard publisher CSS leading to rather ugly results. Nothing to do with the age of the Kobo device.

Given applications such as Sigil or calibre's editor allowing me to change the CSS to my preferences if the book exceeds my tolerance, it's a matter of indifference to me.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Sorry Red, all I have is a blank stare for those names....except wasn't Willy Mays Hayes in a movie??

What? Neither a baseball nor a cricket fan but you watched Major League?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DNSB

What? Neither a baseball nor a cricket fan but you watched Major League?

What's Major League - something like Premier League?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

What's Major League - something like Premier League?

It was a movie in which Wesley Snipes played a character called Willie Mays Hayes. Not on my list of the all time best movies. You can check some information on IMDB at Major League.

I am somewhat uncertain about comparing players from different eras. For me, it would be like comparing Wayne Gretzky to Charlie Connacher or Maurice Richard to Sydney Crosby.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

ASCII art? In an eBook? Rotsa ruck with that, as Scooby-Doo would say.

I was looking at Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man" and it does have several ASCII artworks (representing telepathic conversations). I made a version using monospaced fonts. Some other typographic effects I made tables. Have to admit that these could break in some situations, so probably not what a commercial publisher would do, but worked for me in iBooks and Kindle.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I am somewhat uncertain about comparing players from different eras. For me, it would be like comparing Wayne Gretzky to Charlie Connacher or Maurice Richard to Sydney Crosby.

My knowledge of baseball players, starts/stops with Willy Mays and Babe Ruth (just their names - nothing else), I got the other chap's name from googling 'best baseball player 2019' - IIRC Ian Chappell played baseball in winter.

End of digression - else the font mavens will get there glyphs mixed up with their French cues and that'll be the EOTWAWKI

I've heard of the Yankees and Green Bay Packers, but maybe they're gridiron 'footie' <<== my most loathed Australian diminutive Ψ³

BR

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

True, the mess was made on purpose though I'm not sure why the capability to produce this abomination was builtin in the first place. Depending on your base font size, you can get Chapter One on a single line and Chapter Four split across two lines. Even if my wife chooses a small base font size, the header is justified across the entire page width which is (IMNSHO) extremely ugly even without a half page of wasted space above the header and a page break after the header.

The author does not check her output from Vellum other than the on screen view and running it through epubcheck before submission. I've added her output to the list of sins the developers of Vellum should have to answer for.

I didn't know Vellum was that bad. But why would such a really bad stylistic choice be made? I'm not a fan of wasted space around a chapter title and that's my preference, but this is going way beyond that with poor typesetting and way too much wasted space. Plus, it look really ugly.

I've seen some really poor decisions made on formatting. One style that's not been brought up is wide L/R margins with the eBook being left justified. That looks really bad as it look like way too much empty space at the end of the lines. If it was full justified, it would look like wide margins, but this looks like empty space.