kepub or plain old epub?

[John Hopper]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I like Standard Ebooks myself. I've never downloaded a kepub from them. I download ePub and use the Kobo extended driver to convert it to kepub when I send it to my Kobo.

I use Standard ebooks. I have downloaded epub and kepub versions of the same book and the only difference seems to be that the epub version lacked the cover Standard ebooks provides. Otherwise chapter links worked and the book looked fine.

Sent from my SM-N976B using Tapatalk

[Uncle Robin]

Another vote for kepubs here

The ability to zoom images is helpful, as is the fast page turn, occasionally. I was surprised to see it said that the difference in speed is unnoticeable, because that was not my experience when I tested it with an epub and kepub version of the same book. Admittedly, there aren't that many occasions when the VERY rapid page turning is needed, but it's one of those "hey, that's handy" kind of things when the situation does arise.
Ultimately, of course, it's whatever works best for you and the intended end users, but I will say that describing kepubs as "disastrous and to be avoided" is a touch hyperbolic. The great thing is that trying both will inflict no harm on you or the devices in question, and will lead you to the only opinion that matters here. Yours.

[ps67]

Personally I use Kepub if there are images or notes, otherwise I use epub because of the ligatures.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by John Hopper

I use Standard ebooks. I have downloaded epub and kepub versions of the same book and the only difference seems to be that the epub version lacked the cover Standard ebooks provides. Otherwise chapter links worked and the book looked fine.

I only download ePub from them and have always gotten a cover.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Standard Ebooks lies.

You disagree with their wording and you accuse them of being lying rubbish.

Meanwhile, you keep asserting that all Nooks have rubbery bezels, including models you've never seen. That is factually not true. So, what should I call you?

[John Hopper]

Originally Posted by ps67

Personally I use Kepub if there are images or notes, otherwise I use epub because of the ligatures.

Yes I have noticed not being able to zoom images on epubs, which is a bit of a nuisance (though for 35 years I read paper books where I couldn't zoom images of course!)

Sent from my SM-N976B using Tapatalk

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ps67

Personally I use Kepub if there are images or notes, otherwise I use epub because of the ligatures.

I turn on ligatures in kepub, though I've heard it makes the spacing issues with kepub worse.

To be honest, since I've used Jon's hyphen dictionary, the spacing isn't too bad. It's not as nice as ePub layout, but it is not bad.

I have not the wide technical insight of most regular users around here but I will provide you with my experience. When I got my Clara in May I had the same question as you and I came across multiple answers pointing towards KoboTouchExtended, as others have mentioned. It's a plugin for Calibre, you simply install it (Under "Preferences"->"Plugins"->"Get new plugins" and search for kobotouchextended) and Calibre automatically sends your epubs as kepubs to your Kobo devices. You don't have to worry about anything, your books in Calibre are still the same epubs, they are simply transfered as kepubs to your Kobo. You can check if your books have been correctly sent as kepubs if you see "Kobo epub" on the "my books" menu instead of simply "epub". As for the pros of using kepubs, I don't think there are many, but my reading experience has been great with kepubs so far. On a 6 inch screen it comes handy being able to zoom some pictures and I find myself regularly using the feature to see the book stats with the chapter's remaining time and the chapters' lenght comparison as a bar graph. It is a nice visual aid with useful information absent for epubs but it works great with my sideloaded books.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Another vote for kepubs here

The ability to zoom images is helpful, as is the fast page turn, occasionally. I was surprised to see it said that the difference in speed is unnoticeable, because that was not my experience when I tested it with an epub and kepub version of the same book. Admittedly, there aren't that many occasions when the VERY rapid page turning is needed, but it's one of those "hey, that's handy" kind of things when the situation does arise.

The main reason for the difference in page turn speed is the KePub has less text on screen because of it's very poor text handling. But the difference is not all that much and ePub is not too slow. ePub can get a lot more text on screen and because of the better typesetting with ePub, it looks better for a better reading experience. So ePub give you better batter life with less page turns.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

You disagree with their wording and you accuse them of being lying rubbish.

Meanwhile, you keep asserting that all Nooks have rubbery bezels, including models you've never seen. That is factually not true. So, what should I call you?

What would you call it when Standard Ebooks says ePub does not work on a Kobo Reader? When they say that KF8 works on Kindles and apps when KF8 does not work on all Kindles and all Kindle apps. Then they have ePub 3 and they say it doesn't work with most devices/apps. That again is wrong. The ePub they have is actually ePub 3 that backward compatible with ePub 2. The ePub 3 is not backward compatible. It's a bunch of lies and untruths.

And as for the nook, I have seen them all in person.

[Crowriver]

Well I can see I've stirred a hornet's nest with this mention of Standard Ebooks in relation to kepubs...

Anyway, now that I'm optimising, processing and converting various files, a supplementary question occurred to me.

What file format do folk advise for reading manga on an older model Kobo (Touch, Mini) - cbz? Or kepub? I've read above that kepub gives the key advantage of double tap to zoom images, which would be very handy (especially on the Mini). Is zoom still unsupported for cbz, or have Kobo implemented tap to zoom for cbz in recent firmware updates?

Just thought I'd best ask before I go loading a bunch of stuff in the "wrong" format onto devices...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The main reason for the difference in page turn speed is the KePub has less text on screen because of it's very poor text handling. But the difference is not all that much and ePub is not too slow. ePub can get a lot more text on screen and because of the better typesetting with ePub, it looks better for a better reading experience. So ePub give you better batter life with less page turns.

Sorry Jon, but that is a complete load of BS. It is easy to get the pretty much the same number of characters on the screen at the same apparent font size with kepubs as epubs. There was a difference when the epub reader didn't have the header, but, now both formats can either have it or not, they can both get the same number of characters.

For reference, your justification for more text is based on things like ligatures. If you are using fonts that don't have them, there won't be as much of a difference.

As to battery life, prove it. You are making the claim, so please prove it. I don't remember anyone claiming this before, so I think you will have to present the testing you are doing.

But, consider this: By not having to handle ligatures and similar, the kepub renderer actually has to do less work. That means less CPU used and hence less battery. Any extra page turns is probably immaterial. If it is saving battery on the rendering, then an extra 1% of page turns is unlikely to be an issue.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Sorry Jon, but that is a complete load of BS. It is easy to get the pretty much the same number of characters on the screen at the same apparent font size with kepubs as epubs. There was a difference when the epub reader didn't have the header, but, now both formats can either have it or not, they can both get the same number of characters.

For reference, your justification for more text is based on things like ligatures. If you are using fonts that don't have them, there won't be as much of a difference.

If I was to read KePub, I would need a large line height to prevent the first line of the next page being split bug. With ePub, I read with a smaller line height. Even if I didn't have any ligatures, I would still get more text on screen with the same font/font size.

As to battery life, prove it. You are making the claim, so please prove it. I don't remember anyone claiming this before, so I think you will have to present the testing you are doing.

A Reader uses power to change screen pages. With ePub having more text on screen then KePub, you have less page turns with ePub. Less page turns equals less battery usage.

But, consider this: By not having to handle ligatures and similar, the kepub renderer actually has to do less work. That means less CPU used and hence less battery. Any extra page turns is probably immaterial. If it is saving battery on the rendering, then an extra 1% of page turns is unlikely to be an issue.

That depends if ligatures and hyphens are turned on. If I do read KePub, I have ligatures and hyphens on.

I agree that the difference in the amount of page turns between ePub and KePub is not a big deal. I mentioned it in attempts to be more complete.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If I was to read KePub, I would need a large line height to prevent the first line of the next page being split bug. With ePub, I read with a smaller line height. Even if I didn't have any ligatures, I would still get more text on screen with the same font/font size.

I always have the line height set to the minimum. I frequently read with kepubs. It is very rare that I see that problem. And almost all the times it is with the Charis SIL font or a derivative. Fonts that I am pretty sure have their font metrics deliberately set to give a smaller line height than they strictly should. To me, that is a bug in the font.

A Reader uses power to change screen pages. With ePub having more text on screen then KePub, you have less page turns with ePub. Less page turns equals less battery usage.

But then, the more characters on the screen, the longer it will take to render the page. Hence, more CPU and more battery usage. So there is a change that reading with a large font will actually use less battery.

That depends if ligatures and hyphens are turned on. If I do read KePub, I have ligatures and hyphens on.

I agree that the difference in the amount of page turns between ePub and KePub is not a big deal. I mentioned it in attempts to be more complete.

And how much difference do you think it will actually make? I'll credit maybe 1%. I won't give you 10%. It just isn't going to really matter. It is is a ridiculous point.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If I was to read KePub, I would need a large line height to prevent the first line of the next page being split bug.

As with so many of your assertions, this one is 100% untouched by any taint of truth. The attached screenshots show my current kepub with justified alignment and left alignment (my preferred). The line spacing is set to the minimum on the Advanced settings slider, without any custom line-spacing patches enabled. There is no "first line of the next page split bug", as can be seen in the "next pages" also included in the screenshots