Let's admit it: Kindle's kerning really sucks!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ilyasson

As far as I know, other devices (pocketbook, kobo, etc.) have not such an issue. So, how hard can it be to handle it for Amazon?

I think you'll find that no current ereader does really nice typography in terms of kerning, paragraph justification or page layout.


It used to be the case that this was because of low resolution screens and low power processors.


Neither is an excuse now, it's just that the programmers are required to care more about features than basic typography.

[NiLuJe]

Allow me to introduce you to our lord and savior KOReader .

(No, seriously, we've tried some fairly fun stuff recently, and you can pretty much get your stuff to look like pretty much exactly what you prefer it to look like).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Allow me to introduce you to our lord and savior KOReader .

(No, seriously, we've tried some fairly fun stuff recently, and you can pretty much get your stuff to look like pretty much exactly what you prefer it to look like).

Does the typesetting look better then RMSDK?

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Kerning is modifying the spacing between individual characters. The final triumph of kerning (this is my opinion) is the ligature. See Kerning on xkcdexplained for a bit more information to go with the cartoon below.

I do notice kerning but then I've been a bit of a typography geek for decades. What is that phrase?, Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it? Notice the spacing in the upper lines of the kerning for a walrus image compared to the bottom two line.

Sometimes it's better to let people enjoy their ignorance... You've now gone and cursed people who were lucky enough to not notice!

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Allow me to introduce you to our lord and savior KOReader .

(No, seriously, we've tried some fairly fun stuff recently, and you can pretty much get your stuff to look like pretty much exactly what you prefer it to look like).

Wait... every time I've played with KOReader (on Linux, not an eReader) I found it to look somewhat clunky. Perhaps it's because I was more focused on the menus, etc... does it actually have a better text renderer? If so, I might be willing to install it and give it a try as I was under the impression that the Kobo was the king of typography, and then when I got one I was surprised by some of the horrible layouts that it's capable of.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by twowheels

Sometimes it's better to let people enjoy their ignorance... You've now gone and cursed people who were lucky enough to not notice!

Nah, I am still ignorant. I can't see much of anything in the example. Can't tell a difference. I don't even know exactly where to look to. Its a bit blurry. Maybe if one works with letters and such things as a designer or fontsetter. Whatever thats called.
When I read I read. I just want the font to be easy on my eyes, easy readable that is. So I need the contrast, the spacing of lines and size of font just right. Once that is done I read and I am in the story. My brain kind of reads 2 lines at once. Not sure how to explain that. I don't notice the "reading" part anymore if the story grabs me. Its just "there" in my head. Formatting errors and obvious grammar stuff can throw me out though.

Some of the paperbooks I have when you look there are some obvious spacings and what looks strange I guess. But only if I don't actually read. The first kindle had one font only. I read almost 200 books on it in the first year owning it. Now when I look at it its faded and pixelated and some weird spaces. No wonder my eyes kept getting worse. .

I don't begrudge you guys wanting fonts the way you want them. Whatever works to get one reading is really what matters.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Nah, I am still ignorant. I can't see much of anything in the example. Can't tell a difference. I don't even know exactly where to look to. Its a bit blurry. Maybe if one works with letters and such things as a designer or fontsetter. Whatever thats called.
When I read I read. I just want the font to be easy on my eyes, easy readable that is. So I need the contrast, the spacing of lines and size of font just right. Once that is done I read and I am in the story.

You also said you don't like ligatures so count your blessings that you're not wringing your hands over this stuff that font geeks obsess over.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=29

[JSWolf]

Has anyone actually noticed any kerning issues with KFX eBooks? KF8 and Mobi have no kerning so they doesn't count.

[NiLuJe]

@twowheels: I won't pretend that the menus are particularly pretty or intuitive, but they get the job done, and I definitely don't care about how they look 99.95% of the time, because that's time which is spent reading, not looking at menus ^^.

[DNSB]

The image says it all... And yes, I've seen several examples IRL where that sort of atrocity has been committed upon innocent letters.

[binaryhermit]

I think the "Only a dick away" image says it better.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Allow me to introduce you to our lord and savior KOReader .

(No, seriously, we've tried some fairly fun stuff recently, and you can pretty much get your stuff to look like pretty much exactly what you prefer it to look like).

Unless you want vertical writing. And then it's still a no go. So for me that was a dealbreaker.

[NiLuJe]

Yep, your best bet on that front will probably ultimately be whatever support for that is in MµPDF, which is probably not going to be much, if any .

On the other hand, we have somewhat decent support for *horizontal* ruby tags, as well as proper support for complex horizontal scripts (e.g., Arabic, Indic) .

EDIT: Ah, dug up the actual issue. MµPDF said nope, not gonna happen either .

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@twowheels: I won't pretend that the menus are particularly pretty or intuitive, but they get the job done, and I definitely don't care about how they look 99.95% of the time, because that's time which is spent reading, not looking at menus ^^.

Agreed, it’s just that with my toying around with the Linux builds I spend more time tweaking it than I do reading.

I’m starting to like it, and will probably try it on my Kobo once I figure out a few more things.

[NiLuJe]

The main issue is basically just getting around and figuring out where stuff is .

Thankfully, on that front, efforts have been made to make the menu layout slightly less haphazard than it used to be ^^.