Overview of features supported by ebook readers?

[what]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

... trying to sell an ebook wide, stick with the lowest common denominator. Like scene breaks with simple centered asterisks ...

Thank you, that is solid advice. After struggling with trying to replicate the print look for my first eBook (and eventually managing it), I decided to never attempt that again. All my future eBooks will not have images inside, no custom fonts, and no styling at all. All the modern ereaders have pleasant defaults, and all the old ereaders can't handle all that effort anyway.

Also, thank you for reminding me of asterisks. They are the perfect answer to not knowing if and where scene breaks will coincide with page breaks.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by what

Thank you, that is solid advice.

[...]

Also, thank you for reminding me of asterisks. They are the perfect answer to not knowing if and where scene breaks will coincide with page breaks.

Originally Posted by what

After struggling with trying to replicate the print look for my first eBook (and eventually managing it), I decided to never attempt that again. All my future eBooks will not have images inside, no custom fonts, and no styling at all. All the modern ereaders have pleasant defaults, and all the old ereaders can't handle all that effort anyway.

You can still include all the images + extra flourishes, just code it in a way to:

• have fallbacks
• not interfere with user preferences.

Ebooks should follow the spirit of the print version, not try to "replicate it exactly".

I recently discussed some of this this (and referenced to a lot of other fantastic threads) in "Colored Text, EPUB, Android Dark Mode" (Post #14).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by what

Thank you, that is solid advice. After struggling with trying to replicate the print look for my first eBook (and eventually managing it), I decided to never attempt that again. All my future eBooks will not have images inside, no custom fonts, and no styling at all. All the modern ereaders have pleasant defaults, and all the old ereaders can't handle all that effort anyway.

Also, thank you for reminding me of asterisks. They are the perfect answer to not knowing if and where scene breaks will coincide with page breaks.

Pleasant defaults? Hell no! If you don't code the eBook to look good, it will look awful. Some defaults are fine. But some are not and those are the ones you do not want. So do not accept all defaults. You can do simple coding with images that will work on most reading software and if it doesn't on some, then it's the fault of the software and not your eBook.

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by what

Thank you, that is solid advice. After struggling with trying to replicate the print look for my first eBook (and eventually managing it), I decided to never attempt that again. All my future eBooks will not have images inside, no custom fonts, and no styling at all. All the modern ereaders have pleasant defaults, and all the old ereaders can't handle all that effort anyway.

I think you could find a "middle way". You can build a typographic good ebook working fine with most of the ebook reader. I'm not happy with the "no typographic" way because, as reader, all the ebooks seem to be the same. The digital typography IMHO is an "ebook aesthetics" the publisher must propose to the reader. It is also a sign of courage and editorial responsibility. Obviously this is a my point of view and I think everyone here could offer you another one

[shalym]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

I think you could find a "middle way". You can build a typographic good ebook working fine with most of the ebook reader. I'm not happy with the "no typographic" way because, as reader, all the ebooks seem to be the same. The digital typography IMHO is an "ebook aesthetics" the publisher must propose to the reader. It is also a sign of courage and editorial responsibility. Obviously this is a my point of view and I think everyone here could offer you another one

Here's another one...I don't care what you do "typographically", as long as I can change it *on the reader*. For the most part, I can't be bothered to edit the books I read. (I will make an exception for a book I *really* want to read that has horrible formatting, but if it's a new author, or a book I've never heard of, I'll just return it)

When I say "change it on the reader", I mean that I *must* be able to (at the very least) change the font (both size and variant), line height, and margins. I would like to be able to set the justification and boldness level as well, but those aren't *as* important as the others.

Bottom line is, if you want to do fancy formatting, that's fine, as long as it doesn't break the reading options in the reader.

Shari

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by shalym

When I say "change it on the reader", I mean that I *must* be able to (at the very least) change the font (both size and variant), line height, and margins. I would like to be able to set the justification and boldness level as well, but those aren't *as* important as the others.

Bottom line is, if you want to do fancy formatting, that's fine, as long as it doesn't break the reading options in the reader.

Totally agree with this.

[what]

Originally Posted by shalym

I *must* be able to (at the very least) change the font (both size and variant), line height, and margins.

As I understand it, it will depend on the reader you have wether it allows you to override settings in the file. There is no option in the code to either allow or disallow readers to change font size etc. Either it is defined in the source code or it isn't, and if your reader cannot change a font size that has been set in the source code, there is nothing a publisher can do but to not set font size at all.

That is how I understand it from twenty years of writing HTML and CSS code for websites. That is how webbrowers work. But then I'm new to writing ebook code and unfamiliar with most reader soft- and hardware. Have you actually had both styled ebooks where you could override the styling and styled ebooks where you couldn't (on the same reader)?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by what

Have you actually had both styled ebooks where you could override the styling and styled ebooks where you couldn't (on the same reader)?

Yes.
Ebook renderers don't work the same as Web Browsers.
It's a subset of HTML and CSS with a few extras.

Generally Font Size in the CSS isn't a problem unless it's insanely coded. The reader GUI will scale up or down the text and reflow. Which happens on desktop browsers. But WHY are the Mobile Browsers on Android so broken? They simply zoom the whole page as if it's a PDF, no reflow!

Line height entries should not exist in the CSS. Most readers can't over-ride it. In Calibre you set Line Height = 0% and Minimum Line Height = 0% to ensure that on a conversion there is no line height setting at all in the CSS.
No setting = Use browser or Ereader default. Which is NOT the same as 0 (Zero).

The important margin settings are top and bottom of paragraphs. Readers will generally only overide the outermost margin settings allowing indented block quotes, preambles, poetry etc as well as a first line indent (preferable to top & bottom margins on body text paragraphs on small screens).

Ereaders unlike web browsers do have widow and orphan settings. A setting of 1 means don't process, a setting of 0 is meaningless, but many readers take that as 1. IMO it's sad that there is no built in option on Web Browsers to paginate an HTML document to the size of a window. The Browser on the Kindle DXG does and it's nicer to navigate than scrolling.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by what

there is nothing a publisher can do but to not set font size at all.

And that is how it should be. There is no valid reason to specify the font size for the main body text in an ebook.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

And that is how it should be. There is no valid reason to specify the font size for the main body text in an ebook.

But too many eBooks do specify a body font size of smaller then 1em.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

And that is how it should be. There is no valid reason to specify the font size for the main body text in an ebook.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But too many eBooks do specify a body font size of smaller then 1em.

Your post is not a comprehensible response to my post.

Removing "But" would help, but it would still add nothing to the discussion. Specifying "a body font size of smaller then 1em" is still specifying a body font size, so it was already covered by "There is no valid reason to specify the font size for the main body text in an ebook.".

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But too many eBooks do specify a body font size of smaller then 1em.

I don't think I have ever seen a <body> with a sub 1em.
I sure have see bigger number (and a .7588 in the P or DIV)
I also hat those 1.4 (main text) line heights. Who are they trying to kid by making the book have a higher scree (page) count.
1.2 matches most paperbacks (and is the default if left out)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

I don't think I have ever seen a <body> with a sub 1em.
I sure have see bigger number (and a .7588 in the P or DIV)
I also hat those 1.4 (main text) line heights. Who are they trying to kid by making the book have a higher scree (page) count.
1.2 matches most paperbacks (and is the default if left out)

A body font size is the font size for the base font used between <body> and </body>. So that does include <p>. In a lot of cases, offset text is usually set in a smaller then 1em size. This is something I do remove the font size from offset text.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A body font size is the font size for the base font used between <body> and </body>. So that does include <p>. In a lot of cases, offset text is usually set in a smaller then 1em size. This is something I do remove the font size from offset text.

I was being too literal?
I took the comment to mean overall. with nested blocks inheriting or modifying from there. AKA the Content