Question about side loading

[theducks]

Small creeks do not bother me. But when the gaps get huge like the image a few posts back
Some of that is due to the butt simple justification used to accommodate reflow .

What really jars me is the use of wrong words (homophones and such). Come on editors, if a 'D' student spots these with great regularity in e-books, someone has dropped the ball as this was RARE in a print version.
(another peeve is technology errors, but I will give the editor a pass on most of those)

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Kepub typesetting is a whole other thing. I just don't understand why Kobo doesn't put some effort into improving it.

I can improve it using the patches and hyphen dictionary. But why doesn't Kobo put some effort into making their own format look better than ePub?

Odd...I actually prefer the way that kepub looks over epub. Isn't it wonderful that we have choices?

Shari

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by shalym

Odd...I actually prefer the way that kepub looks over epub.

What is it about kepub you prefer over ePub?

I like the features of kepub, so I use it. I don't mind the font rendering in kepub. I don't care that it displays them differently from ePub, as long as I can make them look reasonably nice.

I just wish when using justified text that kepub was at least as good as ePub, or even better. Default hyphenation in kepub is awful and is easily fixed with a different hyphenation dictionary. And then there's a few other things.

Kepub is Kobo's preferred format after all. So why not polish it up?

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

...

Kepub is Kobo's preferred format after all. So why not polish it up?

Can Kobo polish it up, or do they just license some libraries and can't modify code?

[JSWolf]

Am I correct that Kobo is using some version RMSDK 10? If so, that's equivalent to some version ADE 3.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

We were bored then.

Seriously though, an average paper book is formatted much better than many ebooks. Generally I didn't see spaces between paragraphs, huge margins, line-spacing or indents in paper books, the way I often see them in ebooks. And of course even when there was anything bothering me (tiny and/or faded fonts, for example), I had no way to change it, so I just had to put up with it or stop reading. I don't have to put up with it now. Freedom of choice spoils people, as is well known.

Given that we read pBooks before eBooks, where did some of these preferences come from such as paragraph spaces, no indents, of large indents, large margins, large line spacing, and large space for chapter titles/headers.

[Gardenman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Given that we read pBooks before eBooks, where did some of these preferences come from such as paragraph spaces, no indents, of large indents, large margins, large line spacing, and large space for chapter titles/headers.

I have wondered the same thing.

[gmw]

I suspect the inclination to adjust ebooks probably started from the fact that the build quality of ebooks has been so inconsistent. Some books have been almost unreadable as supplied, so we were virtually forced to learn how to fix them. (And I'm not talking indie vs traditional - mostly I have more trouble with traditional, since badly formatted indie tend to get rejected early for other reasons.)

Once we learned how to adjust things, we worked out that we had preferences.

[leebase]

I respect you all but I sometimes wonder what in the h#ll you folks are reading. I've read digital books "forever". Never once have I even THOUGHT about changing the format. I buy a book, I read it. On my iPhone, on my iPad, on my Kindle Fire Tablet - now on my Kindle Paper White.

Science fiction. History. Classics. Thrillers. Major authors. Niche authors. Technical books. Indie authors.

I've read with the iBooks app, the Kindle app, Stanza, Marvin, FBReader. Never noticed a problem with the formatting. Some bad grammar for sure.

Weird

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by leebase

I respect you all but I sometimes wonder what in the h#ll you folks are reading. I've read digital books "forever". Never once have I even THOUGHT about changing the format. I buy a book, I read it. On my iPhone, on my iPad, on my Kindle Fire Tablet - now on my Kindle Paper White.

Science fiction. History. Classics. Thrillers. Major authors. Niche authors. Technical books. Indie authors.

I've read with the iBooks app, the Kindle app, Stanza, Marvin, FBReader. Never noticed a problem with the formatting. Some bad grammar for sure.

Weird

Well, it's more noticeable on eink screens, at least for me. Of course now I notice it everywhere, even some webpages (what the heck did the designer think, putting in a pale grey font and huuuuge line spacing, so that I have to squint and scroll constantly???).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by gmw

I suspect the inclination to adjust ebooks probably started from the fact that the build quality of ebooks has been so inconsistent. Some books have been almost unreadable as supplied, so we were virtually forced to learn how to fix them. (And I'm not talking indie vs traditional - mostly I have more trouble with traditional, since badly formatted indie tend to get rejected early for other reasons.)

Once we learned how to adjust things, we worked out that we had preferences.

Yeah, that's how it was for me too.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by leebase

I respect you all but I sometimes wonder what in the h#ll you folks are reading. [...]

I've read with the iBooks app, the Kindle app, Stanza, Marvin, FBReader. Never noticed a problem with the formatting. Some bad grammar for sure.

Weird

With the traditionally published books I see more problems with stuff published pre-2010-ish than more recent, particularly backlist stuff that's obviously been translated from paper or PDF or something. Just the start of this month I was reading a YA fantasy where many of the paragraphs seem to be randomly split mid-sentence - particularly later on. (First published 1996, ebook from 2006.) I thoroughly recommend it as a great way to break the flow of your reading. It's also the sort of thing that is hard to fix without a full proof-read, so I didn't try.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gmw

I suspect the inclination to adjust ebooks probably started from the fact that the build quality of ebooks has been so inconsistent. Some books have been almost unreadable as supplied, so we were virtually forced to learn how to fix them. (And I'm not talking indie vs traditional - mostly I have more trouble with traditional, since badly formatted indie tend to get rejected early for other reasons.)

Once we learned how to adjust things, we worked out that we had preferences.

Speaking of indie vs. traditional, I've I've found that a lot of indie eBooks sometimes have some pretty bad code under the hood. Worse then a lot of traditional eBooks. But, I've learned how to fix things so they work better.

I have basically rewritten the CSS in some eBooks because it was just easier.

Personally, I like the Keep it simple method when possible. No margins,no line height, maybe no embedded fonts, smaller spacing for the chapter headers, a text indent of 1.2em, no widows and orphans, smaller font sizes get made to the default font size (except the copyright),the offset text gets fixed, no paragraph spaces, no left justify, etc. It sounds like a lot, but it's not really.

Though one of the worst programs for making eBooks that gets used way way way too much is Vellum.

[John F]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Given that we read pBooks before eBooks, where did some of these preferences come from such as paragraph spaces, no indents, of large indents, large margins, large line spacing, and large space for chapter titles/headers.

I just looked at a couple of pbooks, and I would say they have large side margins, and a lot of space around headers and footers.

Personally, i like what I like and don't necessarily want to mimic pbooks.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by leebase

I respect you all but I sometimes wonder what in the h#ll you folks are reading. I've read digital books "forever". Never once have I even THOUGHT about changing the format. I buy a book, I read it. On my iPhone, on my iPad, on my Kindle Fire Tablet - now on my Kindle Paper White.

Science fiction. History. Classics. Thrillers. Major authors. Niche authors. Technical books. Indie authors.

I've read with the iBooks app, the Kindle app, Stanza, Marvin, FBReader. Never noticed a problem with the formatting. Some bad grammar for sure.

Weird

Once I start a book I am oblivious to the formatting or anything else around me. Ask my wife. she gets tired of having to call my name three or four times before I here her.
Apache