Adjusting word spacing for justified text – kepub

[Lykke]

I notice that the word spacing for justified text while reading kepub is noticably larger than for epub. Not so much for English, but very noticeable when reading Norwegian ebooks (also with a hyphenation dictionary installed). Is it possible to reduce the word spacing somehow? (For some reason Norwegian books will only justify for kepub, not epub).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Lykke

I notice that the word spacing for justified text while reading kepub is noticably larger than for epub. Not so much for English, but very noticeable when reading Norwegian ebooks (also with a hyphenation dictionary installed). Is it possible to reduce the word spacing somehow? (For some reason Norwegian books will only justify for kepub, not epub).

There's a patch "KePub stylesheet additions - optimizeSpeed". It seems to help a bit. It disables ligatures/kerning, but fixes some rendering problems that affect fully justified text in kepubs.

[Lykke]

Oh thanks, that does seem to eliminate the worst of it.

[ZodWallop]

I use "Set KePub hyphenation" along with a hyphenation dictionary, which then lets me keep ligatures/kerning by activating "KePub stylesheet additions - optimizeLegibility"

Works for me in English. Your Norwegian miles may vary.

[Sirtel]

I use the OptimizeSpeed patch myself. I hate hyphenation, and care nothing about kerning/ligatures. Too large spaces between words do bother me.

And no, I wouldn't left-align my text if my life depended on it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

There's a patch "KePub stylesheet additions - optimizeSpeed". It seems to help a bit. It disables ligatures/kerning, but fixes some rendering problems that affect fully justified text in kepubs.

But that also makes the words not as nice to read.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Lykke

I notice that the word spacing for justified text while reading kepub is noticably larger than for epub. Not so much for English, but very noticeable when reading Norwegian ebooks (also with a hyphenation dictionary installed). Is it possible to reduce the word spacing somehow? (For some reason Norwegian books will only justify for kepub, not epub).

Read in ePub for better typesetting. KePub just does not do nearly as well.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I use the OptimizeSpeed patch myself. I hate hyphenation, and care nothing about kerning/ligatures. Too large spaces between words do bother me.

And no, I wouldn't left-align my text if my life depended on it.

WOW! You right algin your text? That's going to be really awful to read a book that way.

[JSWolf]

Personally, I do like to read with justified text and hyphenation. That's why I created some better hyphenation dictionaries for Kobo and they do work better then the ones that come with with the firmware.

Better hyphenation dictionaries
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I use "Set KePub hyphenation" along with a hyphenation dictionary, which then lets me keep ligatures/kerning by activating "KePub stylesheet additions - optimizeLegibility"

Works for me in English. Your Norwegian miles may vary.

This in addition to using bookerly has virtually eliminated weird spacing for me on a Sage. Though I use the kobo config file method not patching to get legibility.

[Lykke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Read in ePub for better typesetting. KePub just does not do nearly as well.

I probably should, but then I'd have to edit the CSS of every Norwegian ebook, replacing 'text-align: left' to 'text-align: justify' because for some reason, virtually all Norwegian publishers choose to left-align the text in their ebooks.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I use "Set KePub hyphenation" along with a hyphenation dictionary, which then lets me keep ligatures/kerning by activating "KePub stylesheet additions - optimizeLegibility"

Works for me in English. Your Norwegian miles may vary.

Thanks, that does make it look better. The remaining 'pain' point seems to be the rather limited Norwegian hyphenation dictionary I installed. I just made it from Libreoffice's Hunspell dictionary. But at least it looks OK now. I might post it in JSWolf's thread later.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Lykke

I probably should, but then I'd have to edit the CSS of every Norwegian ebook, replacing 'text-align: left' to 'text-align: justify' because for some reason, virtually all Norwegian publishers choose to left-align the text in their ebooks.



Thanks, that does make it look better. The remaining 'pain' point seems to be the rather limited Norwegian hyphenation dictionary I installed. I just made it from Libreoffice's Hunspell dictionary. But at least it looks OK now. I might post it in JSWolf's thread later.

If you find your hyphenation dictionary works well enough, please PM me a link to download it. If it's going to be posted in the Better Hyphenation thread, it should go in the first post otherwise, it may not be found if someone looking does not read the entire thread.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

WOW! You right algin your text? That's going to be really awful to read a book that way.

You know what I meant perfectly well, no need to be sarcastic.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that also makes the words not as nice to read.

Hyphenation and huge word spacing are worse than no kerning/ligatures. IMHO, of course.

As to Bookerly, never could stand it. But the optimizeSpeed patch has reduced the weird spacing even in kepubs with fully justified and non-hyphenated text on my Sage. As to the smaller screen of the Libra 2, I read mostly epubs there, so the issue doesn't exist.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Hyphenation and huge word spacing are worse than no kerning/ligatures. IMHO, of course.

As to Bookerly, never could stand it. But the optimizeSpeed patch has reduced the weird spacing even in kepubs with fully justified and non-hyphenated text on my Sage. As to the smaller screen of the Libra 2, I read mostly epubs there, so the issue doesn't exist.

I used to not like bookerly compared to Literata, Minion, or Bitter. Not sure if Amazon tweaked it or I just changed, but it looks good and lets me get more lines per page (because we know a screen is a page right Jon?).