Adjusting word spacing for justified text – kepub

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does left justified text work with hyphenation (KePub)?

Hyphenation? What's this hyphenation? On a serious note, a hyphen in left justified rendering is an rara avis.

[Lykke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does left justified text work with hyphenation (KePub)?

Yes, if you enable the patch "Set KePub hyphenation". Seems to me it works as well as hypenation with justified text… only that, naturally, the text will not be justified.

[CyberPaul]

@jackie_w
This is the KEPUB code:

<p><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.91.1">Se non avessi creduto al principio elementare che non si può continuare all’infinito a mandare roba dall’alto in basso senza contraccambiarla con un invio dal basso in alto, mi sarei lasciato vincere dal sentimentalismo. </span><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.91.2">Ma… </span><em><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.92.1">Tanstaafl</span></em><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.93.1">: </span><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.93.2">i pranzi gratis non esistono, tanto a Bombay quanto sulla Luna.</span></p>

I think it is pretty much as you described, right?
What I do not understand is why the algorithm is insisting on that specific sequence (Ma...)? Why not adding spaces within other words? I think it can be related to periods interpreted as single words, because usually it is a separator of words.

[PeterT]

Have you tried replacing the ... by a Unicode character?

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[CyberPaul]

No, I would like to avoid editing books before reading them

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Have you tried replacing the ... by a Unicode character?

As far as I can tell, the original text is using an ellipsis (…) and not 3 periods. I suspect using the numeric entity for a … ( & # x2026; ) would have the same results since it appears that all 3 characters inside <span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.91.2">Ma… </span> are having extra white space added.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by CyberPaul

@jackie_w
This is the KEPUB code:

I think it is pretty much as you described, right?

Yes.

Originally Posted by CyberPaul

What I do not understand is why the algorithm is insisting on that specific sequence (Ma...)? Why not adding spaces within other words? I think it can be related to periods interpreted as single words, because usually it is a separator of words.

If you're asking how the kepub reading app decides where to "inject unwanted spaces" - the simple answer is I don't know, other than it must feel it's necessary to get the neatly justified right edge. Why it would think it's OK to create spaces within a word, rather than adding more space to the existing gaps between words, is anyone's guess.

If you're asking why the kepub creation algorithm chooses to fragment paragraphs the way it does - it's for koboSpan purposes. It tries to create (at least) one per sentence. However a koboSpan must only contain text, not other tags, so it has to end the old one and start a new one when it encounters inline tags such as <i>, <em>, <span>, ... etc. in the middle of a sentence. On top of that, the algorithm used to determine what will be considered 'end of sentence' is a somewhat simplistic list of punctuation characters (period, colon, ellipsis, ... etc) in a regex search.

With current tools, books using a lot of any of the following will have a lot of unnecessary (IMO) koboSpan fragmentation during kepub creation:

• 3 consecutive periods (...) instead of a single ellipsis (…)
• abbreviations, Mr. Mrs. Dr. U.S.A. U.K.
• time-related, A.M. P.M. 12:30

[CyberPaul]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As far as I can tell, the original text is using an ellipsis (…) and not 3 periods. I suspect using the numeric entity for a … ( & # x2026; ) would have the same results since it appears that all 3 characters inside <span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.91.2">Ma… </span> are having extra white space added.

You are right, I didn’t even notice it! It is using the single character, not the single dots.

[CyberPaul]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

f you're asking how the kepub reading app decides where to "inject unwanted spaces" - the simple answer is I don't know, other than it must feel it's necessary to get the neatly justified right edge. Why it would think it's OK to create spaces within a word, rather than adding more space to the existing gaps between words, is anyone's guess.

Yes, that was my question. Specifically why preferring to alter THAT specific combination? It must have a peculiar rule for handling that specific character or special characters in general.

Could you please share your customized plugin? I would like to try converting my epub using your version optimized to create less spans.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by CyberPaul

Could you please share your customized plugin? I would like to try converting my epub using your version optimized to create less spans.

I'm afraid it's not really suitable for sharing. In addition to the koboSpans stuff, I've added several other non-standard features (aimed only at my personal whims) plus I've removed/changed existing KTE features I didn't like. I'll be happy to share what I've done with the official KTE developers/maintainers if they ask.

[JSWolf]

@jackie_w, does your version of KePub work better then KePub from the official driver?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@jackie_w, does your version of KePub work better then KePub from the official driver?

For @jackie_w, it does. For others it may not. And probably a rather important consideration is that just perhaps @jackie_w does not want to be responsible for supporting a public fork of the KoboTouchExtended driver.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For @jackie_w, it does. For others it may not. And probably a rather important consideration is that just perhaps @jackie_w does not want to be responsible for supporting a public fork of the KoboTouchExtended driver.

I'm curious and if it does work better, maybe the official plugin can then be improved. It's just a thought.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm curious and if it does work better, maybe the official plugin can then be improved. It's just a thought.

Hmm... To quote @jackie_w's message:

I'll be happy to share what I've done with the official KTE developers/maintainers if they ask.

[CyberPaul]

How do they know of those improvements of nobody tells them?