Firmware 4.33.19759

[JSWolf]

I make sure the chapter headers are not taking up too much space (most do). I make sure the base font size is not defined so it uses the default. I remove any line-height and I remove most/all embedded fonts. Also, all unused CSS will go. I'll add in my CSS code and use that as needed. Most of the time, fixing the ePub does not take long.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If I do edit the book, I will normalise the font so that it will size properly on the device.

Pure out of interest: just how does one normalize fonts?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

Pure out of interest: just how does one normalize fonts?

I missed the word "size". It should have been "normalise the font size".
Basically I delete the font size from the standard paragraphs and the body. Then I fiddle with the font size of the headings and anything else that might be different to try and keep something similar to the original design.

For the record, there is something out there that will build a book with body having a font size of something like 0.83333em, then wraps the text in a div with a font size of 1.2m, uses a paragraph for the heading setting that to 1.2, but wraps the actual text in two spans with different sizes. When I have multiplied it our, it usually works out to be about 1.6em for the headings. I simplify this rubbish but try to maintain the same relative sizes. So I think normalising is a reasonable word choice.

I do remove the font family for the standard paragraph. I have found the following in a lot of books:

body {
    font-family: Palatino, Malabar, Merriweather, "Droid Serif", serif;
}

I don't like Malabar and that is on the Kobo devices, so I remove this line. I usually keep the font for headings or anywhere it might help.

[Deobulakenyo]

Is there a way to remove some stock fonts in kobo devices- ones that i know i won't use even if kobo pays me to do?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Deobulakenyo

Is there a way to remove some stock fonts in kobo devices- ones that i know i won't use even if kobo pays me to do?

It's not worth the hassle to do this (IMHO). I don't use any of the Kobo fonts when reading. I just ignore them. That works for me.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Or you remove that font size from the css before loading the book on the device.



As all my ebooks have the same font size in the css, I too would prefer specific size numbers for easier switching between fonts. Not that I switch often; still, it would be nice to have.

Are you removing all font sizes from the book or are you locating the main texts, find the relevant css rules, and remove the font size from there?

It's a tricky problem. I was using Google play books and wondering how they got font size to be the same across books. Then I realized they just force all <p> to the same font size, so copyright text is as big as main text. If you change text align from the default, say left, then every <p> is left aligned.

What's needed is some kind of analysis to identify where the "main texts" are and force preferred font size / line height / text align only to those, but that's a fuzzy criterion that only works reasonably well for straightforward narrative books. It's better for publishers to leave the main text alone. That formatting is best which formats the least.

My solution with my fork of Plato is to allow the user, namely me, to point to a paragraph and say "apply my settings to all paragraphs of this class". Less work than editing css and no more tweaking the font slider

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Barty

Are you removing all font sizes from the book or are you locating the main texts, find the relevant css rules, and remove the font size from there?

The latter.

I do this because I don't want to depend on any one app or reading program to handle my formatting. I want my books to have unified formatting that looks more or less the same on any device.

[JSWolf]

I too remove any font sizes in the main text. I do leave font sizes for things like chapter headers, sub-headers, etc.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by Deobulakenyo

Is there a way to remove some stock fonts in kobo devices- ones that i know i won't use even if kobo pays me to do?

I know it's possible, but it's a very hacky process and really not worth the trouble.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I missed the word "size". It should have been "normalise the font size".

That makes sense.

Originally Posted by davidfor

For the record, there is something out there that will build a book with body having a font size of something like 0.83333em, then wraps the text in a div with a font size of 1.2m, uses a paragraph for the heading setting that to 1.2, but wraps the actual text in two spans with different sizes. When I have multiplied it our, it usually works out to be about 1.6em for the headings. I simplify this rubbish but try to maintain the same relative sizes. So I think normalising is a reasonable word choice.

I've seen that kind of constructs often. The calibre book editor "live CSS" is quite handy to determine the resulting font size in those cases.

However, that will not aid against silly constructs. For example I recently encountered an ebook which had the following preamble:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="ca">

and then proceeded by prefixing every paragraph by:

<p xml:lang="en">

Not to mention spanning <span> constructs
Oh well, this makes even some dry statistics ebook quite funny.

[sherman]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For the record, there is something out there that will build a book with body having a font size of something like 0.83333em, then wraps the text in a div with a font size of 1.2m, uses a paragraph for the heading setting that to 1.2, but wraps the actual text in two spans with different sizes. When I have multiplied it our, it usually works out to be about 1.6em for the headings. I simplify this rubbish but try to maintain the same relative sizes. So I think normalising is a reasonable word choice.

That sounds like Calibre if you enable its font size rescaling feature, at least that's what Calibre used to do.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by sherman

That sounds like Calibre if you enable its font size rescaling feature, at least that's what Calibre used to do.

No, the examples I have seen have shown no sign of calibre involvement. And I don't think I have ever seen a calibre conversion do something like unless the input book was already terrible. I can't remember when I last saw one of them, so I can't check easily. I did check some other horrible books, but, calibre basically renamed the classes and simplified what was in them.

It might be different if there are absolute values in sizes of the input book. I haven't seen a book like that for a while.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by geek1011

Done.

So fast! You’re amazing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Cootey]

I absolutely love the font preview window while pinching and zooming. This is such a better solution for font resizing than on my Kindle Paperwhite. Obviously, the faster processor on my Elipsa makes this a smoother procedure than on my Clara HD, but it still works on the Clara HD without too much difficulty.

Sometimes the preview zooms in on blank space between the sentences (too deep!) or just gets stuck and refuses to adjust no matter how much you pinch or zoom. I imagine they’ll work out all the kinks eventually, but for now I really enjoy this new feature. It’s so much more convenient than what has been available until now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[rashkae]

Since installing this firmware, my Libra 2 almost always freezes when I attempt connecting to PC without re-booting it first.. and even then sometimes.

It doesn't expose the filesystem to the OS in that state any more, so there is no damage,, it's only a minor irritant.