Am I changing the appearance of ebooks more than I realize with "filter style info"?

[Lily7]

When doing ebook conversions, I have been leaving "fonts" and "colors" checked under Look and Feel > Styling > Filter Style Information.

I started doing this because I got frustrated with so many ebooks forcing fonts, leaving me unable to change font type, weight, etc. I'd often encounter this when starting a new book away from my computer, so I just set this globally, and convert every book before loading it onto my ereader.

(I checked colors because I thought it might make it easier/faster for my ereaders to handle the images. It didn't seem necessary to retain colors for e-ink screens.)

All I wanted to do was control the fonts, and I don't care about retaining the publisher's fonts, as readability is more important to me. But now I am curious, how much of the appearance of the books am I actually changing? I only know a little about CSS, so I am wondering if I am changing much more than just which type of font is used and their sizes and weights.

Can anyone explain in simple terms?

I'd also appreciate an ELI5 on what happens when margins, padding and floats are checked, if anyone is so inclined. I read up what I could about what those mean in CSS, but I am having trouble understanding what they mean in regards to ebooks in this context.

Thank you!

[Sirtel]

Checking "Fonts" only removes font families from the css. Not much harm done with that. Ditto with color.

"Margins" and "padding" will remove all specified margins and paddings from the css, not only text margins, but also including those under the chapter headings, above and below sections, excerpts, letters, diary entries and so on. I don't recommend checking those. It would be like throwing the child out with the bathwater - too much formatting would be removed. The best way to remove annoying margins and/or padding is via editing the css.

[Lily7]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Checking "Fonts" only removes font families from the css. Not much harm done with that. Ditto with color.

That's a relief, thank you! I also noticed that with the books where the font is locked down, once I remove them with this method, I am also able to change the size, spacing between lines, etc which I couldn't do before. What is it that I'm removing by checking "fonts" that enables this? I thought one hand to put "line-height" into extra css for that to happen. I'm just curious and want to understand how this works. CSS is interesting to me. Edit: I meant "other CSS properties" not "extra CSS", sorry.

Re: padding and margins, that's what I kind of suspected, it's nice to know for sure. I will leave those unchecked.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Lily7

That's a relief, thank you! I also noticed that with the books where the font is locked down, once I remove them with this method, I am also able to change the size, spacing between lines, etc which I couldn't do before. What is it that I'm removing by checking "fonts" that enables this? I thought one hand to put "line-height" into extra css for that to happen. I'm just curious and want to understand how this works. CSS is interesting to me. Edit: I meant "other CSS properties" not "extra CSS", sorry.

Re: padding and margins, that's what I kind of suspected, it's nice to know for sure. I will leave those unchecked.

Some publishers who have no idea what they're doing embed the font type/family on the paragraph level. The result is that the user is unable to substitute their preferred font on the ereader. Checking "Fonts" in the other css properties will remove embedded font families and so the user will be free to choose their own font.

Line height and font size can depend on the font, so locking the font down may also lock down those; I'm not sure about this, as I don't use this method myself (I remove embedded fonts, line heights and atypical body font size from the css with the calibre editor).

[Lily7]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Checking "Fonts" in the other css properties will remove embedded font families and so the user will be free to choose their own font.

Does this mean it removes the publisher's fonts entirely, leaving only the fonts the user has installed on their ereader - or does it just remove the embedding of the fonts, but still allow the user to select the publisher's fonts if they wanted to, while enabling access to their installed fonts as well?

(Thanks so much for your patience with all these questions!)

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Lily7

Does this mean it removes the publisher's fonts entirely, leaving only the fonts the user has installed on their ereader - or does it just remove the embedding of the fonts, but still allow the user to select the publisher's fonts if they wanted to, while enabling access to their installed fonts as well?

(Thanks so much for your patience with all these questions!)

It removes the publisher's fonts entirely.

[Quoth]

removing line-height and white-space entirely is good.

[Lily7]

Originally Posted by Quoth

removing line-height and white-space entirely is good.

Can you elaborate as to why?

[Quoth]

Those are only needed for websites or paper. They interfere with ebook font resizing.