Unify text across books

[Buhaj]

I want to update my Calibre settings - there is a few things I would like to achieve:

• have the same base font size across all books, identical to body font when the device ignores publisher style (if that even makes sense)
• have the same line height in body across books

I have attached my settings, some of them will probably need to go - what are your suggestions? Heuristic processing is disabled. I am not sure in particular what to put in Fonts and Styling. Also, shall I activate "Do not split on page breaks"? Not sure what the practical implication of that setting is.

[Sirtel]

You can only get the same font size by conversion if you're willing to get rid of every kind of specified font size in the book - that also goes for font size in chapter headings, blockquotes, footnotes and so on.

If you only want an unified size for main text and leave other cases alone, then that can't be done with conversion. You'll need to edit the css/html manually for every book.

All this also applies to line height.

[Buhaj]

What does font size rescaling do? I thought I could set the main size, and rest would be scaled from it, but I do not know what the best size actually is.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Buhaj

What does font size rescaling do? I thought I could set the main size, and rest would be scaled from it, but I do not know what the best size actually is.

That will only enlarge or decrease fonts, it won't make them the same size across all your books. That's because publishers often stupidly use nonstandard sizes for body text (like "small" or 0.8em or 0.9em or whatever) and there's no way to unify them other than editing them manually.

[Buhaj]

So the "base font size" setting does not actually mean the final font size in converted files?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Buhaj

So the "base font size" setting does not actually mean the final font size in converted files?

It does, but only relative to the size specified in the css. Sometimes the size for main text is not specified, and then you'll get the size you entered in "base font size" setting. But often enough the size for main text IS specified in the css and then you'll get a calculated size according to the one in the css.

[Buhaj]

Does removing "fonts" in CSS delete parameters like size, or just styling? Also, is it worth removing padding if I want to maintain consistent look?

[DNSB]

Say you set the base font size will be set to 1em. One common problem is if the publisher had set the base font size to say, 1.25em and the paragraph font size to 0.8em which gives you a paragraph font size of 1 (1.25x0.8). If you just change the base font size to 1.0em, the paragraph font size will drop to 0.8em (1.0x0.8).

That is why you need to use the Mark 1 eyeball and brain to examine the CSS stylesheets, embedded styles and inline styles to modify those values. There is no magic one size fits all solution.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Buhaj

Does removing "fonts" in CSS delete parameters like size, or just styling? Also, is it worth removing padding if I want to maintain consistent look?

If you check "fonts" there, that will delete all specified font families in the css, including those used in chapter headings, blockquotes et al. It has no bearing on font sizes. For the latter you'll need to enter "font-size" in "other css properties". And it will then delete ALL specified font sizes in the css.

With padding it's the same - it will delete ALL paddings in the css, including those used in chapter headings and blockquotes.

[Buhaj]

It all sounds like removing line-height is the least risky way of unifying the looks across books. So far I was also removing padding, but I suppose it may change the way how the book is intended to look like.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Buhaj

It all sounds like removing line-height is the least risky way of unifying the looks across books. So far I was also removing padding, but I suppose it may change the way how the book is intended to look like.

Yeah. And even removing line-height may mess up things like dropcaps.

The whole state of ebook coding is a sorry mess, with every publisher out there using their own stylesheets, often with some pretty ridiculous choices (why specify font size, margins and line height for basic paragraphs at all? But no, they simply MUST do it).

[Buhaj]

At this point I am inclined to simply use KOReader and ignore some publisher settings, depending on the book. One day I might move to KEPUBs (when they finally add my language's hyphenation), but I think Kobo prevents ignoring publisher settings, so conversion seems to be the way.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Buhaj

At this point I am inclined to simply use KOReader and ignore some publisher settings, depending on the book. One day I might move to KEPUBs (when they finally add my language's hyphenation), but I think Kobo prevents ignoring publisher settings, so conversion seems to be the way.

Conversion won't remove publisher settings selectively, as we explained. It will either remove all instances of a style element or none.

[Buhaj]

Yes, that helped, thanks - conversion settings are indeed a double edged sword, but still some books make me want to strip all publisher settings from them.

Interestingly removing fonts (and line height) is something that I could see working for all books - at least based on several books I checked today. They all had Liberation Serif as the embedded font, and it didn't look particularly good in KOReader (thin letters).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Buhaj

Interestingly removing fonts (and line height) is something that I could see working for all books - at least based on several books I checked today. They all had Liberation Serif as the embedded font, and it didn't look particularly good in KOReader (thin letters).

Well, it depends on the books you usually read. Maybe the publishers in your country only use Liberation Serif in their books, and use it for everything.

OTOH, I usually read books in English (because books in my native language are very expensive) and I certainly wouldn't want to strip all the fonts in them with a sledgehammer. Often there are several different font styles used in a book, and not for main text, but for things like chapter headings, hand-written letters, computer messages and so on. To remove all of them would make such a book look exceedingly flat and boring. So I only strip out the font for main text, if there is one.