'Evening, all!

[Giordano]

I've been lurking for a while and the time has come to say hello properly.

Books have always been an important part of my life and I got a Kindle Keyboard soon after they came out. Currently I use a Voyage that my then fiancée bought me in 2014; I replaced the battery a few years ago.

I started using Calibre for several reasons:

1. to start moving away from the Amazon ecosystem
2. to keep better track of all my books and ebooks
3. in the hope of learning to format free or cheap ebooks properly.

Numbers 1 & 2 are going well, but trying to format an ebook the way I want it and have it come out properly on different readers is making my brain hurt!

[Sirtel]

Welcome to MobileRead!

How are you trying to format your books and what exactly are you trying to achieve?

If by "different readers" you mean different reading apps, the problem is that many of them don't really respect the css code of ebooks. So even if you have formatted everything correctly, the book might still not display correctly in some apps.

[Giordano]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

How are you trying to format your books and what exactly are you trying to achieve?

Partly it's simple things like tidying up the front matter and starting each chapter on a new page, things that many cheap or free ebooks fail at.

Partly it's implementing typesetting or layout conventions, e.g. "A poem with short lines should be centered in the column", as in the attached image.

If by "different readers" you mean different reading apps, the problem is that many of them don't really respect the css code of ebooks. So even if you have formatted everything correctly, the book might still not display correctly in some apps.

I think that's the heart of my problem. So far I haven't been able to find any information on which apps (including the built-in apps on Kindles, Kobos etc.) implement which bits of CSS/HTML). With that i might be able to work out a subset that can achieve what I want and hopefully will also work with Calibre's conversions.

Can you suggest where to look?

TIA,
John

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Giordano

I think that's the heart of my problem. So far I haven't been able to find any information on which apps (including the built-in apps on Kindles, Kobos etc.) implement which bits of CSS/HTML). With that i might be able to work out a subset that can achieve what I want and hopefully will also work with Calibre's conversions.

Can you suggest where to look?

TIA,
John

There's no other way than to try it out. AFAIK no such public information exists. You can also ask for specific advice/suggestions here in the Kindle and Kobo forums, as experienced users often know what works and what doesn't.

As to Kindle and Kobo dedicated eink readers, it gets even more complicated, as they're capable of reading more than one format and formatting/layout is handled differently with each. Kindles read AZW3, KFX and MOBI (and PDF, which is fixed layout and can't be formatted); Kobos read EPUB and KEPUB. It's up to the user which format they want to use, and everyone has different preferences.

In short, unless you're an author or a publisher, don't bother to format your books for absolutely every reading device and app out there - it's not worth the trouble. Pick a couple you're likely to use, try them out, adjust your formatting accordingly and ask for help if you run into any issues.