Kobo fonts displaying spaces after em dashes

[Siavahda]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is no CSS that I've ever seen to put spaces around em dashes.

I just figured it out. You are reading KePub. I know this because changing the letter space does not do anything if you are reading an ePub on your Kobo. The KoboTouch driver is converting your ePub to KePub. You can turn that off if you want ePub.

When I look at the files on my Kobo in file explorer, they all claim to be epub.

I converted a book to kepub in calibre and put it on the kobo, just to see what would happen. Spaces after plenty of the em dashes again.

Also, despite having .kepub as the file extension while it's on my computer, and the Type recognised as kepub, if I open file explorer to look at the same file once it's on the kobo, it says .kepub.epub as the file extension and the Type is set as epub.

Is that normal? I don't know anything about this format.

[Siavahda]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is no CSS that I've ever seen to put spaces around em dashes.

I just figured it out. You are reading KePub. I know this because changing the letter space does not do anything if you are reading an ePub on your Kobo. The KoboTouch driver is converting your ePub to KePub. You can turn that off if you want ePub.

WAIT NO YOU'RE CORRECT!

The files on my kobo ARE all marked .kepub.epub! WHAT.

I've been trying to look up what the kobotouch driver is - it's a plugin? But I can't find it on my Calibre. Searching for it in my plugins only brings up the KoboTouch 2.6.0 plugin by David Forrester. Is that what you mean? I don't see anything in there about it converting files, but I HAVE told it not to send kepubs to my kobo any more. Let's see if that works... No, that didn't do the trick, new files I send via Calibre still show up as .kepub.epub.

I don't seem to have the KoboTouchExtended plugin either, which from other faq posts seems to be what does the converting?

Baffled, but suddenly very hopeful that there IS an easy fix for this nonsense!

[Siavahda]

All right, because NONE of the instruction guides specified: if any other noobs find this thread, what you need to do is uncheck the 'use kobo viewer for epub books' on the collections,covers&uploads page of the kobotouch plugin. It's not called a conversion, for whatever reason.

Sending a book to kobo after unchecking the box = the font appearing much larger, for some reason, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY THE FREAKING EM DASHES DISPLAY PROPERLY NOW.

Ahhhhhhh @JSWolf thank you SO MUCH. I know this is a tiny thing but it was distressing me so much, and you figured it out for me. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

[Sirtel]

The font size between kepubs and epubs is different on Kobo ereaders. There is a patch for making them the same size.

"Using Kobo viewer" is not called conversion because it's not. Kobo ereaders have two reading applications, one is used for plain epubs and the other for kepubs. "Using Kobo viewer" basically tells your Kobo to use the kepub viewer.

Both viewers have their pros and cons. Typography and word spacing are better in the epub renderer, but you cannot zoom images. It's also slower with very large books. I have one 14-volume omnibus where the search inside the book doesn't work at all with epub, but has no problems with kepub.

[Siavahda]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The font size between kepubs and epubs is different on Kobo ereaders. There is a patch for making them the same size.

Ahhh, I see! Thank you. It's fine, I'd rather remove everything and replace them all with epubs. But thanks for the explanation!

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Siavahda

Ahhh, I see! Thank you. It's fine, I'd rather remove everything and replace them all with epubs. But thanks for the explanation!

I'm probably too late to this thread to make a difference to your thinking but anyway ...

It's quite easy to solve your problem with "uneven spacing issues around m-dashes in fully justified kepubs". You need to:

1. Connect your Kobo to your PC
2. Navigate to the file .kobo\Kobo\Kobo eReader.conf
3. Despite its name it's a plain text file so open it in your decent text-editor-of-choice ("decent" means respects Unix line endings)
4. Find the section beginning [Reading] and at the end of that section add the line:

   webkitTextRendering=optimizelegibility

5. Save the change and safely disconnect. Problem solved.

This "fix" will also enable ligatures and kerning in kepubs as long as your font-of-choice actually contains that info.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

...

"Using Kobo viewer" is not called conversion because it's not. Kobo ereaders have two reading applications, one is used for plain epubs and the other for kepubs. "Using Kobo viewer" basically tells your Kobo to use the kepub viewer.
...

To expand on this a little, as I understand it...

I'm not sure what you want to call it (conversion, transformation, ...) but the epub that is received on the Kobo is changed when sent from calibre to a Kobo. The file extension change is what "tells" the Kobo to use the "Kobo viewer".

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by John F

To expand on this a little, as I understand it...

I'm not sure what you want to call it (conversion, transformation, ...) but the epub that is received on the Kobo is changed when sent from calibre to a Kobo. The file extension change is what "tells" the Kobo to use the "Kobo viewer".

Yes, there are some spans inserted too, AFAIK. But the resulting file can still be read with any epub reader, so it's not converting in the usual sense of the word.

[JSWolf]

To change the settings in in the KoboTouch plugin so you output ePub...

1. Preferences > Plugins
2. Search for kobotouch
3. When you get the search result, click Customize plugin
4. In the driver configuration, click the Collections, covers, & uploads tab
5. Uncheck Use Kobo viewer for EPUB books
6. Click OK and then Apply
7. DONE!

[DNSB]

Kobo ereaders with firmware v4 or earlier do not convert epubs to .kepub.epubs out of the box. The v5 firmware will open non-Adobe DRMmed epubs using the same renderer as used for .kepub.epubs.

[Siavahda]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to explain all this to me! (ie what kobo reader is etc). Hopefully if any other newbies have similar issues, they'll find this thread and all the explanations!

Really grateful to everybody. Thank you so much!

[Falkor]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Kobo ereaders with firmware v4 or earlier do not convert epubs to .kepub.epubs out of the box. The v5 firmware will open non-Adobe DRMmed epubs using the same renderer as used for .kepub.epubs.

And enabling developer mode even allows one to switch from the epub3 capable renderer to RMSDK (a slightly better one than the one used in v4).

The default font weight in RMSDK is way too thin these days, though. And the publisher font's weight can't be changed, so it forces one to switch to a different font...

Overall user experience of v5 is very rough. But no issues with em dashes

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Falkor

And enabling developer mode even allows one to switch from the epub3 capable renderer to RMSDK (a slightly better one than the one used in v4).

The default font weight in RMSDK is way too thin these days, though. And the publisher font's weight can't be changed, so it forces one to switch to a different font...

Overall user experience of v5 is very rough. But no issues with em dashes

Can you test something in RMSDK in the v5 firmware? I'd like you to test smallcaps. If they work, it's a new enough version of RMSDK. If they don't work, it's not a new enough version of RMSDK.

.small {
  font-variant: small-caps;
}

<p>This is a test of <span class="small">Small Caps</span>.

Thanks.

[Falkor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can you test something in RMSDK in the v5 firmware? I'd like you to test smallcaps. If they work, it's a new enough version of RMSDK. If they don't work, it's not a new enough version of RMSDK.

Thanks.

It doesn't do small caps, but the error handling seems to be better than that in v4, which I think is a big advantage. I don't think I ever managed to make it ignore my stylesheet.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Falkor

And enabling developer mode even allows one to switch from the epub3 capable renderer to RMSDK (a slightly better one than the one used in v4).

The default font weight in RMSDK is way too thin these days, though. And the publisher font's weight can't be changed, so it forces one to switch to a different font...

Overall user experience of v5 is very rough. But no issues with em dashes

I try v5 on my KLC when a new version is available and, so far, then I've reverted to v4 after testing. It's getting better but still not up to being an acceptable replacement for v4 feature wise and I miss NickelMenu.