Clara BW Confused about justification/hyphenation on Clara BW + Calibre

s1m0n · Today, 05:16 PM

Hello all!
I recently purchased Kobo Clara BW after using Kindle Paperwhite 2 for more than a decade and i am happy as a clam. I patched it using this website - https://kp.nicoverbruggen.be/ and everything works perfectly. I also installed Better Hyphenation dictionary (how can i actually see that it's installed? does it replace the default English one, because i can't see that anything has changed in the dictionary list on Kobo).

I use Calibre and it converts the books into KEPUBs when transferring to device.

I am still a bit confused how ustification and hyphenation works.

My preference is to have justified body text (works when i toggle justification ON on the device). Whenever justification is toggled ON, hyphenation appears. When justification is OFF, hyphenation goes OFF too. I don't know why those are linked, but it works for me. Is Kobo itself doing hyphenation or is it on Calibre side during conversion?

In rare cases chapter titles get justified too and it looks weird. Example:

justification OFF

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justification ON

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But most of the books correctly only justify the body text on and off, and not the titles. I feel like there's something wrong with the book itself.

Sometimes when using justification, it stretches the words across the line so the distance between words is uneven. Therefore I like to have hyphenation (although sometimes i get weird cases of hyphenation like "evident-ly" or "commer-ce", which i would like to avoid). So next question is related to the previous one, should i have a checkmark at "Enable/disable hyphenation" in the Calibre KEPUB output options or can Kobo do it by itself? And if i should have it on, what are the best practices for the characters numbers to avoid weird hyphenation cases?

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Apologies if these are very basic issues, Calibre is not the simpliest tool to work with and I really want my books to look nice.

s1m0n · Today, 05:30 PM

Also i just noticed that even when hyphenation is enabled in the KEPUB output section, when i go to KoboTouch settings it's disabled there. Does it make sense to enable it here too?

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Aleron Ives · Today, 06:39 PM

The justification setting for KEPUB will override the CSS for p and div tags, so things like titles will become justified, instead of centered. Your options for fixing this are to either patch the firmware to make the justification setting less harsh or to edit the CSS of all your books the way you want them to look and then leave the justification setting disabled on the Kobo side.

Today, 05:16 PM	#1
s1m0n Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2026 Device: Kobo Clara BW	Confused about justification/hyphenation on Clara BW + Calibre Hello all! I recently purchased Kobo Clara BW after using Kindle Paperwhite 2 for more than a decade and i am happy as a clam. I patched it using this website - https://kp.nicoverbruggen.be/ and everything works perfectly. I also installed Better Hyphenation dictionary (how can i actually see that it's installed? does it replace the default English one, because i can't see that anything has changed in the dictionary list on Kobo). I use Calibre and it converts the books into KEPUBs when transferring to device. I am still a bit confused how ustification and hyphenation works. My preference is to have justified body text (works when i toggle justification ON on the device). Whenever justification is toggled ON, hyphenation appears. When justification is OFF, hyphenation goes OFF too. I don't know why those are linked, but it works for me. Is Kobo itself doing hyphenation or is it on Calibre side during conversion? In rare cases chapter titles get justified too and it looks weird. Example: justification OFF justification ON But most of the books correctly only justify the body text on and off, and not the titles. I feel like there's something wrong with the book itself. Sometimes when using justification, it stretches the words across the line so the distance between words is uneven. Therefore I like to have hyphenation (although sometimes i get weird cases of hyphenation like "evident-ly" or "commer-ce", which i would like to avoid). So next question is related to the previous one, should i have a checkmark at "Enable/disable hyphenation" in the Calibre KEPUB output options or can Kobo do it by itself? And if i should have it on, what are the best practices for the characters numbers to avoid weird hyphenation cases? Apologies if these are very basic issues, Calibre is not the simpliest tool to work with and I really want my books to look nice.

Today, 05:30 PM	#2
s1m0n Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2026 Device: Kobo Clara BW	Also i just noticed that even when hyphenation is enabled in the KEPUB output section, when i go to KoboTouch settings it's disabled there. Does it make sense to enable it here too? Last edited by s1m0n; Today at 05:32 PM. Reason: picture didn't load properly

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Today, 06:39 PM	#3
Aleron Ives Wizard Posts: 1,934 Karma: 17671736 Join Date: Sep 2022 Device: Kobo Libra 2	The justification setting for KEPUB will override the CSS for p and div tags, so things like titles will become justified, instead of centered. Your options for fixing this are to either patch the firmware to make the justification setting less harsh or to edit the CSS of all your books the way you want them to look and then leave the justification setting disabled on the Kobo side.