Question about side loading

[theducks]

Originally Posted by John F

I just looked at a couple of pbooks, and I would say they have large side margins, and a lot of space around headers and footers.

Personally, i like what I like and don't necessarily want to mimic pbooks.

Larger side margins were because of the edge of the paper or signature (bound edge) and tolerances (Yes, I have had print books that had bad printing pages). Most devices have Bezels, so all the side margin needed is to allow for overscan allowance (~5px seems to do the trick).
And who are they kidding with line spacing > 1.4 for the main work

[John F]

Originally Posted by theducks

Larger side margins were because of the edge of the paper or signature (bound edge) and tolerances (Yes, I have had print books that had bad printing pages). Most devices have Bezels, so all the side margin needed is to allow for overscan allowance (~5px seems to do the trick).
And who are they kidding with line spacing > 1.4 for the main work

And then there is always the practical: how would you hold the book with no margins?

As far as overscan, I thought with LCD and eink displays there is no overscan; overscan was an analog thing?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

I just looked at a couple of pbooks, and I would say they have large side margins, and a lot of space around headers and footers.

Personally, i like what I like and don't necessarily want to mimic pbooks.

The way I look at it is that screens are not paper. So don't try to duplicate the look of the pBook if what you are doing doesn't work. Use a small screen such as an iPhone SE 2020 and see how it looks. If it works, fine, but when it doesn't work, don't do it.

A 15% space around the chapter title is useless on an iPhone SE 2020 (same size as an iPhone 8). Large L/R margins is useless. Paragraph spaces don't work well. large line height doesn't work well. Making the text smaller for offset text is useless. Just do it so it works on small and large screens.

I just don't get why publishers make such a mess of eBook formatting.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

Larger side margins were because of the edge of the paper or signature (bound edge) and tolerances (Yes, I have had print books that had bad printing pages). Most devices have Bezels, so all the side margin needed is to allow for overscan allowance (~5px seems to do the trick).
And who are they kidding with line spacing > 1.4 for the main work

I've seen something just as stupid with 15% margins for the chapter header. Also, I've seen on a lot of Kindle eBooks an indent of 7%. And then a 1em paragraph space takes me out of the book. It feels like it should be the start of a new section or some offset text.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

And then there is always the practical: how would you hold the book with no margins?

If I wanted more L/R margin, I'd go to the Aa menu and use the slider to add more L/R margins. That's why these large margins are just a problem. I can increase but I cannot decrease.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by John F

And then there is always the practical: how would you hold the book with no margins?

As far as overscan, I thought with LCD and eink displays there is no overscan; overscan was an analog thing?

Not true overscan, but physical positioning the display module within the device, causing the bezel to obscure a small portion of the edge. 5px leaves a thin blank even with variations on construction or off axis viewing. We sure don't need 2-20em.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by John F

As far as overscan, I thought with LCD and eink displays there is no overscan; overscan was an analog thing?

It was, but for some reason, to this day, digital televisions come out of the box set for overscan by default, and television networks and stations position their logos horizontally to allow for 4:3 and vertically to allow for overscan. So most TV watchers are seeing content unnecessarily degraded because it has been changed from the native resolution of the display, and the logos are messing up a portion of the image way too close to the middle.

As theducks pointed out, some e-reading devices might cover some pixels with bezels, but I don't know of any.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by leebase

I respect you all but I sometimes wonder what in the h#ll you folks are reading. I've read digital books "forever". Never once have I even THOUGHT about changing the format. I buy a book, I read it. On my iPhone, on my iPad, on my Kindle Fire Tablet - now on my Kindle Paper White.

I mostly read books on my Kobos, but while we might not agree on everything, I’m otherwise with you on this. I’m just not that fussy (which is not to say that people who care are overly fussy, to be clear, only that I’m lucky). There are books that I wish didn’t have embedded fonts or what have you, but so long as the rendering is clean, I can live with it. I’ve returned a couple of books to Amazon which were literally unreadable, but that’s about the extent of it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by John F

Can Kobo polish it up, or do they just license some libraries and can't modify code?

I don't work for Kobo, so I couldn't say.

But considering that the available patches and plug-ins do a lot to improve kepub layout, I don't see why Kobo couldn't build some of that stuff in. I couldn't imagine their license is what causes them to set hyphenation to so high a number out of the box you practically never see it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by leebase

I respect you all but I sometimes wonder what in the h#ll you folks are reading. I've read digital books "forever". Never once have I even THOUGHT about changing the format. I buy a book, I read it...

Maybe you've just had better luck than me? I didn't get into ebooks to become an amateur editor.

I started messing with the code when I bought an omnibus where the table of contents didn't work on my Nook.

Formatting has gotten a lot better since 2013, but at this point, I'm just used to looking through them. I'm already having to convert from AZW to ePub, so why not check 'em out real quick?

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't work for Kobo, so I couldn't say.

But considering that the available patches and plug-ins do a lot to improve kepub layout, I don't see why Kobo couldn't build some of that stuff in. I couldn't imagine their license is what causes them to set hyphenation to so high a number out of the box you practically never see it.

I don't think most companies (at least mass market consumer electronics), want to patch libraries that they are licensing/purchasing. If they have code, or can do it through APIs or configuration files, that is one thing, but libraries are another story.

At least that is how I see it.

Myself, I don't care about hyphenation.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

no widows and orphans

So, you want a paragraph to start and finish on the same page? I'm surprised as you seem to want everything else the same a paperbooks usually were.

Suggestion: Don't reply automatically. Go and reread what "widows" and "orphans" are. Then really think about what "no" would mean.

And yes, I am being a smartarse.