The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One vent/rant is why do the big publishers have no clue how to make properly formatted eBooks?

Because they are too arrogant to try all of their products.
A few screens into the book on a typical device would make it obvious.

Simply USE WHAT YOU MAKE/Sell (at least for a Gamma test)

[Renate]

Originally Posted by theducks

Simply USE WHAT YOU MAKE/Sell (at least for a Gamma test)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The fixation that if it looks good as a pBook, it's going to look good as an eBook. The people reading ebooks on different devices will not change fonts, font size, line spacing, margins, etc.

For people with vision difficulties, the fact that most eBooks use "em" as the unit for spacing just makes their lives even more difficult.

With an "average-sized" font, an 8em left margin for something like a poem isn't a problem. Crank the base font size up by just 2x and that left margin is now at the center of the screen on a 6" device, assuming minimal device margins. So, now that line will hold just a handful of characters before it hits the right margin, especially if that margin is set to make the text indented on both sides.

The same goes true for vertical margins, especially for chapter numbers. Those usually start bigger anyway, so now a 6em margin-top plus a 3em margin-bottom turns into (6 + 3) x 1.5 (chapter font size) x 2 (scaling chosen by the user) == 27 "average-height" lines, when a 6" reader can display about 25 "average-height" lines on a single screen.

Using "%" for spacing generally works out better for accessibility, since it's always based on the parent element size. So, a 15% margin-top will always be 15% of the screen height (ignoring device margins), even if the base font size gets increased.

Some publishers use "%" for vertical spacing (and even those don't use it in every instance), but almost none use it for horizontal spacing.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One vent/rant is why do the big publishers have no clue how to make properly formatted eBooks?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

...there's no real reason not to deliver well formatted eBooks. I'd love a job for one of the big publishers doing proper formatting of their eBooks.

It feels like they have flunky interns formatting their ebooks. Some big 5 books are formatted pretty well. Others not so much, But even then there will be inconsistency. I bought the Tad Williams Humble Bundle (such a deal!), and though all the books are from the same publisher (DAW, I think?) the formatting would vary book to book, even among books in a series.

I'm in the office right now without the files, so I can't list specific examples. But I'm sure I'm not the first to have seen this. The Tad Williams books aren't the first time I have seen that either.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

It feels like they have flunky interns formatting their ebooks. Some big 5 books are formatted pretty well. Others not so much, But even then there will be inconsistency. I bought the Tad Williams Humble Bundle (such a deal!), and though all the books are from the same publisher (DAW, I think?) the formatting would vary book to book, even among books in a series.

I'm in the office right now without the files, so I can't list specific examples. But I'm sure I'm not the first to have seen this. The Tad Williams books aren't the first time I have seen that either.

Yes, I've seen this very issue in eBook series. The problem as I recall is that the older eBooks are worse and then the newer eBooks are better. But none are good enough and all need editing.

[John F]

I don't really care about the html code. I compress images, remove duplicate classes, and do an epub to epub conversion. Works great for me.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by John F

I don't really care about the html code. I compress images, remove duplicate classes, and do an epub to epub conversion. Works great for me.

Eh, for the most part I don't mind. I don't even do the amount of conversion you mentioned. I'm just saying the lack of consistancy in a book series by a best selling writer, put out by one of the largest publishers tells you that ebooks aren't a priority.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Eh, for the most part I don't mind. I don't even do the amount of conversion you mentioned. I'm just saying the lack of consistancy in a book series by a best selling writer, put out by one of the largest publishers tells you that ebooks aren't a priority.

I can't say as I notice inconsistencies, probably because I always do an epub to epub conversion and don't look at the html.

And I forgot to mention that I also remove embedded fonts.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

And I forgot to mention that I also remove embedded fonts.

Why, unless you have an old 2G storage ereader?
Asian ones can take huge space, but then the built-in fonts might not work.

I'm just curious, not saying you shouldn't. We make sure azw3 works without publisher setting and that old mobi version is readable (which doesn't support embedded fonts at all anywhere).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Why, unless you have an old 2G storage ereader?
Asian ones can take huge space, but then the built-in fonts might not work.

I'm just curious, not saying you shouldn't. We make sure azw3 works without publisher setting and that old mobi version is readable (which doesn't support embedded fonts at all anywhere).

Sometimes publishers embed their fonts in such a way that an end user can't change the body font on their device.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Why, unless you have an old 2G storage ereader?
Asian ones can take huge space, but then the built-in fonts might not work.

I'm just curious, not saying you shouldn't. We make sure azw3 works without publisher setting and that old mobi version is readable (which doesn't support embedded fonts at all anywhere).

Habit more then anything else. also, I'm not going to use them.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Why, unless you have an old 2G storage ereader?
Asian ones can take huge space, but then the built-in fonts might not work.

I'm just curious, not saying you shouldn't. We make sure azw3 works without publisher setting and that old mobi version is readable (which doesn't support embedded fonts at all anywhere).

Most embedded fonts are useless and not all that good. So why not dump them? I don't read books with Asian characters.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most embedded fonts are useless and not all that good. So why not dump them?

I have seen only 2 eBooks (out of nearly 2000) that use embedded fonts for something other than trying to change the base reading font.

And yet, there are dozens of physical books I own that used some sort of alternate font for special purposes (headings, computer code, handwriting, etc.) and the eBook of the same book either skips it entirely or instead uses an image. The image is often tiny and either doesn't scale with base font size changes, or looks so bad when scaled up as to be useless.

An embedded font with subsetting would be perfect for this use case, but I'm pretty sure the average MR reader knows more about eBook formatting than most of the people actually doing it for a living.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

And yet, there are dozens of physical books I own that used some sort of alternate font for special purposes (headings, computer code, handwriting, etc.) and the eBook of the same book either skips it entirely or instead uses an image. The image is often tiny and either doesn't scale with base font size changes, or looks so bad when scaled up as to be useless.

An embedded font with subsetting would be perfect for this use case, but I'm pretty sure the average MR reader knows more about eBook formatting than most of the people actually doing it for a living.

Some here certainly seem better.
It can't be the main job in some publishers or they'd get better? Work experience kids?
Though I know 15 yo that can do better.

Bold is a valid point.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Some here certainly seem better.
It can't be the main job in some publishers or they'd get better? Work experience kids?
Though I know 15 yo that can do better.

Bold is a valid point.

The bottom line is, as it always is, money. 99% of trade publishing ebooks are done in India, and the Indian firms (and yes, this isn't rumor or speculation) hire off the street and train by rote, period. It's the way of it.

The bookmakers get paid and they're happy but they have zero troubleshooting skills because they rarely understand what they are actually DOING, or why they are doing it. Whaddya expect for $0.99/hour?

Hitch