Kobo Libra 2 left and right margins

[John F]

Sirtel, thank you for the explanation.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That depends on what you want.

Sure, but the OP was concerned about margins, for this kind of manipulation, why go through the trouble of unzipping the ePub, locating the correct CSS entry, updating it, and rezipping the file when you can just tap a button?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by afv011

Sure, but the OP was concerned about margins, for this kind of manipulation, why go through the trouble of unzipping the ePub, locating the correct CSS entry, updating it, and rezipping the file when you can just tap a button?

Because
1) there may be other things one wants to change
2) One may prefer to change the existing margins to 0, not insert additional negative margins which messes the css up even more

Of course it's for everyone to decide for themselves what they want to do.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

What is your process? Do you start reading and make changes as you see things you don't like?

My process is much the same as Sirtel in that I edit the book before starting to read. The step by step would be:

1. Import the book into calibre
2. Convert or KindleUnpack to epub if needed
3. Download metadata and covers. Correct metadata if needed. Resize cover to my preferred default size
4. Run the ModifyEpub plugin to add the new cover and do some basic metadata cleanup
5. Open the epub in Sigil and run the processes saved as Automation 1.
6. Run the HTML and CSS saved group search/replace sets.
7. Run the processes saved as Automation 2
8. Do a quick check of cover, titlepage and a couple of chapters.
9. Save the epub and all's done.

This takes an average of 10 minutes per epub. Automation 1 and 2 are a way of running multiple tools in one click, the group search/replaces are much the same as I've found that so many times, I was running the same tools and searches on every epub. For instance, removing any text-align: justify entries is a common task since I prefer to read left justified text.

I also have several specialized search/replace groups for various epub generation tools that I've build over the years.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by afv011

Sure, but the OP was concerned about margins, for this kind of manipulation, why go through the trouble of unzipping the ePub, locating the correct CSS entry, updating it, and rezipping the file when you can just tap a button?

Who would unzip the epub when either Sigil or the calibre e-book editor will do it all in the background for you. Not to mention that both support search/replace with Regex to make things even easier.

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If the margins are set to 0 in the CSS, your Kobo will display edge to edge. You may want to check the book(s) in an editor and see where/how the margins are set in the CSS.

Thank you for your help.

After some more attentive revision, I realized there was a div.body { margin: 2em for all margins buried in the middle of a (probably) unnecessarily large and full of adds css in all the books of the series I was just starting.

Would you recommend some resources to start learning about HTML/CSS for ePub, so I hopefully do not need to bother anyone anymore in the future?

Thanks again.

[DNSB]

Been too many years so I no longer remember many of the sites where I learned about CSS. Liz Castro's Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis site comes to mind though it's been quite a while and she has moved on. The W3C's starting with HTML + CSS, most of the W3schools site perhaps starting with their CSS Tutorial.

Open epubs and study the CSS to see how various creators handle their CSS. I prefer the keep it simple CSS styling when it can be done.

[JSWolf]

eBooks with div instead of p can be a problem when converting.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by afv011

Sure, but the OP was concerned about margins, for this kind of manipulation, why go through the trouble of unzipping the ePub, locating the correct CSS entry, updating it, and rezipping the file when you can just tap a button?

There's no need to go through all that hassle. ePub can be edited in calibre's editor or Sigil with no problem.

These editor do the unpacking and repacking and help make editing so much easier.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Been too many years so I no longer remember many of the sites where I learned about CSS. Liz Castro's Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis site comes to mind though it's been quite a while and she has moved on. The W3C's starting with HTML + CSS, most of the W3schools site perhaps starting with their CSS Tutorial.

Open epubs and study the CSS to see how various creators handle their CSS. I prefer the keep it simple CSS styling when it can be done.

I learned a lot about HTML/CSS for ePub from looking at the code in eBooks and from Mobileread.

MR is a good place to ask questions. There are a lot of quite knowledgeable people here who are happy to help. Just make sure that you do not post in the Sigil or calibre editor forums for questions about ePub. Post in the ePub forum when the questions are about ePub and post int he other forum if the questions are about how to use the editor.

Have a look at some of the more recent ePub posted by other here in the library. They are hand coded unlike commercial eBooks that can be a right mess.