Unify text across books - Page 2

kovidgoyal · 08-02-2025, 08:44 PM

base font size sets the most common font size used in the book to the specified size and then rescales all other font sizes based on that. So if in your book the most common font size is 0.2345em and the headings are in 0.8em if you set the base font size to 12pt then the 0.2345em font size will become 12pt and the headings font size will become 12 * 0.8/0.2345 (the algorithm is more complicated than that, but thats the basic idea).

So you will end up with the most common font size being set by that setting and all other font sizes being proprotionately scaled.

DNSB · 08-02-2025, 09:56 PM

If you want a really consistent appearance, remove all CSS and style information from the ebook. The result will look like a text file with some bolding for headers and depending how they were implemented, bold and italic in the text. And yes, there was a utility to do exactly that called KoboBulkFixer. A classic example of tossing out the baby with the bath water. After trying it on a couple of files, I went with Strahinja Val Marković's Sigil (0.1.8???) as my preferred ePub editor. Ghod, was that really 15 years ago...I'm feeling old at the moment.

Sirtel · 08-02-2025, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you want a really consistent appearance, remove all CSS and style information from the ebook. The result will look like a text file with some bolding for headers and depending how they were implemented, bold and italic in the text. And yes, there was a utility to do exactly that called KoboBulkFixer. A classic example of tossing out the baby with the bath water. After trying it on a couple of files, I went with Strahinja Val Marković's Sigil (0.1.8???) as my preferred ePub editor. Ghod, was that really 15 years ago...I'm feeling old at the moment.

I just use calibre editor. Does everything I want.

DNSB · 08-02-2025, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I just use calibre editor. Does everything I want.

When I got into editing ePubs, calibre's e-book editor was over 3 years in the future. I use both Sigil and calibre's e-book editor but Sigil is my go to ePub editor.

Sirtel · 08-02-2025, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

When I got into editing ePubs, calibre's e-book editor was over 3 years in the future. I use both Sigil and calibre's e-book editor but Sigil is my go to ePub editor.

Yeah, I started to edit much later, the editor was already out then.

I adopted both ebooks and calibre relatively late too, compared to many older members here. 2011, to be exact. Before that, I was a die-hard paper book fan.

JSWolf · 08-11-2025, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Yeah. And even removing line-height may mess up things like dropcaps.

The whole state of ebook coding is a sorry mess, with every publisher out there using their own stylesheets, often with some pretty ridiculous choices (why specify font size, margins and line height for basic paragraphs at all? But no, they simply MUST do it).

It's best to remove drop caps because they only really work with the font and line height specified by the publisher. Otherwise, they can look off.

JSWolf · 08-11-2025, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buhaj

At this point I am inclined to simply use KOReader and ignore some publisher settings, depending on the book. One day I might move to KEPUBs (when they finally add my language's hyphenation), but I think Kobo prevents ignoring publisher settings, so conversion seems to be the way.

Find a Libra Office hyphenation dictionary and I'll see about making a Polish Kobo hyphenation dictionary.

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08-02-2025, 08:44 PM	#16
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,418 Karma: 27757236 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	base font size sets the most common font size used in the book to the specified size and then rescales all other font sizes based on that. So if in your book the most common font size is 0.2345em and the headings are in 0.8em if you set the base font size to 12pt then the 0.2345em font size will become 12pt and the headings font size will become 12 * 0.8/0.2345 (the algorithm is more complicated than that, but thats the basic idea). So you will end up with the most common font size being set by that setting and all other font sizes being proprotionately scaled.

08-02-2025, 09:56 PM	#17
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 46,708 Karma: 169712392 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	If you want a really consistent appearance, remove all CSS and style information from the ebook. The result will look like a text file with some bolding for headers and depending how they were implemented, bold and italic in the text. And yes, there was a utility to do exactly that called KoboBulkFixer. A classic example of tossing out the baby with the bath water. After trying it on a couple of files, I went with Strahinja Val Marković's Sigil (0.1.8???) as my preferred ePub editor. Ghod, was that really 15 years ago...I'm feeling old at the moment.

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