The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, to all of that, and:
No CSS defined white-space
No blank lines, use top or bottom margin in the CSS for a suitable header or paragraph.
Any space above the first element in a file should use padding-top, not margin-top as some renderers strip margin-top on first element.
Use CSS with a <p tag, not a <blockquote
never use inches, mm, cm.
never use px on margins and font sizes
No coloured body or header text.
No coloured backgrounds.
No external content.

The no left & right margins is generally. Some things like lists, lyrics/poetry, quotations, marginalia, preambles might .

I've added in most of your suggestions to my list, Thanks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

No, that messes up screenreaders and makes them read out each letter.

A screen reader cannot handle uppercase text properly? Then that (IMHO) is a bug in the screen reader.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A screen reader cannot handle uppercase text properly? Then that (IMHO) is a bug in the screen reader.

If the word is entirely upper case, then the screen may read the letters, but should only do so with short words. Some might do it with any length.

A word with an initial capital is read as a word.

FBI, FM/AM, CIA, should be read as F B I, F M AM, C I A.
Fred, Capital, Capitol etc should be read as fred, capital, capitol.

NASA is usually written now as Nasa, so should be nasa, but probably ought to be N A S A if written as NASA.

I have some ebooks where shouting is done all UPPERCASE. I will test. If that's a problem there is solution.

Really a TTS ought to have an Abbreviations dictionary. This is smaller than a human's one as it doesn't need definitions.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by DNSB

There was a empty span wrapped about the first 40-67 characters of the line

This drives me crazy. I have never seen this kind of formatting in a physical book. What I have seen is the entire first line of a chapter being set in small caps/all caps/bold/etc.

Basically, the idiot that coded the HTML took a specific eReader with a specific font at a specific size and displayed the book with no auto-hypenation. Then, they went back and added the span to each chapter's first line so that it surrounded the characters displayed on the first line. Then, that got formatted as small caps/all caps/whatever.

Apparently, nobody that formats eBooks professionally ever got far enough in their W3Schools reading to know that ::first-line is exactly what they were trying to do.

[theducks]

Apparently, nobody that formats eBooks professionally ever got far enough in their W3Schools reading to know that ::first-line is exactly what they were trying to do.

Except there are devices that do not support pseudo selectors.

EPUB is a subset of HTML

Then, even EPUB gets mangled because a lot is OPTIONAL.
Some may have been left out because of ROM space on early devices.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I think the way to sort that problem is to have a default setting that hides most of these options. Make it easy to turn them on for those that want.

That could be done via a style-setting page in the settings. It would start off with the defaults, and users can change items as desired. With pull-down lists it could hide the items that users don't want to change.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Really a TTS ought to have an Abbreviations dictionary. This is smaller than a human's one as it doesn't need definitions.

Yes, the TTS program should have a list of words where it reads each letter separately. But if the TTS is going to read every uppercase word as single letters, then the TTS is buggy.

There are a lot of eBooks where the chapter header is uppercase. So is the TTS going to read C H A P T E R instead of CHAPTER?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

That could be done via a style-setting page in the settings. It would start off with the defaults, and users can change items as desired. With pull-down lists it could hide the items that users don't want to change.

KOReader and and some Android apps do it.

Most people don't want that. Most people find it too fiddly and awkward. The ebook should just work.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The ebook should just work.

Someone should tell it to the publishers...

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Quoth

KOReader and and some Android apps do it.

Most people don't want that. Most people find it too fiddly and awkward. The ebook should just work.

I strongly agree that an ebook should just work, regardless of the device/program you are using to view the ebook. Unfortunately, that is often not the case, thus all of the discussion of formatting issues.

One of my ereaders (Nook Color) has the option of just going with the publisher's formatting. That should be the main option when you first open an ebook, but if you alter its appearance in the ereader that should be remembered. If that is good enough, then so be it. But if you want to make appearance changes you can.

However, if properly constructed formatting options should be easy. My Nook Glowlight 4 offers these options with EUPB ebooks: Typeface, size, typeface thickness, margins, line spacing, and justification. An option would be to have simple options (like what I mentioned previously) and detailed options (where you can make detailed formatting decisions). Most people might not want to deal with formatting issues, but others might.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Most people might not want to deal with formatting issues, but others might.

I think lots of people who want to deal with detailed formatting issues are capable of editing the formatting of their ebooks themselves, and those who aren't usually use KOReader. As you said, most people don't want to get into those things.

For myself, I find editing my ebooks easier than dealing with the myriad settings of KOReader. This has an added benefit of not having to depend on The One App to Rule Them All.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I think lots of people who want to deal with detailed formatting issues are capable of editing the formatting of their ebooks themselves, and those who aren't usually use KOReader. As you said, most people don't want to get into those things.

I pay for my computer hobby because people are willing to pay me so they do not have to touch up the formatting of their ebooks

Originally Posted by Sirtel

For myself, I find editing my ebooks easier than dealing with the myriad settings of KOReader. This has an added benefit of not having to depend on The One App to Rule Them All.

True plus, for me, it's fun to make an ebook look the way that I want.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

True plus, for me, it's fun to make an ebook look the way that I want.

Yes, that too. If it weren't fun, I wouldn't be doing it.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I think lots of people who want to deal with detailed formatting issues are capable of editing the formatting of their ebooks themselves, and those who aren't usually use KOReader.

There's a third group. Those who are "capable of editing the formatting of their ebooks themselves" and still choose to use KOReader because they find it more convenient.

I edit my epubs when absolutely necessary, but editing means typing, and that's something I try to avoid whenever possible, because typing means typos. So KOReader's 'edit by mouseclick' is easier, faster and much less error-prone.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I pay for my computer hobby because people are willing to pay me so they do not have to touch up the formatting of their ebooks



True plus, for me, it's fun to make an ebook look the way that I want.

That's why I make own my ebooks as PDFs using LibreOffice: It's fun to format them, and they look exactly as intended on my e-reader. If something is badly formatted that is on me, it's not due to it being in the EPUB format or due to the Publisher.