Most reading programs/apps are garbage

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem is with a combination of things that can easily be fixed with a simple code change. When blank space is used as a section break, it's usually a top margin that's used to make this blank space. So when the blank space is at the bottom of the screen, it gets lost. If the top-margin is changed to padding-top, then the space is not lost and carries over to the next page so you have more empty space at the top of the page and then the next paragraph has no indent.

Try it and see if switching margin-top to padding-top when the book has a blank space for the section break works for you. I'd be interested to know.

I did say before that it *might* be enough for me to recognize there was extra space at the top of the page. If I'm really engrossed in the book I doubt I would recognize that it was a scene break with only a 2 em spacing. I would wonder if I missed something and have to go back a page to figure it out and then be annoyed that I was brought out of the story.

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[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I did say before that it *might* be enough for me to recognize there was extra space at the top of the page. If I'm really engrossed in the book I doubt I would recognize that it was a scene break with only a 2 em spacing. I would wonder if I missed something and have to go back a page to figure it out and then be annoyed that I was brought out of the story.

Sent from my BTV-W09 using Tapatalk

You could try a 3em space instead of a 2em space.

[Red Falcon]

I use Moon Reader in "night mode" so I like the fact that I can easily change the font color to a slightly neon green so the text seems to be floating a little bit above the black background. This makes it way easier for me to read on my android phones. Other then that I could give four figs how the book was\is supposed to look like. I have a book to read after all.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Red Falcon

I use Moon Reader in "night mode" so I like the fact that I can easily change the font color to a slightly neon green so the text seems to be floating a little bit above the black background. This makes it way easier for me to read on my android phones. Other then that I could give four figs how the book was\is supposed to look like. I have a book to read after all.

Yes, in most cases, you may find the book looks OK. But when it doesn't look OK, that's where it takes you out of the book. I was testing the new TiReader 2 Pro on my iPhone 6s and I very much noticed that the section break marker wasn't centered. That would take me out of the book. The app didn't respect the center command in CSS.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes, in most cases, you may find the book looks OK. But when it doesn't look OK, that's where it takes you out of the book.

Bad writing "takes me out of the book." I can't remember the last time an ebook's formatting distracted me from enjoying it (provided the story appealed to me).

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Bad writing "takes me out of the book." I can't remember the last time an ebook's formatting distracted me from enjoying it (provided the story appealed to me).

If it is truly horrendous it can take me out of the story but it really needs to be bad.

Things like a hard return at the end of every line (from a print version so not even at the end of a sentence). Paragraphs being indented to the middle of the screen. Weird symbols instead of punctuation marks. I rarely see this type of issue but have run across all three in books that were scanned and then improperly proofed and formatted.

Something being not quite centered? I probably won't even notice. Even (infrequent) spelling mistakes I can gloss over.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Bad writing "takes me out of the book." I can't remember the last time an ebook's formatting distracted me from enjoying it (provided the story appealed to me).

Wrong words (homophones)
Bad Physics/science (if not explained away), or Technical errors
Poor choice of terminology ('landed on the Ground' Inside a Space ship? )

[DiapDealer]

Typography is irrelevant in my opinion. There was never any consistency in print books with regard to typography either, so I don't understand where the whole "what it's supposed to look like" mentality for ebooks comes from. I can pull books off my shelves at random (and have before) and find a myriad of differences in how different publishers thought first-paragraph indents (or lack thereof), first line indents (or lack thereof) paragraph spacing, scene-break handling, etc... should be handled.

The variations in print never bothered me, and the variations in how ebooks are "typographically" rendered (by design or by rendering engine) don't bother me either. As long as I can tell when a new paragraph is starting, everything else is pretty-much water off a duck's back.

I need to remember this for when the next "negatives/positives of ebooks" thread gets started...

Ebook Negatives: ebooks created an army of armchair e-typographers.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Ebook Negatives: ebooks created an army of armchair e-typographers.

Yep! That's the downside of ebooks!

I just finished a book on my Paperwhite and now I'm reading one on my Kobo. Not for any particular reason. I have the book on both, having bought it from Amazon. This morning when I went to do my laundry in the community room I realized I had the book in my uncovered Kobo and not the covered one, but I did have it on the covered Paperwhite, so I swapped ereaders and took the Paperwhite with me. I read a number of pages while waiting for the laundry and then I got home and read again on the Kobo.

Finding my place going from one to another has become trivial with practice. I don't even think about it. I just do it. It rarely takes 30 seconds.

The differences in font, spacing, boldness and lighting are dramatic but I can't honestly say it was easier to read or better to read on either device. These are things I think about when comparing. They have nothing to do with reading.

As soon as I start reading I'm in the story in mid 19th century on a dark night in the crowded steerage of a ship where the people are starving and slowly dying. Who can think about fonts at a time like that!

Barry

[JustinThought]

Wow, I just found this thread, and it's really interesting to see the wide differences of opinions people are expressing.

I'm kinda weighing in with Jon on this one. Yeah, when I'm reading a book, I'm reading the words; but the layout can enhance (or detract from) the reading experience. Otherwise, we could all just get by with plain ASCII text displayed on the screen--no paragraph breaks, no indents, no emphasis with italics. You get my drift, I think.

One person I'm surprised hasn't joined in on the discussion is Granny Grump. (I think I have her name right.) If you look at any of the books she has created and made available here, you can see that she has spent a lot of time and skull-sweat carefully designing the layout to enhance the reading experience; and frankly, she has given us some real masterpieces. But, as Jon said, many of the reading apps (I can't speak to the e-readers, since I only use Android equipment) turn those masterpieces into generic blah!

Look at paper books. There are many different ways to handle chapter headings, section breaks, captions, etc. Did they do this because that happened to be the type they had available at the time? Prob'ly not. I would guess they were designing the books to look a way that they liked, and they thought the reader would like as well. Well, in the e-publishing world, the same is true; and when the e-reader or the app destroys that design, it's disrespectful to the book designer.

Moon+ Reader, which happens to be my preferred reading app because of the many different options available, is one of the worst I've found at ignoring the book design. Gitden Reader is the app I've found that displays the design in the truest fashion.

But, as others have said, if my purpose is to read the book, I'm gonna go with the reader that I makes that particular experience the most gratifying, i.e. getting the words transferred from the page into my brain, and to heck with the formatting.

Oh, and when the next e-book positives/negatives discussion gets started, I'm going to have to remember this as well.

E-book positives: ebooks created an army of armchair e-typographers.

Two cents.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Bad writing "takes me out of the book." I can't remember the last time an ebook's formatting distracted me from enjoying it (provided the story appealed to me).

There's one thing I can't stand: an empty line after each subparagraph.

On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island.
Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.

vs

On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.

As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island.

Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.

(can't get the indents to work... so you'll have to imagine them in the first quote)