Please support my Report Bad Formatting Button petition for Kindle books!

[donovan1983]

Originally Posted by netseeker

So do you return a paperback if the hardcover edition uses another font, another paper size, other margins, other paragraph spaces or another layout in general? Why should eBooks look exactly the same as printed books? Different "screen" sizes, different technologies, different possibilities, different reading experience.

There is a big difference between "formatting errors" and "i want exactly the same formatting as in the printed edition X".

This puts my thoughts a bit more succinctly.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Then there's the other side of the coin, where the ebook can't mirror the design of the pbook.

For example, I did design and print production, back when the tools of the trade were T-squares, eXacto knives, rubber cement, and typeset galleys off a photo-typositor. DTP didn't exist, because the hardware it could run on didn't, and wouldn't for years. I still have design volumes in my library like _Production for the Graphic Designer_ and _Design With Type_. Many of these use multi-column layouts and formatting that can't be done on ebook reader devices. To reproduce the book as intended, you would have to do it as PDF, and you wouldn't want it to re-flow to fit a smaller device screen.

Some devices are more constrained than others. My principal reader is a Palm OS PDA. Palm OS has a set number of slots for fonts, with names like Standard, Bold, Large, and Large Bold. By default, these are mapped to fonts in device ROM. I converted some True Type fonts to a format Palm OS can display, and I've done things like customize the fonts Mobi Reader for Palm OS uses for text with a hack that maps one of my custom fonts into the slot where Palm OS looks for the standard text font. But that's global for all MobiPocket volumes. It won't reproduce what fonts the original book used, because it can't.

As the hardware gets cheaper and more powerful, I expect this issue to fade (though not got go away entirely.) Meanwhile, I do the best I can on formatting when creating an ebook, and the type geek in me mourns what I can't do.

With a large enough screen, like 14" or so, PDF might finally be practical on an e-ink device. Not to mention high resolution, on the order of 1536x2048 for 14". Although something much higher, around 300ppi, would be even better. So long as it uses a good PDF renderer, it should mirror the printed page exactly.

The current ebook formats are a bit limited and that's intentional. Mobipocket is especially limited since it uses a subset of what is today a rather primitive version of HTML. The Peanut Press/eReader format, although very different in markup, is similarly limited. Both formats are more than 10 years old, too, and were developed for devices where you had one font with maybe a few sizes. I was actually quite shocked when I found out that Amazon uses Mobipocket as the ebook format for the Kindle. EPUB will hopefully allow more fine-grained control over a book's layout, but it will still be constrained by being a reflowable format which means it will still not be suitable for certain content.

Originally Posted by Anarel

You say that it's a matter of taste and I wholly disagree; the error might not bother you so much, and other people have stated that they can look past it, but whether you can ignore it or not, it is still very much an error and should not be so.

I included in the first post an example of many other ebooks in which there is no difference between the print and ebook edition; it should be the same for all ebooks.

To me, I very much prefer that I have control over how an ebook is displayed. I don't necessarily want nor expect an ebook to match the printed version. The books I've purchased so far from Amazon I have converted to EPUB format so I can read them in Stanza on my iPhone since I have it set up to display books exactly how I want them, not how the publisher may want them to display. It makes it easier and more enjoyable for me to read. Times New Roman text that is fully justified with no spacing between paragraphs is fine for a paper novel but unbearable for me to read for any length of time on a low-resolution display. Not to mention the Kindle for iPhone app is very primitive and quite buggy, not even being able to display its own native format correctly. Not to mention I've been a bit spoiled by ebooks since I've been purchasing them for 8 years so I've long since gotten used to having them displayed my way.

In a few years maybe this will be less of an issue and we can both have our ways with ebooks. I don't know much about the publishing industry, but I'm sure it would help a lot if the electronic version was a bit more coordinated with the print version. If a publisher would distill the LaTeX or PostScript file that is used for the print copy directly to an EPUB file, it would help the major issues you mentioned with line spacing and such and give output that is more closely matched to the printed version. I imagine that currently the original manuscript is used for the electronic version by many publishers rather than the print-formatted version, which means major formatting differences will be an inherent problem. This means Amazon will have to adopt EPUB, too.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by netseeker

So do you return a paperback if the hardcover edition uses another font, another paper size, other margins, other paragraph spaces or another layout in general? Why should eBooks look exactly the same as printed books? Different "screen" sizes, different technologies, different possibilities, different reading experience.

There is a big difference between "formatting errors" and "i want exactly the same formatting as in the printed edition X".

Netseeker,

I understand, perhaps I should have worded my previous post differently, but I meant when it affects the reading experience, in the instances I've posted picture of above.

No book is supposed to look like the examples I've shown.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Anarel

I know that there some limitations, but for the basics, like the way paragraphs are laid out, aren't that complicated. And when they can't even get that right....

If it's a Kindle edition, and created in response to enough people clicking the "I'd like to read this book in a Kindle edition" button, it's no surprise.

Many, if not most of those didn't have an electronic form to start with. Amazon makes them by having an outsourced operation scan and OCR a paper copy. The result is what they publish as a Kindle book. OCR is never perfect and errors will be present, but to my knowledge, editing and proofreading are not done. They just feed the result to whatever program generates the Mobi files, and that's what they issue. (MobiPocket had a beta command line version of MobiPocket creator for Linux at one point, and I suspect that or a derivative called in a script does the book construction.)

The results are what you might expect: leaving a lot to be desired.

But in fairness, Amazon is not the only offender. I've heard screams of outrage about other vendor's works, where there is an electronic file to start with and less excuse for poor formatting. It is a problem, and will only really be addressed by lots of buyers saying "This is unacceprtable. I want my money back."
______
Dennis

[mores]

I'm with you on OCR and other typos. But the spacing/indenting is, for me, part of the design of a book that the author may want to control. Some want their books to be "lighter" to look at, others want it condensed - this is not something I, as a publisher, would accept as a complaint.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by mores

I'm with you on OCR and other typos. But the spacing/indenting is, for me, part of the design of a book that the author may want to control. Some want their books to be "lighter" to look at, others want it condensed - this is not something I, as a publisher, would accept as a complaint.

Thanks for the reply Mores, but again, I know the difference between stylistic and layout choices and errors, and I know when there is an error in formatting, such as in the examples I provided above.

@ Donovan,

I don't see how you could say you don't want the ebook to match the print version, when most ebook versions DO match the print version.... when these errors are not present, there is nothing to complain about (I have never heard anyone complain that there ISN'T a huge gap between each and every paragraph of a story), but it is only when they are present do people start talking about differing layout decisions and unrealistic expectations.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by donovan1983

With a large enough screen, like 14" or so, PDF might finally be practical on an e-ink device. Not to mention high resolution, on the order of 1536x2048 for 14". Although something much higher, around 300ppi, would be even better. So long as it uses a good PDF renderer, it should mirror the printed page exactly.

I really don't expect to see an eInk device with a 14" screen. Who would buy one, and what would they use it for?

Aside from long battery life and ease on the eyes during extended reading, the other advantage to current dedicated readers is portability. They are relatively small and light, and can be tossed into a (large) pocket, purse, briefcase or shoulder bag when traveling. Get a screen that large, and portability drops.

And for a fair number of source texts, even a 14" screen will require side scrolling to view the pages. No thanks. That's painful. If it needs that, I'm not going to try to view it on a reader.

And yes on the higher res. I have some photography volumes that are B&W photos, but use 300 line screens for halftone reproduction, and need to. The 72dpi resolution common for a lot of electronic devices would simply not be adequate to properly display the source material.

I can see a screen with eInk's ease of reading becoming popular as a display for systems you don't carry around. (Some folks may remember older "paper white" monitors offered for computer systems.) I wouldn't mind such a thing for design work, if it supported color and was large enough to display side-by side 8.5x11 pages in actual size. But whatever it was, I don't think it would be eInk - as I understand the technology, the sort of color support I'd want is unlikely, and I'd need a faster refresh rate than I think is possible with eInk as well.)

The current ebook formats are a bit limited and that's intentional. Mobipocket is especially limited since it uses a subset of what is today a rather primitive version of HTML. The Peanut Press/eReader format, although very different in markup, is similarly limited. Both formats are more than 10 years old, too, and were developed for devices where you had one font with maybe a few sizes. I was actually quite shocked when I found out that Amazon uses Mobipocket as the ebook format for the Kindle. EPUB will hopefully allow more fine-grained control over a book's layout, but it will still be constrained by being a reflowable format which means it will still not be suitable for certain content.

Yes, PML (eReader) and Mobipocket are somewhat "lowest common denominator" formats, originating on far more limited hardware. The PC version of Mobipocket is somewhat more capable than the Palm version, but there will still be things it can't really do.

I think we'll see limitations imposed by the device for the foreseeable future, and while ePub is more capable than Mobipocket, the best we are likely to see is graceful degradation, with the device rendering the stuff it [i]can[i] support and ignoring the rest, like automatic gray scale dithering of color images and font substitution making the best available match for what the document uses from what the device has installed.

To me, I very much prefer that I have control over how an ebook is displayed. I don't necessarily want nor expect an ebook to match the printed version. The books I've purchased so far from Amazon I have converted to EPUB format so I can read them in Stanza on my iPhone since I have it set up to display books exactly how I want them, not how the publisher may want them to display. It makes it easier and more enjoyable for me to read. Times New Roman text that is fully justified with no spacing between paragraphs is fine for a paper novel but unbearable for me to read for any length of time on a low-resolution display. Not to mention the Kindle for iPhone app is very primitive and quite buggy, not even being able to display its own native format correctly. Not to mention I've been a bit spoiled by ebooks since I've been purchasing them for 8 years so I've long since gotten used to having them displayed my way.

This is a good point. While Mobi on Palm OS, for example, is constrained in things like font selection, it will allow me to adjust page magings and line spacing, and choose the colors used for various elements, as well as decide whether I want right justification. (I don't always.)

Most stuff I read on my Palm device is in Plucker format, which permits greater contraol, as Plucker can use it's own custom fonts, and various choices can be specific to the document, rather than global for everything. (I have some computer volumes where standard text is in a proportional font, but code samples are in a monospaced font for readability.)

In a few years maybe this will be less of an issue and we can both have our ways with ebooks. I don't know much about the publishing industry, but I'm sure it would help a lot if the electronic version was a bit more coordinated with the print version. If a publisher would distill the LaTeX or PostScript file that is used for the print copy directly to an EPUB file, it would help the major issues you mentioned with line spacing and such and give output that is more closely matched to the printed version. I imagine that currently the original manuscript is used for the electronic version by many publishers rather than the print-formatted version, which means major formatting differences will be an inherent problem. This means Amazon will have to adopt EPUB, too.

LaTex? Postscript? Nope.

What the publishers all do is typesetting and markup in Adobe InDesign. The output from InDesign is a PDF file the printer feeds to an imagesetter to generate the plates the book will be printed from.

In a large bit of irony, Adobe was the principal force behind ePub as the recommended standard ebook format in the IDPF, but while InDesign can output ePub, it does so badly. Recent point releases of InDesign have added better ePub support, and I'm cautiously hopeful that InDesign CS5 will have ePub highly enough developed to allow my dream: ebook production as a normal part of the publisher's workflow. Typeset and markup the manuscript, Save As PDF for the printer, and Save As ePub for ebooks. ePub has all of the required data and metadata, so if you need an ebook in a format other than ePub, that can be a scripted conversion from the ePub source files.
______
Dennis

[mores]

Originally Posted by Anarel

Thanks for the reply Mores, but again, I know the difference between stylistic and layout choices and errors, and I know when there is an error in formatting, such as in the examples I provided above.

I wasn't implying that YOU don't Know the difference, but that such à Button would probably Be severely misused.

[GJN]

Bad formatting is irritating. It's especially prevalent in topaz books which are, I understand, scanned from physical copies. I've stopped buying topaz books completely even though there are a number I really wanted as ebooks. Now, I download a preview of every book I intend to purchase just to make sure it's not in topaz.

Mobipocket (azw) books tend to be better but frequently suffer from too much white space between paragraphs. This is quite irritating, especially in books that have extensive dialogues. If the book is DRM-free this can be readily fixed in calibre by replacing multiple blank lines with just a single one. Alas, most Amazon books are DRMed. Perhaps the recently available DRM filter for books imported to calibre might be helpful.

I've also noted that some publishers don't even bother to spell check text before converting it to an ebook. I'd love to be able to correct the text as I read but currently this is not possible.

What can be done? Leaning on Amazon won't do much in the short run though the message will eventually get through to the publisher. The excess white space problem should be controllable with better Kindle software that would give the user more control over display formats. A limited Kindle editing capability would help those few of us who are annoyed by poor spelling and poor formatting. Refusing to buy topaz-formatted books and pressing Amazon for a better format such as epub will help readers as well as Amazon and the publishers in the long run. And really bad formatting should be brought to the attention of the author via emails to the author's Web site, He or she would be in the best position to pressure a publisher for a better version. Finally, Amazon should augment their computer record system to automatically email purchasers of a given book whenever a corrected version can be re-downloaded.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by mores

I wasn't implying that YOU don't Know the difference, but that such à Button would probably Be severely misused.

I'm sorry if my previous post to you was harsh, I'm just more than a bit tired of being told (by other people) that I don't know what I'm talking about, that these errors aren't errors at all and I'm being picky and that it's just a matter of taste.

About the button itself, if it was required that several areas of the form I'm advocating were filled before it could be submitted, that would help. Alternatively, it could also require an Amazon account with a Kindle registered....

Someone mentioned in one of the other forums I've made this post also recommended that the reporting button could be somewhere in Manage your Kindle content page instead of on the book's page- that might work, because then people who don't have a Kindle couldn't abuse the reporting system and people who do would be able to report it...

Only thing is, I imagine some people don't go to their manage their kindle page often... perhaps from a link somewhere on the book's page could lead them somewhere to fill out the form.

Something x_X

[fugazied]

I can't believe at this stage in the ebook's path they let so many get published with obvious mistakes. You'd think that the millions some companies are making would encourage them to invest more resources into editing the OCR for mistakes.

I report any issues with ebooks to Amazon, who knows if they will ever act upon them. I would HOPE that as they fix these issues they will alert owners of the books of the fixed versions being available.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by fugazied

I can't believe at this stage in the ebook's path they let so many get published with obvious mistakes. You'd think that the millions some companies are making would encourage them to invest more resources into editing the OCR for mistakes.

<cynicism>
"If customers buy them anyway, even with the bad formatting, why should we do anything about it? Proper editing/proofreading costs money..."
</cynicism>

I report any issues with ebooks to Amazon, who knows if they will ever act upon them. I would HOPE that as they fix these issues they will alert owners of the books of the fixed versions being available.

First, they have to fix the issues. I wouldn't hold my breath.
______
Dennis

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by fugazied

I report any issues with ebooks to Amazon, who knows if they will ever act upon them. I would HOPE that as they fix these issues they will alert owners of the books of the fixed versions being available.

I reported an issue which was repaired and I re-downloaded the book. In fact, I've done this twice and good results (2nd was a metadata title issue). The only problem was, that I did not receive notification when the books were ready, I had to re-buy them.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I reported an issue which was repaired and I re-downloaded the book. In fact, I've done this twice and good results (2nd was a metadata title issue). The only problem was, that I did not receive notification when the books were ready, I had to re-buy them.

Did you re-buy. or re-download? (That is, did you have to pay an additional price for a fixed copy?) I'm guessing, since I don't own a Kindle/buy Amazon ebooks, that you must go through the buy process again to get as fresh copy, but since you already own the title, you don't get charged.

And how did you know a fixed version was available when you got them?

It would be nice if they did inform you. They have your contact info, but apparently don't have the infrastructure in place to track fixes and send a note to the original reporter.
______
Dennis

[Anarel]

Yeah,

In my original first post, I had made an example of one of the books in Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series- when I purchased the book it had my favorite massive gap between paragraphs- issue, but I downloaded a newer sample when writing the first post because someone said they didn't see the issues I had seen with the book.

It was true, the book had been fixed, but I never would have known that if I hadn't gone back and checked it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

A friend is a DTP specialist for a major publisher, and spends her days doing typesetting and markup. She wants to be involved in the ebook side of things, and I explained issues like device constraints. "The book is set in 11 point Monotype Bembo on a 13 point body? That won't translate. The display device won't have Monotype Bembo, or that precise a control over line spacing."

If ePub is the eBook format, then yes, it can have Monotype Bembo and it can have precise control over line spacing.