DRM alters formatting? [Ans: No, Kobo does]

[melchizedek]

Yeah, I think I'm all set up thanks. Some of the instructions seemed a little out of date... but that's either par for the course if he's jumped ship... or something to do with differences in the Linux client.

Ta much!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But they do still use Alf's blog.

Very true. But as for being your friend...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Sure. Just not most of the publishers who use DRM, especially the BPHs that issue backlist books they've scanned and auto-formatted without proofreading.

Even newly released eBooks (for new books) can still be poorly formatted.

Though I have noticed that some eBooks that use a page template have extra wide margins and just removing the page template makes the margins bearable.

I've seen many new eBooks have wide margins, paragraph spaces with big indents and poorly faked blockquotes.

[HarryT]

Your idea of "too wide margins" does not agree with what's commonly used, Jon. It's fine to have personal preferences, but don't expect the rest of the world to abide by them.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Your idea of "too wide margins" does not agree with what's commonly used, Jon. It's fine to have personal preferences, but don't expect the rest of the world to abide by them.

I have to disagree. But I also have to remember that you use a Kindle that defaults to too wide a margin without hacking it.

Also, most eBooks that use a page template will have a wide left/right margin and removing the page template solves that pretty well (in most cases). Anything that's of Kindle sized or larger margins are too wide.

The Kindle app for iOS is really poor when it comes to margins. iBooks is a close second. When you are dealing with an iPhone screen, that margins space is rather needed.

[HarryT]

There we go, you see, Jon. You say "the Kindle's margins are too wide". They look absolutely fine to me and, I'd hazard a guess, to the majority of the millions of other Kindle owners out there. Please accept the fact that not everyone's ideas of what looks nice are the same as yours.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Your idea of "too wide margins" does not agree with what's commonly used, Jon. It's fine to have personal preferences, but don't expect the rest of the world to abide by them.

While I agree that Jon's standards are too specific & strict for my tastes (or the general public), I have gotten epubs with half-inch margins built in, which is a ridiculous margin on an e-ink reader. I've gotten plenty of others that had somewhat-wide margins in em units (3em or so), so that increasing the font size increasing the margins and reading on the largest setting gave me a 1" column in the center of the page for text.

I can see a point for a tiny margin on e-ink readers, so that the bevel on the edge of the page doesn't overshadow the text when one reads at an angle, but anything more than a few pixels or 1em is excessive. Margins are left over from paper where you need to leave enough space for the fingers that are holding the book open; since fingers aren't generally on the page while reading, they're unnecessary in ereaders.

[HarryT]

Certainly margins can be too wide. The worst example I've seen was the ePub version of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" (my excuse is that it came free with my Sony PRS-350 ); it had huge margins and about a 1" strip of text down the centre - like reading a column in a newspaper. Thank goodness for Calibre .

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Kindle app for iOS is really poor when it comes to margins. iBooks is a close second. When you are dealing with an iPhone screen, that margins space is rather needed.

The margins seem fine to me using Kindle for iPhone. It has a margin on the top, left and right of about 2 characters wide. The only large margin is the bottom which would maybe fit another line of text.

[The Terminator]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Only sometimes? Any time I buy an ebook from Kobo I load it into Calibre and fix the justification and indenting, and remove the spaces in between paragraphs. For whatever reason Kobo books almost always have terrible formatting.

The extra spaces between paragraphs doesn't really bother me much. But bad punctuation does.

[The Terminator]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly margins can be too wide. The worst example I've seen was the ePub version of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" (my excuse is that it came free with my Sony PRS-350 ); it had huge margins and about a 1" strip of text down the centre - like reading a column in a newspaper. Thank goodness for Calibre .

A lot of library books are like that.

[calibrated]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If I ever got an ePub the way you like it, I would say it's poorly formatted. Most people would.

That's what I love about e-books. We have the option to reformat them in order to fit our own personal preferences, and we don't have to agree about them. I suspect I'd hate books formatted the way you like them, too. Vive la difference!

[ProfCrash]

I have never had a problem with margins on my Kindle. There have been a handful of books that I have reported to Amazon for being awful but that was the Publisher not fixing typos and the like then anything else. Most of those have been fixed by now.

I have never bothered to fix formatting or play with fonts. I would guess that 75% of the e-reading population has never messed with fonts or formatting. Actually, I think the number is a great deal higher than that...