Best 10" and up readers?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

The spacing of letters is also adjusted on well-placed paper books, which makes it easy to read justified, but on an electronic device this is horrible because only fonts and their specific width can be displayed and the adjustment can only be made by changing the space width.

Adjusting the letters is called kerning and if the font in use supports kerning KFX will use the kerning tables.

RMSDK (ADE) does this as well. That's why onmy H2O, I read ePub because of the much better typesetting.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by shalym

Actually, it *is* still happening with hyphenation and KFX (enhanced) typesetting. This is a screenshot from a book bought recently, in KFX format, downloaded directly from Amazon. This is at font size 9. I'm also attaching a screenshot of the same page set to "ragged right".

Shari

Shari:

When was that book published, please? And you're sure it's in KFX?

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Adjusting the letters is called kerning and if the font in use supports kerning KFX will use the kerning tables.

Right, that plays into it too.

RMSDK (ADE) does this as well. That's why onmy H2O, I read ePub because of the much better typesetting.

ANYWAY, back on topic...I broke down and bought the Boox Note 2. We'll see.

For me, as I have to review and assess and send notes to my guys, all day, on book designs, book layouts, for print (PDF) as well as ePUB and MOBI, it should be a fantastic tool. If not, y'all will see me trying to resell it soon!

Hitch

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Shari:

When was that book published, please? And you're sure it's in KFX?

Hitch

It was published in 2016, and I'm sure that it's in KFX. It's listed as having "enhanced typesetting" on the product page, and, as far as I know, only KFX books have the ability to change alignment on the fly.

Shari

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by shalym

Actually, it *is* still happening with hyphenation and KFX (enhanced) typesetting. This is a screenshot from a book bought recently, in KFX format, downloaded directly from Amazon. This is at font size 9. I'm also attaching a screenshot of the same page set to "ragged right".

Shari

I had to take some time and come back to it, to really take a look.

Realistically--there's nothing that can be done on that page. Without hand-tracking/kerning the text, there's naught that can be done. Look at each line and the ensuing word on the following line.

For example, first line, second paragraph--the word that would be "hyphenated" on that next line, is "life." Not a great candidate. Following line, it's "Damnation" and there aren't enough characters for it. Following line? More.

And so on. By making that font size 9, which is pretty big, there's not much that anyone could do. Even someone trying to hand-kern it would run into problems, at that font size, that line-length, etc. You've got a line-length of 32 characters, which is half the norm. That limits what you can do.

(I also note that I see zero hyphenation. Now, it's one page. I can't tell if it's hyphenated on the page before or after; but there's none there. I have seen any number of books with hyphenation turned off, and if that's the case in that particular book, not much that Enhanced Typesetting could do. As I said, I'm not seeing a lot of hyphenation opportunities there, of course, but...I did want to mention that authors DO turn off hyphenation all the time, prior to submitting their books. I can't tell you how many people have come through my shop who simply cannot abide hyphens and insist that we turn them off.)

Sure, enhanced typesetting is "better," but it's not magic. It can only do so much, and trying to make a line that short work in a justified environment, with words that don't lend themselves to being hyphenated...I'm not sure if I were faced with that paragraph and those limitations, myself, how much could be done, typographically speaking.

Hitch

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I had to take some time and come back to it, to really take a look.

Realistically--there's nothing that can be done on that page. Without hand-tracking/kerning the text, there's naught that can be done. Look at each line and the ensuing word on the following line.

For example, first line, second paragraph--the word that would be "hyphenated" on that next line, is "life." Not a great candidate. Following line, it's "Damnation" and there aren't enough characters for it. Following line? More.

And so on. By making that font size 9, which is pretty big, there's not much that anyone could do. Even someone trying to hand-kern it would run into problems, at that font size, that line-length, etc. You've got a line-length of 32 characters, which is half the norm. That limits what you can do.

(I also note that I see zero hyphenation. Now, it's one page. I can't tell if it's hyphenated on the page before or after; but there's none there. I have seen any number of books with hyphenation turned off, and if that's the case in that particular book, not much that Enhanced Typesetting could do. As I said, I'm not seeing a lot of hyphenation opportunities there, of course, but...I did want to mention that authors DO turn off hyphenation all the time, prior to submitting their books. I can't tell you how many people have come through my shop who simply cannot abide hyphens and insist that we turn them off.)

Sure, enhanced typesetting is "better," but it's not magic. It can only do so much, and trying to make a line that short work in a justified environment, with words that don't lend themselves to being hyphenated...I'm not sure if I were faced with that paragraph and those limitations, myself, how much could be done, typographically speaking.

Hitch

...and all of this is why I prefer left aligned (ragged right) over fully justified. Reading at that font size is a fairly normal occurrence for me at night, especially this time of year, when my eyes have been bombarded with pollen all day. There was hyphenation on other pages in that book, it's just chance that there wasn't on that one.

Before you ask what I did before e-readers, my answer is that my eyes weren't that bad when I got my first portable e-reader (a palm device, which quickly got upgraded to a Treo) Even then, I would sometimes make the font big enough so that only one or two words appeared on the (much smaller) screen. I had also started reading less, because it just wasn't as comfortable. I do wear glasses during the day if I'm reading or working on the computer, but it's just not comfortable to wear them when I'm reading in bed, so I crank up the font size.

Shari

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by shalym

...and all of this is why I prefer left aligned (ragged right) over fully justified. Reading at that font size is a fairly normal occurrence for me at night, especially this time of year, when my eyes have been bombarded with pollen all day. There was hyphenation on other pages in that book, it's just chance that there wasn't on that one.

Which, no doubt, is why Amazon and other vendors are increasingly moving to allow the user to pick the justification that they, the users, want. I mean..everybody has their preferences, for whatever reason.

Before you ask what I did before e-readers, my answer is that my eyes weren't that bad when I got my first portable e-reader (a palm device, which quickly got upgraded to a Treo) Even then, I would sometimes make the font big enough so that only one or two words appeared on the (much smaller) screen. I had also started reading less, because it just wasn't as comfortable. I do wear glasses during the day if I'm reading or working on the computer, but it's just not comfortable to wear them when I'm reading in bed, so I crank up the font size.

Shari

I finally had to give up on David Simon's "The Corner," in paperback, because it was about 8pt, maybe 9pt. I made it through about 40 pages before I finally gave in and bought it in Kindle, to save my eyes. I do understand. But as I work in the field, I am aware that everybody--Amazon and all the other companies--are clearly working harder than ever on making the ebooks ever-more-fungible. By the buyer, I mean. Having spent a decade trying to make eBooks as unintrusive on the buyer as possible, so that they don't get between the reader and the content, I know first-hand just how hard it is to make it work.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

...and all of this is why I prefer left aligned (ragged right) over fully justified. Reading at that font size is a fairly normal occurrence for me at night, especially this time of year, when my eyes have been bombarded with pollen all day. There was hyphenation on other pages in that book, it's just chance that there wasn't on that one.

Before you ask what I did before e-readers, my answer is that my eyes weren't that bad when I got my first portable e-reader (a palm device, which quickly got upgraded to a Treo) Even then, I would sometimes make the font big enough so that only one or two words appeared on the (much smaller) screen. I had also started reading less, because it just wasn't as comfortable. I do wear glasses during the day if I'm reading or working on the computer, but it's just not comfortable to wear them when I'm reading in bed, so I crank up the font size.

Shari

Have you thought of getting a Kobo Forma with an 8" screen? At the font size you use, the larger screen would be much more useful.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have you thought of getting a Kobo Forma with an 8" screen? At the font size you use, the larger screen would be much more useful.

It would be nice, but I would need to be able to have a way to sync all of my books between devices. My Oasis is already too big to take with me when I'm away from home, so I bring my Voyage. Since the Forma is even bigger, it will be less portable.

Also, I only use that font size (or larger) at night, when my eyes are very tired. During the day I use about size 6 or 7.

Shari

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

It would be nice, but I would need to be able to have a way to sync all of my books between devices. My Oasis is already too big to take with me when I'm away from home, so I bring my Voyage. Since the Forma is even bigger, it will be less portable.

Also, I only use that font size (or larger) at night, when my eyes are very tired. During the day I use about size 6 or 7.

Shari

I don't sync. I just have a different book on my iPhone a different book on my H2O. I don't mind reading different books. I you do want to sync, you can buy eBooks from Kobo or use Overdrive books. That will get you to syncing.

One other solution. If you read ePub, you can use the page number to go to the same page in any Kobo.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't sync. I just have a different book on my iPhone a different book on my H2O. I don't mind reading different books. I you do want to sync, you can buy eBooks from Kobo or use Overdrive books. That will get you to syncing.

One other solution. If you read ePub, you can use the page number to go to the same page in any Kobo.

Yeah...unfortunately, I have a rather large TBR list, all bought from different ebook stores. Also, on my Aura HD, I much prefer the layout of Kepubs than epubs.

Still holding out hope that someday Kobo will allow us to sync all of our books across all of our devices, though!

Shari

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

Yeah...unfortunately, I have a rather large TBR list, all bought from different ebook stores. Also, on my Aura HD, I much prefer the layout of Kepubs than epubs.

Still holding out hope that someday Kobo will allow us to sync all of our books across all of our devices, though!

Shari

Are running 4.20 or 4.21 on your Aura HD? ePub works well in these versions.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Are running 4.20 or 4.21 on your Aura HD? ePub works well in these versions.

4.21.15015. I just double-checked to be sure, and I definitely still prefer the way kepubs look over epubs. I don't want to hear about how I could tweak this or that with patches or changing the config file. I'm not interested. I just want to read in a way that is comfortable for me to read, without doing any of that stuff. At one point I used to enjoy doing stuff like that, with all of my readers. I don't anymore...I just want to read the damn books.

Shari

[Quoth]

Some ebooks on kepub display with wrong start of paragraph indent. It's rendering anything other than EMs about 50% too big. It's obvious having the same book as epub on kobo, nook, apps, sony and even seeing original on screen in Windows or Linux as "doc" or "docx".
12pt should be rendered exactly as 1em, 18pt as 1.5em, but 18pt is rendered a bit over 2em in kepub format.

I'm not going to go converting all margins to the em equivalents just to suit kepub, when epub on the same ereader and every other ereader and app that applies css works perfectly.

On same basis I don't need the "enhanced layout" of KFX over AZW/KF8, when they both actually came from the same epub2 file. The AZW/KF8 is fine, though Amazon's minimum left & right margins are stupidly big. The AZW/KF8 looks similar on a PW3 to epub2 on a Kobo Aura H2O original with text enlarged slightly, margins and line spacing adjusted using menu to be the same words per line and same lines per screen as the PW3 with Aa "Publisher" option.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

4.21.15015. I just double-checked to be sure, and I definitely still prefer the way kepubs look over epubs. I don't want to hear about how I could tweak this or that with patches or changing the config file. I'm not interested. I just want to read in a way that is comfortable for me to read, without doing any of that stuff. At one point I used to enjoy doing stuff like that, with all of my readers. I don't anymore...I just want to read the damn books.

Shari

Are you saying you prefer worse typesetting? What is it about the look of KePub that you like better? Thing is, ePub looks better.It has kerning, hyphenation, adjustable spaces that can be made smaller if need be, and you can have a smaller line height if you want because you don't have the top of the first line at the bottom of the previous screen.

And I am saying this about a Kobo that has no patches and no hidden features turned on.