Gizmodo article: How To Fix Today's Ebook readers

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by leebase

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation?

No. I loath it - I find it interrupts the flow of the text. I also seem to remember being taught back in school to never, ever, ever ever hyphenate words at a line break, and it's certainly something I've never seen in a printed book/novel.

And on that note, how did all you typography enthusiasts manage when all we had was paper books - I mean, not only a fixed font, but a fixed size as well!

In all seriousness, there are other things that need 'fixing' far more urgently in eBooks than any typographic niceties - probably not that long a list, but Geographic restrictions and DRM are right there at the top, IMHO...

Cheers, Pete.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by leebase

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation? I'd rather have rivers or a ragged edge than have to start a word, keep it in mind, and finish it on the next line.

Lee

I prefer ragged right edge rather than hyphenation -- and no weird vast white-spacing just to get full justification!

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

For you. Don't assume I want hyphenation, I absolutely detest it...

I am with you here. I don't care much for even blocks of text, so unbroken words are a better experience to me.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

We're all agreed, to some extent, that typography matters; for some of us, it matters more than for others. Typography, as an art, is plainly absent from non-pdf documents on e-ink devices. Poetry, for example, is pretty much impossible on a Kindle.

I'm waiting for digital poetry to hit its stride--to use the features available in screen-based displays and reflowable text to find new ways to share messages that can't be done with traditional print. (Um. But we can skip the blinking & scrolling marquee poetry, okay?)

In the meantime, print poetry translates badly to most ebook readers. Kipling's not easy, and Cummings is right out.

The second part of his article is about doing something "more" with the residual meta-data (ie not the author's work but your own reading experience). He goes on to suggest that the highlights of 10,000 readers should be linked together to produce "hot spots" of not-to-be-missed passages; or that we ought to be able to see the highlights of one famous author's private notes reading a second famous author.

While I have no interest in reading-in-general being a social experience, I think I understand some of what he means. Booksharing is an essential part of print reading, and visiting a bookstore in order to just talk to the salesperson or other customers helped a lot of us sort out our taste in books. Chatting about favorite passages or most important plot points is part of what book clubs do. And all that could be switched to digital, not require leaving your house. (Which has both pros & cons.)

I don't want to see everyone's favorite passage during a first readthrough of a book--but if I had a way to participate in a "discussion" afterward, by highlighting what I liked best and throwing strikethrough on the parts I thought were boring, that'd be fun. And there's no reason we can't have that, eventually; no reason we can't have "this book is recommended by a dozen people who loved the same passages you did in this other book."

Originally Posted by leebase

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation? I'd rather have rivers or a ragged edge than have to start a word, keep it in mind, and finish it on the next line.

People who need really large text to read comfortably are most likely to want hyphenation; if you're only getting 4-6 words on a line, bumping that down to 3 because "understand" wasn't split into "under- stand" can be annoying.

Most problems with hyphenation are from *bad* hyphenation. When it's done right, it shouldn't be noticeable.

[tomsem]

I like to think that I have some basic appreciation of typography, and would like to see improvement not only on ereaders but in web browsers as well. However this introduces complexity both for content creators, web/ebook designers, software engineers, and readers (to the extent they are given control over presentation). So there's a cost to it. But right now, we really don't even have choices.

The market for ebooks is not mature and pervasive enough yet to differentiate between consumers who expect more in terms of typography (and ability to accumulate and share metadata) and those who don't. We're still in a 'least common denominator world, where mass market concerns seem to dominate (pricing, availability etc.). Hopefully that will change as the market expands, and we'll start to see more quality-related concerns getting attention, some vendors will start to raise the bar, and the choices will begin to appear.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The main problem with eBook on current readers is the lack of hyphenation.

Again, that's your preference, but it is only a preference. If a reader hyphenated and this couldn't be disabled, I wouldn't buy it.

[nboshart]

I'm definitely in the ragged-right camp on this one, although I understand the need for hyphenation when using reflowable formats. I think his point is not so much pro-hyphenation as hyphenation is a necessary evil, so let's get it right when we do it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by petermillard

No. I loath it - I find it interrupts the flow of the text. I also seem to remember being taught back in school to never, ever, ever ever hyphenate words at a line break, and it's certainly something I've never seen in a printed book/novel.

Then you have not looked properly. I just took the first book I found and that had hyphenated words at the line break. The rule I have seen is to never hyphenate a word that is hyphenated normally at a line break since then you get an ambiguity.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by nboshart

I'm definitely in the ragged-right camp on this one, although I understand the need for hyphenation when using reflowable formats. I think his point is not so much pro-hyphenation as hyphenation is a necessary evil, so let's get it right when we do it.

Even if you use ragged right it is necessary to hyphenate since you will get too much raggedness if you do not hyphenate.

[hidari]

Hyphoraggation..... did I just coin a new word????????

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Again, that's your preference, but it is only a preference. If a reader hyphenated and this couldn't be disabled, I wouldn't buy it.

So what's wrong with hyphenation?

[DawnFalcon]

I'm dyslexic, and read it as two words. I have to stop reading and sound the word out.

[Goshzilla]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

which are addressed with several- want to say many but it doesnt sound right- current ebook readers. These guys all think kindle and nook and ibooks are the only game in town. want to fix ereaders? Start reviewing the ones out here that get it right already.

Agreed, a wasted opportunity to talk about what readers have done it right.

[dmaul111478]

I'm pretty indifferent on ragged right edge (with or without hyphenation) or justified--as long as it's not crazy justification that will say stretch one word out to fill the page etc.

I've seldom seen issues with the justification on my Kindle, pretty much looks as good as justification in paper books. More issues with typos, missing spaces so two words are together etc.

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by tompe

Then you have not looked properly. I just took the first book I found and that had hyphenated words at the line break.

Well, you might want to define 'properly'; did I look through all 2000-odd titles we have in our collection before posting that? Ummm, no, but I checked out a few from a variety of publishers, genres, and decades, both in hardback and paperback, and none of them were hyphenated at a line break.<shrug>

Out of interest, did you check more than the one you found at first try?

Cheers, Pete.