Need help with epub spacing/display

[Ceiyne]

I have a Kobo Glo HD that I've only ever used to read Japanese language books. I happened to get a few English language epubs today and they loaded onto my device fine, but there is extra space around certain punctuation (mainly quotes/apostrophes). I've attached a picture of what it looks like.

I checked the same epubs using a different reader I had on my phone and I don't see the extra space there, so it seems like the issue is particular to my Kobo.

I loaded these epubs to my device by copying them manually through Windows Explorer as described here: https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...-your-computer

Sorry if this is a common issue, but I couldn't find any posts about it. All of the books I've read in the past were purchased from Rakuten and so they synced to my device through the cloud bookshelf. So, this is completely new territory for me: English language books, unprotected epubs, and manual loading to Kobo.

Side question: In the instructions on kobo.com they said to copy the files to the Kobo "drive". Is it possible to put them in a subdirectory too? I prefer to keep my root folders as clean as I can.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Ceiyne

I checked the same epubs using a different reader I had on my phone and I don't see the extra space there, so it seems like the issue is particular to my Kobo.

Which font name have you selected from the drop-down menu in the [Aa] font options? Whichever it is perhaps you could try some of the other fonts to see if the problem goes away.

Originally Posted by Ceiyne

Side question: In the instructions on kobo.com they said to copy the files to the Kobo "drive". Is it possible to put them in a subdirectory too? I prefer to keep my root folders as clean as I can.

Yes you can. I put mine in a subdirectory I created called Books. I score no points for originality

[Ceiyne]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Which font name have you selected from the drop-down menu in the [Aa] font options? Whichever it is perhaps you could try some of the other fonts to see if the problem goes away.

I started with the Publisher Default, but I tried 5 or 6 different ones and the problem was there with all of them unfortunately.

EDIT: I hit "post" too quickly but I also meant to thank you for your help with the other question.

[Ceiyne]

Odd, I'm certain I replied but now I don't see it. Try #2...

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Which font name have you selected from the drop-down menu in the [Aa] font options? Whichever it is perhaps you could try some of the other fonts to see if the problem goes away.

I started with Publisher Default, but I tried 5 or 6 of the other options and unfortunately it didn't fix the issue.

Thank you for your help with my other question.

[davidfor]

I have seen that, but only when using certain fonts. At the moment, with a 4.18.x firmware it happens when using the "AR UDJingxihei" font. Are you running 4.18.x? Stating the firmware version being used when reporting a problem is always a good idea.

What language to you have the interface set to? I have seen some strange things like this in the interface while looking at other languages (strange to me as a English only person, but possibly expected in those languages). The UI language might affect have an affect. As can the language set in the book. If they are English, but set to something else, it might affect the rendering.

Lastly, I have seen a few weird things like this that turned out to be in the book. In one case there was a character between the apostrophe and the next letter that messed with the formatting. In another, the actual character used for the apostrophe wasn't the expected character and that affected rendering. As it is happening to multiple books, this is less likely, unless they all from the same source.

What is the source of the books? If we can legally download them, or even a sample, we can test and see if it affects us.

[Ceiyne]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Are you running 4.18.x?

Yes, 4.18.13737 to be precise.

Originally Posted by davidfor

What language to you have the interface set to?

Although I often run it in Japanese, today it was set to English. The books are also set to English (according to the "Details" within My Books).

Originally Posted by davidfor

What is the source of the books? If we can legally download them, or even a sample, we can test and see if it affects us.

They're all from the same source, I purchased the bundle of epubs shown on this page, but I didn't see any sample here: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/m...ent=cta_button

Prompted by your questions, I dug around a bit and found the ebooks on the publisher's site: https://kodanshacomics.com/series/bakemonogatari/

When I clicked through into one of the books, samples weren't directly available. However, there was a link to buy the book at the Kobo store where you can grab a sample to view on your Kobo. However, when I looked at the sample on my Kobo, it was formatted correctly.

Since the Kobo store sample is a Kobo epub and the books I bought in the bundle were DRM-free standard epubs, I'm guessing that there's some difference between the two that's causing the issue I'm seeing.

I noticed something else while playing around with it just now. If a word with an apostrophe in it hits the end of a line just after the apostrophe, it will break the word there. In other words, the word She's will break like:

She'
s

... if it happens to fall just right at the end of a line. This seems to be along the lines of your thought about strange characters although I don't know why they would use different characters in the DRM-free epub.

[rashkae]

A most interesting problem. For this particular book, (and probably all the others Nioisim books,), each internal file in the epub has this header:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" xml:lang="ja" class="hltr">

The 'xml:lang="ja"' is what is causing Adobe epub reader to behave this way,, if you take that out, the books display as normal.

Now for more guts and glory about your Kobo reader. Kobo actually has 2 reading applications,, the Adobe reader, used for .epub files, and Kobo's own reader for .kepub.epub files (We typically refer to those ad Kepub files here.).. You you sync the books from the Kobo store, you are getting the Kepub file.

You'll have to search the threads here for the occasional debates and flamewars about he merrits of each. I've always preferred Kepub for a number of reasons, but I *strong* suggest kepub for the translated japanese light novels, for a whole host of reasons particular to those books.

The easiest way to load Kepub on the kobo yourself without the Kobo store is to install Calibre software on your pc, and within calibre, install the KoboTouchExtended plugin. Once that's done, instead of dragging files by Explorer as you've done, you can use Calibre to "Send Book to Device."

[Ceiyne]

Originally Posted by rashkae

The easiest way to load Kepub on the kobo yourself without the Kobo store is to install Calibre software on your pc, and within calibre, install the KoboTouchExtended plugin. Once that's done, instead of dragging files by Explorer as you've done, you can use Calibre to "Send Book to Device."

Thanks for all that information. So, if I use Calibre to load to book to my Kobo (with the plugin you mentioned), then it will basically convert my regular epubs to kepubs?

Is there any downside to using Calibre? (For instance, does it "break" my ability to sync with the Kobo cloud, or anything like that? I know lots of people use it, so it probably doesn't, but I tend to be paranoid. )

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by Ceiyne

Is there any downside to using Calibre? (For instance, does it "break" my ability to sync with the Kobo cloud, or anything like that? I know lots of people use it, so it probably doesn't, but I tend to be paranoid. )

Nope, regardless of whether you decide to use Kepub or normal epub, i'm not aware of any downsides to using Calibre. It is a little inimdating at first due to the sheer overwhelming number of options and knobs. Also, some people find the way Calibre takes over management of e-book files offputting. Calibre makes a directory for itself, called the Calibre library, and from the user perspetive, the contents of that directory should be considered a hands off black box.

[Ceiyne]

Originally Posted by rashkae

The easiest way to load Kepub on the kobo yourself without the Kobo store is to install Calibre software on your pc, and within calibre, install the KoboTouchExtended plugin. Once that's done, instead of dragging files by Explorer as you've done, you can use Calibre to "Send Book to Device."

I was able to set this all up, and as you thought, the kepubs don't have the spacing issue. Thanks!

It looks like some of the illustrations pages that come before the main text of the book got rendered a bit weird (too big and/or with overlapping text/images) but I'd much rather properly-spaced text!

[NiLuJe]

Possibly related to hanging punctuation rules in CJK typography?

(I know it caused us endless headaches in KOReader).

[rashkae]

It looks like some of the illustrations pages that come before the main text of the book got rendered a bit weird (too big and/or with overlapping text/images) but I'd much rather properly-spaced text![/QUOTE]

Can you post a screenshot/picture?

[Ceiyne]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Can you post a screenshot/picture?

I just tried to take a pic, but it seems like it fixed itself. I opened up one of the books, went through the pages with pictures and saw the issue happening. It was basically as if it was zoomed in on one area of the picture (so the majority of the picture was outside of the bounds of the screen).

However, before I actually took the pic, I flipped through a few more pages to see if it was happening on all of them, and at some point it stopped happening. I went back to the pages where I had originally seen it, and the illustrations were properly sized there now too.

I tried a few other books and everything looked fine right from the start. Maybe I just needed to be more patient?

[tshering]

please delete

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by Ceiyne

I just tried to take a pic, but it seems like it fixed itself. I opened up one of the books, went through the pages with pictures and saw the issue happening. It was basically as if it was zoomed in on one area of the picture (so the majority of the picture was outside of the bounds of the screen).

However, before I actually took the pic, I flipped through a few more pages to see if it was happening on all of them, and at some point it stopped happening. I went back to the pages where I had originally seen it, and the illustrations were properly sized there now too.

I tried a few other books and everything looked fine right from the start. Maybe I just needed to be more patient?

Kepub has the ability to zoom pictures,, if you had double tapped on one by accident, it would be zoomed in to where you had tapped. It would stay zoomed if your changing pages between picture only content, but would zoom back out as soon as you hit text. (You could aso have double tapped on the image again to zoom out, or used the image zoom icon in the controlls, that looks like four direction arrows with a circle in the middle.)