Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Formats > ePub

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 08-04-2018, 06:13 AM   #1
AlexBell
Wizard
AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
AlexBell's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,413
Karma: 13369310
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Launceston, Tasmania
Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet
Special effects? Spreadsheets?

For my sins I'm grinding through the George Eliot novels for the MR library. Most of them have epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter - some of them quite long and with several layouts.

The attached image is part of the epigraph for chapter 5 of Felix Holt, the Radical. I gave up on this, but there is a similar layout in chapter 38 of Daniel Deronda and I want to try again.

Can anyone point me please to a method of setting up the epub markup to produce this effect? I want it to show well on 6" readers, so the lines will very likely need to break. And of course I want it to show well on a Samsung tablet and an iPad, where the lines will not need to break.

If I could remember how to do spreadsheets in HTML I could probably work out a spreadsheet which would do the job. Can anyone point me to a tutorial for doing spreadsheets in HTML?

And I'm afraid a final complication is that I do all my ebooks with an HTML editor, so techiques using Sigil et al probably won't be much use to me.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	Chapter05.JPG
Views:	319
Size:	17.6 KB
ID:	165426  
AlexBell is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-04-2018, 08:24 AM   #2
RbnJrg
Wizard
RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,528
Karma: 6613969
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Rosario - Santa Fe - Argentina
Device: Kindle 4 NT
Hi Alex;

There are many ways to get what you want; sometime ago I posted a solution not based on a table, that, in the present case, it could be better. Read the following post:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...84&postcount=3

You only need to modify the code in order to change the width of the columns and to add a background color. Right now I can't write some code but if I have a bit o time, I'll do so you can watch better how the things are.
RbnJrg is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 08-04-2018, 10:34 AM   #3
Turtle91
A Hairy Wizard
Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Turtle91's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,068
Karma: 18727053
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Charleston, SC today
Device: iPhone 11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexBell View Post
And I'm afraid a final complication is that I do all my ebooks with an HTML editor, so techiques using Sigil et al probably won't be much use to me.
Not sure what you are going for here....Sigil doesn't have any "special HTML techniques". If it is ePub compliant HTML then it doesn't matter where/how it was created, it will work fine in Sigil. And the opposite is true - HTML made in Sigil will work in any standards compliant device/app.

As far as your epigraph example - The HTML term you are looking for is "Table" instead of spreadsheet. There are, of course, ways to format without tables, but it seems that your example would be easiest created using a table. You can refresh your memory about the techniques of tables in the W3Schools tutorial/reference.

Here's a quick example:

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<style>
table    {margin:0 auto; width:70%; border-collapse:collapse;
          background:url("../Images/paper.jpg") no-repeat;}
td       {vertical-align:top; padding:5px 10px; font-family:serif}
thead    {text-align:center; font-weight:bold}
tfoot    {font-size:.8em}

span.sc1 {font-variant:small-caps; background-color:lightblue}
span.sc2 {font-variant:small-caps}
span.rt  {display:block; text-align:right}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<col style="width:25%"/>
<tr><td><span class="sc1">1st Citizen.</span></td><td>Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth<br />That makes a vice of virtue by excess.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="sc2">2d Citizen.</span></td><td>What if the coolness of our tardier veins<br/>Be loss of virtue?</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="sc1">1st Citizen.</span></td><td><span class="rt">All things cool with time—</span>The sun itself, they say, till heat shall find<br />A general level, nowhere in excess.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="sc2">2d Citizen.</span></td><td>'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought,<br />That future middlingness.</td></tr>


</table>
</body>
</html>
Cheers,
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	epi.JPG
Views:	201
Size:	63.1 KB
ID:	165428  
Turtle91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-04-2018, 07:21 PM   #4
Turtle91
A Hairy Wizard
Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Turtle91's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,068
Karma: 18727053
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Charleston, SC today
Device: iPhone 11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire
Just playing around a little more....
The highlighted portion looks like someone was just marking the book so they could memorize their lines...

If you don't want to replicate the highlight, you could simplify the code like this:

Code:
<head>
<title></title>

<style>
table    {margin:0 auto; width:70%; border-collapse:collapse;
          background:url("../Images/paper.jpg") no-repeat;}

td       {vertical-align:top; padding:5px; font-family:serif}

td:first-child {font-variant:small-caps; width:20%}

span.rt  {display:block; text-align:right}
</style>

</head>
<body>

<table>
<tr><td>1st Citizen.</td><td>Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth<br/>That makes a vice of virtue by excess.</td></tr>
<tr><td>2d Citizen.</td><td>What if the coolness of our tardier veins<br/>Be loss of virtue?</td></tr>
<tr><td>1st Citizen.</td><td><span class="rt">All things cool with time—</span>The sun itself, they say, till heat shall find<br/>A general level, nowhere in excess.</td></tr>
<tr><td>2d Citizen.</td><td>'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought,<br/>That future middlingness.</td></tr>
</table>

</body>
This uses the ::first-child selector on the <td> to style the first column. Depending on how old the device is, it may not support that selector.

Also, Alex, you might want to look at media queries if you want to use different css for different devices (small screens vs tablets, old devices vs new devices, etc).
Turtle91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-04-2018, 08:07 PM   #5
RbnJrg
Wizard
RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,528
Karma: 6613969
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Rosario - Santa Fe - Argentina
Device: Kindle 4 NT
Hi Alex;

If you are going to use a table, then there is not a best solution than the Turtle91's. But if you want to try another aproximation (with just <p> tags) then you could watch the epub I attach. And below you can see a screenshot of ADE:

Click image for larger version

Name:	Image1.png
Views:	216
Size:	181.5 KB
ID:	165439

The solution should also works for Kindle.
Attached Files
File Type: epub Epigraph.epub (3.3 KB, 156 views)
RbnJrg is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 08-05-2018, 12:55 AM   #6
AlexBell
Wizard
AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
AlexBell's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,413
Karma: 13369310
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Launceston, Tasmania
Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet
Thanks very much to you both. You've give me a lot to think about and practice on.

Just to clear up a point I expressed poorly: I very much want in all the ebooks I do that the same css and markup work well in all size readers. Obviously a long line of text will break on a six inch Sony T3 when it doesn't on an iPad. I want to use the same css and markup for both.
AlexBell is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-05-2018, 10:39 AM   #7
RbnJrg
Wizard
RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.RbnJrg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,528
Karma: 6613969
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Rosario - Santa Fe - Argentina
Device: Kindle 4 NT
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexBell View Post
Thanks very much to you both. You've give me a lot to think about and practice on.

Just to clear up a point I expressed poorly: I very much want in all the ebooks I do that the same css and markup work well in all size readers. Obviously a long line of text will break on a six inch Sony T3 when it doesn't on an iPad. I want to use the same css and markup for both.
Hmmm, use a table. The method I posted will work for ereaders based on RMSDK (ADE) and WebKit but won't work on old Kindle devices (K1/K2/KDX). So, use a table but even simpler than the posted by Turtle. For example:

1. In your .xhtml file:

Code:
  <table>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <span class="lb">1<span class="sc">ST</span>&nbsp;C<span class="sc">ITIZEN</span></span>
        </td>

        <td>
          Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth 
          That makes a vice of virtue by excess.
        </td>
      </tr>

      <tr>
        <td>
          2<span class="sc">ND</span>&nbsp;C<span class="sc">ITIZEN</span>
        </td>

        <td>
          What if the coolness of our tardier veins
          Be loss of virtue?
        </td>
      </tr>

      <tr>
        <td>
          <span class="lb">1<span class="sc">ST</span>&nbsp;C<span class="sc">ITIZEN</span></span>
        </td>

        <td>
          All things cool with time— The sun itself, they say, till heat shall find           A general level, nowhere in excess.
        </td>
      </tr>

      <tr>
        <td>
          2<span class="sc">ND</span>&nbsp;C<span class="sc">ITIZEN</span>
        </td>

        <td>
          'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought,
          That future middlingness.
        </td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>
2. And in your .css file:

Code:
table {
    width: 90%;
    margin: 2em 5%;
    border-collapse: collapse;
    font-size: 0.9em;
}

td {
    vertical-align: top;
    padding: 5px 10px;
    font-family: serif;
}

.sc {
    font-size: 0.7em;
}

.lb {
    background-color: lightblue;
}
Aclarations:

1. Don't give a width to columns, just give a width to the table. Of that way, the column width will be given by the text inside the cell.

2. In the first column, use a non-break-space to separate "1st/2nd" of "Citizen" (of that way the width of the first column will be always optimal).

3. Don't use the property "text-transform: smallcaps;"; instead, use "fake" smallcaps.

4. Of course, you can play with the width of the table, margins (for the table), paddings and font-size. Remember that margin-left and margin-right are linked with the width of the table (you can't have a table with a width of 90% of the screen and margin-left/right of 15% each).

I attach an epub so you can understand the things better than with my words.

Regards
Rubén
Attached Files
File Type: epub Epigraph Table All.epub (3.3 KB, 136 views)
RbnJrg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-06-2018, 05:35 AM   #8
BobC
Guru
BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BobC ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 691
Karma: 3026110
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Lancashire, U.K.
Device: BeBook 1, BeBook Pure, Kobo Glo, (and HD),Energy Sistem EReader Pro +
Neither Sigil nor Calibre's Editor provide an easy way to create tables. However what you can do is use Sigil and configure a WYSIWYG HTML editor to be able to edit individual files.

I have used KompoZer (an update to NVU) which is free and quite simple to use for creating and editing tables. It takes a lot of the hassle out of forming the rows and columns and once you have the basics of the table built you can drop back to your preferred EPUB editor for everything else.

BobC
BobC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-06-2018, 07:05 AM   #9
GrannyGrump
Obsessively Dedicated...
GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GrannyGrump ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
GrannyGrump's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,200
Karma: 34977556
Join Date: May 2011
Location: JAPAN (US expatriate)
Device: Sony PRS-T2, ADE on PC
A (not so elegant) alternate solution is to use <dl> definition list. I have seen this layout used for screenplays, but it sets the "term" (name) on a separate line from the "definition" (main text). However, you don't have to worry so much about column widths and line breaks.

You can format amount of indent / offset, font-size and style (bold, italic), text alignment /justification, and a few other attributes.


html looks something like this:
Code:
<dl>
<dt>FIRST SPEAKER:</dt>
<dd>I say to you, my fellow citizens...</dd>
</dl>
The displayed layout looks something like:

FIRST SPEAKER:
I say to you, my fellow citizens...

Last edited by GrannyGrump; 08-06-2018 at 07:09 AM.
GrannyGrump is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-08-2018, 06:59 AM   #10
AlexBell
Wizard
AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
AlexBell's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,413
Karma: 13369310
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Launceston, Tasmania
Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet
Thanks again for the suggestions. But my main concern is still to have lines of poetry break in a standard way if they are too long for the ereader screen. And most poetry written in the days of print books does not fit on a 6" reader screen without the lines breaking.

Most of the epigraphs in George Eliot's books are poetry, and most of her books have epigraphs. So I have decided to give up trying to make the epigraphs in the ebooks identical to the corresponding epigraph in the print book, and have decided to just lay them out as verses.

That may be naughty of me since the result is not identical in layout to the original. But the result is not going to be identical to the original anyway, since many of the lines of poetry cannot be fitted on to a 6" reader without breaking.
AlexBell is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-08-2018, 12:07 PM   #11
Hitch
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Hitch's Avatar
 
Posts: 11,447
Karma: 157030631
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexBell View Post
Thanks again for the suggestions. But my main concern is still to have lines of poetry break in a standard way if they are too long for the ereader screen. And most poetry written in the days of print books does not fit on a 6" reader screen without the lines breaking.

Most of the epigraphs in George Eliot's books are poetry, and most of her books have epigraphs. So I have decided to give up trying to make the epigraphs in the ebooks identical to the corresponding epigraph in the print book, and have decided to just lay them out as verses.

That may be naughty of me since the result is not identical in layout to the original. But the result is not going to be identical to the original anyway, since many of the lines of poetry cannot be fitted on to a 6" reader without breaking.
Hi:

I'm not going to lie--I stayed out of this discussion because I wasn't clear on what you were really trying to do; initially, it seemed that you wanted lines to NOT break at all, on larger eReaders (although how you'd do that in a world of fonts that can be resized, I don't know), but break on smaller--but now you're saying that you wanted the lines to break "in a standard way." What does that mean?

I mean...you can't control whether someone sees it at a small or tiny font size, or large or huge. How can you make lines break "in a standard way" across devices? When you say that, do you mean in the same place, in the line, or....? Honestly, this confuses me.

At the point you're at, if I understand you, which I'm not sure I do, I'd just use fixed-layout, which of course, is a dreadful idea, typically--but with the sort of control that it sounds like you're trying to exert, I don't see an alternative.

Know what I mean?

Hitch
Hitch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-08-2018, 06:07 PM   #12
Turtle91
A Hairy Wizard
Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Turtle91 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Turtle91's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,068
Karma: 18727053
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Charleston, SC today
Device: iPhone 11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire
The only other way I can think of to keep a specific format regardless of screen size, AND still allow the rest of the book to reflow, is to use a high quality image of the poem and set the width of the image to a percentage. That technique certainly has its drawbacks - you'd need to be judicious in using it - no complex/long passages, etc.

I've long since given up trying to duplicate the printed version. It's just not possible or, IMO, desirable. The best I can do with current CSS functions is specify where a line breaks and use hanging indents for any reflowed portions.

*shrug*

edit: Or you could set the epigraph/image on it's own page and use an SVG wrapper.
Turtle91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-09-2018, 02:01 PM   #13
Hitch
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Hitch's Avatar
 
Posts: 11,447
Karma: 157030631
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turtle91 View Post
The only other way I can think of to keep a specific format regardless of screen size, AND still allow the rest of the book to reflow, is to use a high quality image of the poem and set the width of the image to a percentage. That technique certainly has its drawbacks - you'd need to be judicious in using it - no complex/long passages, etc.

I've long since given up trying to duplicate the printed version. It's just not possible or, IMO, desirable.

THIS!!! A thousand times, THIS!^^^^


Quote:
The best I can do with current CSS functions is specify where a line breaks and use hanging indents for any reflowed portions.

*shrug*

edit: Or you could set the epigraph/image on it's own page and use an SVG wrapper.
Hitch
Hitch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2018, 08:37 PM   #14
AlexBell
Wizard
AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
AlexBell's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,413
Karma: 13369310
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Launceston, Tasmania
Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch View Post
Hi:

I'm not going to lie--I stayed out of this discussion because I wasn't clear on what you were really trying to do; initially, it seemed that you wanted lines to NOT break at all, on larger eReaders (although how you'd do that in a world of fonts that can be resized, I don't know), but break on smaller--but now you're saying that you wanted the lines to break "in a standard way." What does that mean?

Hitch
Thanks for your response, and please accept my apologies for not being clear. What I meant was to have each line of the poem break at the right edge of the screen if it is too long for the width of the screen, and to continue with a 2em indent on the screen line below. The 2em indent of course is to show that the words are continuations of the line above, and not a new line of the poem.

It's quite easy to do with most poetry, even when a given line of poetry is itself indented a space or two. But I found it impossible to do on a six inch screen when the whole 'verse' is indented and preceded by a character name as on the epigraph I attached. It might have worked on an iPad screen, but I wanted it to work on a 6" reader and a Samsung tablet as well.

Last edited by AlexBell; 08-12-2018 at 09:01 PM.
AlexBell is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2018, 08:57 PM   #15
AlexBell
Wizard
AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.AlexBell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
AlexBell's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,413
Karma: 13369310
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Launceston, Tasmania
Device: Sony PRS T3, Kobo Glo, Kindle Touch, iPad, Samsung SB 2 tablet
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turtle91 View Post

I've long since given up trying to duplicate the printed version. It's just not possible or, IMO, desirable.
I entirely agree. But I have been the recipient of flak in the past for not duplicating the text even where the meaning of the English words has changed.

For example, in my opinion, the phrase 'some gay young men' in the 21st century means something quite different than when it was written in the 17th or18th centuries. Should I have left it as written by the 19th century author even though it was clearly not what she meant in her time?
AlexBell is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Custom Column side-effects botmtl Library Management 5 04-13-2017 01:33 AM
Identical metadata, various effects. frogi16 Devices 0 08-08-2016 07:27 AM
eBook Effects leebase General Discussions 20 05-28-2011 01:52 AM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:25 AM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.