02-14-2019, 01:53 PM | #1 |
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Why not 1em for standard text?
Bought a new book today, and as it seems books from this author the size for standard text is "never" 1em. It's 0.933em (another book from him has 0.93em).
(He also uses larger right/left margins than most.) Is this a cause of using something like Indesign or some other tool? Or is there an actual good reason for not having 1em? (For normal fiction, not poetry etc.) Curiosity killed the cat.. |
02-14-2019, 02:09 PM | #2 |
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1em is the line spacing, isn't it? One might, therefore, expect the actual text to be a little smaller so there's a small gap between lines.
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02-14-2019, 02:16 PM | #3 |
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As far as I can tell, typical line spacing is 1.2em.
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02-14-2019, 03:36 PM | #4 | |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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02-14-2019, 05:52 PM | #5 |
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Line spacing should normally specified without any units. That way, it's applied to the current font size ( 1.2 x 1em, 1.2 x2em, etc.). This helps to avoid line spacing that is less that the font size. One horrible example is where the title elements are set in 2.5em with an inherited 1.2em line spacing.
As for the fractional font sizes, I've see that a lot and never saw a good reason for it. One author my wife reads loves using about 20mm left and right margins -- just like in the good old days when deadtree books were the only game in town. |
02-14-2019, 06:00 PM | #6 | |
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Code:
font-size : 1em; line-height : 1.2; |
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02-16-2019, 07:45 AM | #7 | |
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However it could also be deliberate. Maybe the author tested the ebook on a reader that had a limited number of font size adjustment steps (some readers have a mere seven choices of font size!) and when they couldn't get the book to match their personal reading preferences by adjusting the font size from the reader they changed the size in the book instead. Same for the oversize margins, they probably look good when testing on a wide-screen PC. |
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02-16-2019, 08:34 AM | #8 |
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Sounds plausible. Thank you GeoffR.
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02-17-2019, 02:35 PM | #9 |
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Don't forget pdurrants comment. Unless the book is only for yourself or it is a fixed size format, you should never set the default size for a book. This should always be left to user preference.
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02-17-2019, 02:55 PM | #10 |
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Yes, makes sense.
Hmm, I may send the publisher (or author) a mail and see what they say about this. Thanks |
02-18-2019, 08:10 PM | #11 | |
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As for the default font size? As far as I can tell, that is a whole other can of worms. Testing multiple ereaders, apps and web browsers gave me a rather varied selection of font heights on screen when a default font size was not specified -- this was done using a test document when the body size was defaulted to 1em and the same test document with the font-size declaration removed. |
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02-19-2019, 02:31 AM | #12 | |
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What should be avoided is having to change the settings on a single device for every new book to get the same apparent font size. And the way to do that is for books not to set the body font size, but leave it to the device defaults. |
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02-19-2019, 10:44 AM | #13 |
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An entirely valid point, although at least specifying a body font size in "ems" doesn't prevent the size being changed, which specifying it in "absolute" units such as points, does.
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02-19-2019, 05:08 PM | #14 | ||||
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Just because the user can override the change is no reason to make a change to the body text size. |
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02-21-2019, 03:28 PM | #15 |
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Large books are usually set in smaller type, as it makes it easier to page through them.
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