i Loathe ePub...

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

What I want is a hassle free experience. I don't want to reformat books, I don't even want to strip DRM from a book, I just want to READ the book. ePub has always seemed more 'fiddly' than the Kindle experience. Back in the days when Mobipocket was an independent company, and I read on my Palm 100, things were MUCH worse than epub, but Kindle is just plain easier than ePub.

I gravitated to the Kindle environment over time and will likely remain with it until it fails me or I die. Then I will look around and see what's available.

There's really no difference...

Amazon's books generally all start as ePubs and then are converted to one of Amazon's formats. Really other than enhanced typesetting bits the overall look of the book is exactly the same. The publisher will (or won't) embed the same font, the chapter headings will all look the same, if there's spaces between paragraphs they'll still be there etc. All Amazon offers is less options and maybe some stability. I guess that's less "fiddly".

There's no reason someone can't make a rock solid ePub reader with like 8 font options too.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

AFAIK as I know, the only EPUB format that differs from the default EPUB standard is Kobo's KEPUB. Kindle's KF8 is, I think, also based on EPUB, but with differences.

I don't believe there is anything in KEPUB format that prevents any ePub renderer displaying the content. Sure, you have to remove it's DRM and ensure it has a name that the desired renderer supports.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Reflowable PDFs are possible as is renderer clients that handle them.

On an eink device the only possible change may to use landscape orientation.

Having read some PDFs that were reflowed, all the disadvantages of epub and damn few of the advantages.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

AFAIK as I know, the only EPUB format that differs from the default EPUB standard is Kobo's KEPUB.

Which default epub standard? Epub2? Epub2 fixed layout? Epub3? Epub3 fixed layout? The lovely thing with standards is that there are so many of them.

The major difference between a Kobo epub and a "standard" epub is a mass of spans that are not visible to the user until you open the epub with an editor since Kobo has pretty much stopped embedding javascript in their Kobo epubs. Some, if not all, of the visible differences between an epub and a kepub as viewed on a Kobo ereader are due to differences between the Adobe RMSDK epub2 renderer and the ACCESS epub3 renderer.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

You mean that when you die, you'll still look around for an ebook reader?

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

That's the plan. We'll see how well it goes.

“‘Enjoy your books. Enjoy your books now! For there are no pockets in a shroud.”—Geraldine Brooks

Never thought I would have a reason to use that quote!

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I don't believe there is anything in KEPUB format that prevents any ePub renderer displaying the content. Sure, you have to remove it's DRM and ensure it has a name that the desired renderer supports.

Originally Posted by DNSB

Which default epub standard? Epub2? Epub2 fixed layout? Epub3? Epub3 fixed layout? The lovely thing with standards is that there are so many of them.

The major difference between a Kobo epub and a "standard" epub is a mass of spans that are not visible to the user until you open the epub with an editor since Kobo has pretty much stopped embedding javascript in their Kobo epubs. Some, if not all, of the visible differences between an epub and a kepub as viewed on a Kobo ereader are due to differences between the Adobe RMSDK epub2 renderer and the ACCESS epub3 renderer.

I haven't bothered to figure out why, but kepubs show extra space between paragraphs for me in ADE and Bookari. Using the Modify Epub plugin for Calibre to strip spans and remove Kobo DRM remnants fixes them.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I haven't bothered to figure out why, but kepubs show extra space between paragraphs for me in ADE and Bookari. Using the Modify Epub plugin for Calibre to strip spans and remove Kobo DRM remnants fixes them.

But regardless of whether or not there is extra space between paragraphs, the content is still readable.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I don't believe there is anything in KEPUB format that prevents any ePub renderer displaying the content. Sure, you have to remove it's DRM and ensure it has a name that the desired renderer supports.

But, from what I've seen, the kepub code can cause the formatting to be slightly different than it would be without the kepub code. But, if you have kepub without DRM, you can remove the kepub code using the Modify ePub plugin for Calibre.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But, from what I've seen, the kepub code can cause the formatting to be slightly different than it would be without the kepub code. But, if you have kepub without DRM, you can remove the kepub code using the Modify ePub plugin for Calibre.

Would you like to tell me which code makes it different? There is absolutely nothing in the kepub that isn't standard epub 2 or epub 3 code. Yes, they have standard Kobo CSS and if you remove that, the display will be different. But, anytime I have opened a kepub with another renderer, it is displayed in the way I would expect for that renderer.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Would you like to tell me which code makes it different? There is absolutely nothing in the kepub that isn't standard epub 2 or epub 3 code. Yes, they have standard Kobo CSS and if you remove that, the display will be different. But, anytime I have opened a kepub with another renderer, it is displayed in the way I would expect for that renderer.

I think the kobostylehacks CSS contained in the <head> section of each (Kobo bought) kepub HTML file has an effect on the look and feel in a standard epub rendering app, particularly the red bit:

<style xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" type="text/css" id="kobostylehacks">
  div#book-inner p, div#book-inner div {
      font-size: 1em;
  }
  a {
      color: black;
  }
  a:link, a:visited, a:hover, a:active {
      color: blue;
  }
  div#book-inner * {
      margin-top: 0 !important;
      margin-bottom: 0 !important;
  }
  </style>

As already stated Modify Epub can remove this to restore the main CSS file's "style intent".

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I think the kobostylehacks CSS contained in the <head> section of each (Kobo bought) kepub HTML file has an effect on the look and feel in a standard epub rendering app, particularly the red bit:

<style xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" type="text/css" id="kobostylehacks">
  div#book-inner p, div#book-inner div {
      font-size: 1em;
  }
  a {
      color: black;
  }
  a:link, a:visited, a:hover, a:active {
      color: blue;
  }
  div#book-inner * {
      margin-top: 0 !important;
      margin-bottom: 0 !important;
  }
  </style>

As already stated Modify Epub can remove this to restore the main CSS file's "style intent".

Of course it does. And that was my point. It is just normal code and removing it will mean the renderer will do something different. Which is exactly what I would expect. But, it isn't "kepub code", just code Kobo wants as standard. And plenty of publishers put their own standard code in to achieve some common affect. And a DIV wrapping the text in a chapter is pretty common.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Of course it does. And that was my point. It is just normal code and removing it will mean the renderer will do something different. Which is exactly what I would expect. But, it isn't "kepub code", just code Kobo wants as standard. And plenty of publishers put their own standard code in to achieve some common affect. And a DIV wrapping the text in a chapter is pretty common.

Perhaps it's just a matter of terminology. Even though it is "just normal code" I have to admit that I also see it as "kepub code" because it's code I see in bought kepubs which I don't expect to see in standard epubs and which needs to be removed if you want to do a full kepub-to-epub format-shift.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by crich70

PDF has limits as it isn't actually an ebook format. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and was never intended as an ebook format. Instead it was created so that people could access documents for business easily. So say an office in Los Angeles wants to send a document to its sister office in New York via the net. A PDF of that document is ideal for such uses. It's too rigid for an ereader (IMO) though. Sometimes the text is too light for easy reading or the text won't reflow to be easily read (i.e. font size) or you have to scroll side to side to read a given paragraph properly and that breaks the flow of the story (at least for me).

I agree about the rigidity of PDF as an advantage when used for its intended purpose. One of the initial reasons for PDFs was that with word processing formats the document's appearance will change when the same document travels from computer to computer.

I used to work in a job where I dealt with documents from many locations, documents that had to look exactly the same as what the sender originally sent (not even a slight difference in the space between two words was allowed). Because of the issues with word processors, we had to FAX the documents back and forth to ensure that we were receiving exactly what the sender was sending us. Unfortunately, this was before PDF was available.

This is one of the main reasons I prefer PDF when it comes to ebooks I make for myself: it will look exactly as intended on my ebook reader. I use OpenOffice.org to make my ebooks and a PDF ebook will look the exactly same on my ereader as it does on my computer and I can use OpenOffice.org's formatting capabilities to format it exactly as I want.

Some have mentioned a Table of Contents (TOC) and for long e-books I prefer them just so that can quickly jump to a chapter if I choose. The rigid page numbering of PDF works well since I can easily generate a TOC that I insert after the title page. For simplicity I prefer just a TOC without links. I go to the TOC, look up the page number, and then jump to that page just like with a paper book.

The one ebook format I miss is .pdb, used for Palm PDA ebooks. While the format was fairly simple (it was basically a combination of plain text and HTML), it was easy to work with and rendered reliably on any Palm PDA (while the formatting of the ebook was handled by the .pdb format, the typeface was chosen by the user on their PDA based on the typefaces they have loaded). All you needed to make the ebook was a simple program that converted the file into a .pdb file.

[gmw]

I'm not at all sure that I understand the OP. (And the captured images don't really help because none of them capture from the starting point on the page, some aren't even on the same page, so any possible clarification they might have offered was lost.)

To me, the OP appears to be complaining about epub for all the reasons that epub exists. I mean, of course the resulting display is not a photocopy of the printed page. That's the point!

Possibly what the OP is complaining about is that publishers are not making PDFs of their books available. (Smashwords will give you PDFs, but perhaps you don't shop there.)

ePub3 offers a fixed-page layout, but it is mainly intended for text and children's books and I would not expect to see it novels (at least I hope we don't).

Publishers could licence their print fonts for distributions inside the epubs, but that will add to the cost. And epubs that insist on using built-in fonts are a PITA for users that would prefer to choose their own.

A few quick twiddles on my Kobo and I can choose whatever font type, size and spacing I like. And if I don't like the fonts that come with it I can load others. I like paper books, but epubs have lots of advantages - and those advantages appear to be what the OP is complaining about.

e-readers have bugs, sure. Lots of epubs are poorly constructed, yes. But there is not too much wrong with epub itself.

It's all a matter of using the right tool for the job. PDF, after years and years of refinement, is excellent for some jobs, but lousing for presenting novels across multiple devices. epub, with a much shorter history, does an excellent job of presenting novels across multiple devices, just don't expected it to be a photocopier.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by PeterT

But regardless of whether or not there is extra space between paragraphs, the content is still readable.

Not necessarily. I find it very difficult to read if there's that extra space between paragraphs. The story becomes sentences that don't fit together anymore and I have to read a page several times to understand what is written...