Forma Almost ready to give up entirely on Forma

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by marst

The device's no longer being able to sync even when it's connected to the PC and the Kobo program for Windows is running, suggests to me that something's gone very wrong with it. There's a solution I haven't tried yet—log out of the account and log back in. It might at least enable me to use the "repair your account" command on the device. I can do that from the Kobo program for Windows, but "repair account" doesn't work on the device itself any more. The three previous times, log-out/log-back-in erased all side-loaded books. (Now I have them backed up in a single location—quick restore, hopefully.)

Signing out of the account on the device does not remove side-loaded books. They will still be on the device and will be imported after you sign in again. Did you actually do a factory reset? That formats the book partition and hence sideloaded books would disappear.


And on a separate note: Is there any reason for changing the font and size in all your posts? It must be extra work for you and is not helping us. Or at least it isn't helping me. Your posts are inconsistent with all the other posts in these threads and that actually makes them harder to read. As I already use the browser to make the font larger, your extra size makes it to large. Using the layout tools to emphasise something is good, but, the full post doesn't help.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by marst

The device's no longer being able to sync even when it's connected to the PC and the Kobo program for Windows is running, suggests to me that something's gone very wrong with it. There's a solution I haven't tried yet—log out of the account and log back in. It might at least enable me to use the "repair your account" command on the device. I can do that from the Kobo program for Windows, but "repair account" doesn't work on the device itself any more. The three previous times, log-out/log-back-in erased all side-loaded books. (Now I have them backed up in a single location—quick restore, hopefully.)

Try a factory reset.

https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...Kobo-Libra-H2O

[marst]

Regarding the inability to display the book's text flush-left/ragged right:

Originally Posted by davidfor

This as nothing to do with ADE. This is due to how the book is coded. It has coding in the HTML or the stylesheet that the epub renderer on the device (the Adobe RMSDK) cannot override to change the layout of the book. This can happen with kepubs, but, the kepub renderer is a little more brutal in how it does this so it is less noticeable. It's also possible that the processing that Kobo does when a book is added to the store to produce a kepub will change things to make allow more changes on the device.

Before the Kobo began giving me trouble with syncing—and before this particular book became a problem—I absolutely could switch it to flush-left/ragged right when I read it on the Kobo. (To date, all books I've downloaded from the Kobo site supported that feature of the software.)

Before I used a Kobo I had several e-reader apps on a Samsung tablet. Some of them had controls that could override the style sheets' "text-align:justify" and worked every time. Some could override other formatting hard-coded in the CSS as well, such as inter-paragraph spacing or even first-line indents. (Those books were not kepub file, though—just ePub 2.)

So: the book as originally downloaded from the Kobo site could be displayed FL/RR. The version I finally got back onto the Kobo via the ADE solution, could not be displayed that way. As for the fonts in these messages, changing to font size '4' and in particular changing to a serif typeface makes them a lot easier for me to read. But if this is going to be a point of contention I'll leave the formatting at the default settings.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by marst

Regarding the inability to display the book's text flush-left/ragged right:



Before the Kobo began giving me trouble with syncing—and before this particular book became a problem—I absolutely could switch it to flush-left/ragged right when I read it on the Kobo. (To date, all books I've downloaded from the Kobo site supported that feature of the software.)

Before I used a Kobo I had several e-reader apps on a Samsung tablet. Some of them had controls that could override the style sheets' "text-align:justify" and worked every time. Some could override other formatting hard-coded in the CSS as well, such as inter-paragraph spacing or even first-line indents. (Those books were not kepub file, though—just ePub 2.)

So: the book as originally downloaded from the Kobo site could be displayed FL/RR. The version I finally got back onto the Kobo via the ADE solution, could not be displayed that way. As for the fonts in these messages, changing to font size '4' and in particular changing to a serif typeface makes them a lot easier for me to read. But if this is going to be a point of contention I'll leave the formatting at the default settings.

I have no idea why there might be "Point of contention". I was stating how things work and trying to explain some of what you are seeing. The Kobo devices have multiple ereader for different formats. They all work differently. What the Adobe RMSDK can do is different to what the kepub renderer can do. And the books downloaded to the device as kepubs are not the same as the epubs downloaded from the library. They get changed if he publisher updates the books, but, they don't necessarily get changed in both places. Or for all users.

The above is the same for other devices and apps. Some respect the styles in the book and do not allow many changes. Some completely ignore the styles and override everything. The Adobe RMSDK falls on the "respect the book" side of things. For kepubs, it allows a few more things to be overridden.

But, from my point of view, there is little difference. I can't think of the last time I sideloaded an epub and the font settings couldn't be changed. That means I find the idea that all of your books can't have these changes strange, or a fluke of your book selection. It could be that because of the books you like, they all come from one publisher who uses a particular style.

If this is an issue for you, you need to look at solving the problem of why the books are not downloading to the device. Based on what you have done, I would start with a full factory reset. Not the one from Device information page of the settings, but using https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...Kobo-Libra-H2O. That will re-install the factory firmware before taking you through the setup. That will clean everything up and let you start from the beginning. And it should let the books sync to the device. If they don't it would suggest a problem at the server end with your account or particular books.

[marst]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Try a factory reset.
https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...Kobo-Libra-H2O

Yes, it might come to a full reset. Unless the Kobo account stores the user-created collections, re-doing all of those will be something of a chore. Then again if that's what it takes to get the thing behaving again it might be at least short-term relief. This device certainly has required a lot of hand-holding...

[marst]

It does sound as if a full reset will have to be the next step.

Originally Posted by davidfor

I have no idea why there might be "Point of contention". I was stating how things work and trying to explain some of what you are seeing.

"Point of contention" referred not to anything you'd written about the Kobo issues, but to the request that I stop using font-size changes in my replies.

>> I can't think of the last time I sideloaded an epub and the font settings couldn't be changed. That means I find the idea that all of your books can't have these changes strange, or a fluke of your book selection. It could be that because of the books you like, they all come from one publisher who uses a particular style.

As I said: The book in question, as first downloaded from the Kobo site, behaved like all the others downloaded that way. It could be set at my option to flush-left/ragged right. The same is true of all books I've purchased so far from the Kobo site, their publishers notwithstanding. When I gave up on sync via wifi and switched to the ADE solution, that's when the inability to change to FL/RR became apparent.

The problem-child book is not side-loaded via manual copying. (On the other hand, when I've side-loaded DRM-free books via manual copying to the device's .kobo subdirectory, there's been no problem changing their text alignment to FL/RR.)

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by marst

Yes, it might come to a full reset. Unless the Kobo account stores the user-created collections, re-doing all of those will be something of a chore. Then again if that's what it takes to get the thing behaving again it might be at least short-term relief. This device certainly has required a lot of hand-holding...

The best solution, as already suggested multiple times, is to remove the DRM and then sideload. You can convert to kepub or edit the css in the Calibre editor too, if you like.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by marst

As I said: The book in question, as first downloaded from the Kobo site, behaved like all the others downloaded that way. It could be set at my option to flush-left/ragged right. The same is true of all books I've purchased so far from the Kobo site, their publishers notwithstanding. When I gave up on sync via wifi and switched to the ADE solution, that's when the inability to change to FL/RR became apparent.

The problem-child book is not side-loaded via manual copying. (On the other hand, when I've side-loaded DRM-free books via manual copying to the device's .kobo subdirectory, there's been no problem changing their text alignment to FL/RR.)

As I have stated, you are using two different reading applications on the device. They work differently. They respect different parts of the formatting and they ignore different parts of the formatting. And, they allow different parts to be overridden by the controls on the device.

From my experience, few epubs do not respond to the controls. To check I used ADE to put about ten books on the device. In all cases, they let me change the font size and margins.

Only one had problems with changing the font. It didn't change for the main body text, but it did change for the chapter headings and a couple of other places. Looking at the code in the book, it has hardcoded fonts for the bits that didn't change. And overall, the code in the book was bad enough, I'm not surprised things didn't work.

For the justification options, it depends on the code in the book. If the styles in the book set the text to justified, it could not be overridden. If the book did not set the alignment to justified, the controls could change. But, it could also depend on how the book sets the alignment. The RMSDK might override it at the body level, but, not at the paragraph level. I don't have a book to test this with.

The above works whether the book has DRM. But, the above is for epubs. Which are always sideloaded. The way kepubs (sideloaded or downloaded, with or without DRM) work is different. Just as other devices and other ereader apps work differently. The way they work depends on how the people who wrote the code decided to do it. That includes their interpretation of any applicable standards.

As you seem to prefer the way that the kepubs work, then you need to get those working. Suggestions for how to do this have been made. As I have stated, I think you need to start with a full factory reset.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by marst

Yes, it might come to a full reset. Unless the Kobo account stores the user-created collections, re-doing all of those will be something of a chore. Then again if that's what it takes to get the thing behaving again it might be at least short-term relief. This device certainly has required a lot of hand-holding...

If you use Calibre to manage your eBooks on your Forma, you won't have to worry about recreating your collections. It will just happen. Also, you can manage series with Calibre. And you'll have all of your eBooks in one easy to access location witch will make things easier. When the day comes that I get a new Kobo, it would be very easy to setup the new Kobo the same way as the current Kobo. Calibre allows me to do this. Plus, with Calibre, I can look at the code of my eBooks and make any changes I want. So with the eBooks you seem to be having a problem with, you could look at the code and see if something needs to be changed. And with the DeDRM plugin, you can remove the DRM from all ePub no problem. And then if you prefer KePub over ePub, you can use the KoboTouchExtendedDriver to convert to KePub on the fly.

I don't see any reason not to use Calibre instead of syncing, using Kobo Desktop, or ADE to manage your eBooks. You just download as ePub and you can then do a lot more with your Kobo because of Calibre.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For the justification options, it depends on the code in the book. If the styles in the book set the text to justified, it could not be overridden. If the book did not set the alignment to justified, the controls could change. But, it could also depend on how the book sets the alignment. The RMSDK might override it at the body level, but, not at the paragraph level. I don't have a book to test this with.

RMSDK does allow the justification to be changed at the body level.