EPUB display (ignoring file breaks)

[BobC]

I updated my KoReader (Android) a couple of days ago to 2022.01 and since then have noticed an oddity in the display of EPUB files.

Normally when viewing a book that is made up of a number of HTML files there would be a new page displayed at the commencement of each file, irrespective of whether each file represented a separate chapter in the book.

I now see files being displayed as a continuous page unless each one starts with a <H1, H2, H3> etc or is a para classed as "page-break-before : always".

This does not happen when viewing the EPUB with a different viewer.

I can't find a setting which makes KoReader preform as expected. View mode is set to "page" and render mode to "book"... Style is set to "Auto" (HTML/Epub}.

The attached EPUB (a cut-down version of Tolstoy's "The Devil" illustrates the situation. When viewed in Adobe or Calibre's EPUB reader the book is broken into chapters etc based on the file divisions, KoReader shows it as a single continuous text.

As far as I recall this didn't happen with previous KoReader versions.

Any thoughts (that don't involve editing the EPUB).

BobC

[NiLuJe]

Knowing which version you were running before would be helpful .

[BobC]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Knowing which version you were running before would be helpful .

I think the last version I used before the update was 2021.11; however my comment that I didn't recall seeing the behaviour before is probably misleading.

I only noticed the effect on a new book that I put on my KoReader setup since the update and it was only a minor "niggle" since the construction of the book meant that it wasn't very noticeable as all chapters, though each was in a separate file, also had a <H2> heading, the problem was only visible in the front page, intro, dedication sections of the book It was while investigating what appeared to be a display anomaly that I constructed the test book and compared what was happening with other EReader software and concluded that something was a little odd.

I'd always assumed that new file = new page as all the reders I have used seem to follow that, but whether it is part of the EPUB spec or not I don't know.

BobC

[Frenzie]

I don't see a single continuous text unless I switch the display mode from page to continuous. That would suggest you either changed the default (change it back by long-pressing on page, third tab in the bottom menu) or the display for the single book.

PS I would argue that continuous is almost always worse.

Edit: related, you may have disabled "new page on…" in the Style tweaks → Pages menu. There are options to avoid blank pages on chapter start/end.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

I don't see a single continuous text unless I switch the display mode from page to continuous. That would suggest you either changed the default (change it back by long-pressing on page, third tab in the bottom menu) or the display for the single book.

PS I would argue that continuous is almost always worse.

Edit: related, you may have disabled "new page on…" in the Style tweaks → Pages menu. There are options to avoid blank pages on chapter start/end.

I had already checked the difference between "page" and "continuous" and iI was still displaying contiuous text.

I had looked at the style tweak settings but nothing seemed to fit the bill. However when I select "Avoid Publisher Page Breaks" I get the page breaks - it's a bit counter-intuitive as I wasn't trying to avoid a break but it does what is needed for that book.

Thanks for the pointer - I did wonder if it was one of the Style tweaks settings but that one didn't fit the bill as these breaks were not ones in the books CSS (which is empty) and so what I would think of as "Publishers".

BobC

[Frenzie]

Could you be a bit more specific as to where you see this problem? Perhaps I simply missed it because the file was full of page breaks where they seemed logical to me.

The style tweak you mention does nothing but enforce our default of inserting a page break on every doc fragment:
https://github.com/koreader/crengine...ub.css#L11-L24

[BobC]

To be clear, in the test book I attached there are many doc fragments both at the beginning and throughout the book on new chapters which use Roman Numerals.

Originally the book displayed as a single continuous flow whether or not I had selected "Page" or "Continuous".

Since your suggestion if I select (tick) the style tweak "Avoid Publisher Page Breaks" I get a new page on each document fragment.

Have you tried selecting/deselecting this option while viewing a part of the book where the fragments occur ? When I do that the display shows the new page as I would expect.

Essentially this option seems to behave in the opposite sense to what I would expect from its title. This may just be my understanding of the title but essentially I agree it works. I had assumed that my problem would be solved by a combination of options, I just couldn't find the right ones, which is why I originally asked for "any thoughts" rather than saying it was a bug.

I assume you had the option selected all along - I hadn't. Is this a new option or has it been there for some time ?

The test file was constructed to show up the problem I was seeing - it's certainly not the way most of the books I read are built and I may never have come across the behaviour in normal reading, it's just my nit-picking approach to wanting to understand any inconsistencies I see that led me to dig further.

Many thanks for looking into this for me.

BobC

[Frenzie]

Which option? Avoid publisher breaks? Certainly not. As I said it overrides a publisher's stylesheet to our defaults.

Did you perhaps select "none" in the Style menu instead of… basically just about anything else?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

Which option? Avoid publisher breaks? Certainly not. As I said it overrides a publisher's stylesheet to our defaults.

Did you perhaps select "none" in the Style menu instead of… basically just about anything else?

Yes - it looks like I had a combination of options selected that was giving the problem. I was sure I had the Style set to "Auto" (as I mentioned in my original post) but when I checked it was set as "None". By selecting "Auto" everything displays correctly.

Normally I think you just can't have too many options, however if you don't understand what they all do you can really foul things up as I had clearly done.

I looked at the epub.css you referred me to and I can now see how you are getting the page breaks on each separate document fragment.

BobC