Reset CSS in ebooks?

[JSWolf]

You cannot use a reset.css to change the formatting of a given eBook. You would have to know the classes used in the eBooks and set them up appropriately. Sure, you can guess and maybe get it partially correct. But if you don't, it could look worse. The best thing to do is to look at the XML to see the used classes and then edit the CSS to do it the way you want. In most cases, it's not that difficult.

[DiapDealer]

Also, in the case of a reset.css for the web, the differences between all the various browsers are fairly well known/documented. Not so for the various reading devices/apps. You don't know what you don't know. A reader might be able to come up with a basic "reset" css for their own device; but then again... I think most people who create a lot of ebooks (or tweak a lot of their own) already do this. They just naturally develop their own template, or css style—which might prove quite useless to anyone else.

[JSWolf]

What I do is take CSS code I might use and put it in a separate text file. Then if I'm editing an ePub, I can copy the already made code.

The best thing to do is create a reset.css and use that as the template. Then copy from it as needed to fix up the ePub. Then you'll make sure you have the correct classes. if your reset.css has a class called noindent and the ePub you are working on has the same class called nonindent, you can easily fix things. But if you were to replace the existing CSS with your reset CSS, every instance of nonindent would fail to render properly.

[mzmm]

the only time i've actually found it useful to include a reset.css was for fixed layout epubs (for iOS), and even then i've only used it ever to obliterate the padding and margins for block elements. it's rudimentary, but i was using something like

html,body,div,img,p,a,ul,li {margin:0;padding:0;}

started using originally because i was looking for a way to reset the default margins on the iOS. if OP's looking for a really comprehensive reset, there's no reason not just to grab one from wp or similar.

[SusanM]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

It's a term from web designers - it's called 'reset' because by including it you were 'resetting' the styles that were different between different browsers to a common set of stylings, however it's come to be a basic template that designers then elaborate on.

Google came up with this as a history primer which looks close to right:
http://sixrevisions.com/css/the-history-of-css-resets/

I don't know think there's an equivalent for ePub rendering space, because as the OP is starting to realize, nobody's really considered this. Likely because the various renderers (even those using the same rendering engine) vary so widely in what they do, and we (the vendors) haven't published much information about what we are doing. As a for instance if you look at the same EPUB on a Nook Color, a Sony T1, and in ADE 1.8 - you will find all three different renderings:

1.) Unless the font is embedded - the font used will be different (and even then it may be overridden on the NC)
2.) EInk vs Color makes a big difference, that the browser reset CSS authors haven't thought about.
2.) Linespacing,font size, margin and other override settings are available on the T1 and NC, but not in ADE (well font size is).

Jim,

This is really useful information, thanks.

[SusanM]

I am just testing out InDesign CS6 and it automatically includes a streamlined CSS reset when exported to ePub. This is the code:

body, div, dl, dt, dd, ul, ol, li, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, pre, code, blockquote {
margin:0;
padding:0;
border-width:0;
}
td, th {
border-style:solid;
border-width:1px;
}
table {
border-collapse:collapse;
}
li {
display:block;
}

I have also seen this reset code in ePubs:

html, body, div, span, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6,
p, blockquote, ol, ul, li, pre, a, cite, code, del,
dfn, em, font, img, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub,
sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, dl, dt, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background: transparent; }

Yes, it doesn't work on all readers (engines), but it does make a difference on quite a few, especially if you start using background images on headers, etc. and use the second example. My view is it makes the "playing field" more predictable!

[DiapDealer]

I rarely (if ever) leave anything unstyled in my ePubs anyway, so a reset seems like a waste of time (strictly speaking for myself). But I can see how they might be handy for someone who isn't going to take the hands-on, build-every-ePub-from-scratch approach.

[SusanM]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I rarely (if ever) leave anything unstyled in my ePubs anyway, so a reset seems like a waste of time (strictly speaking for myself). But I can see how they might be handy for someone who isn't going to take the hands-on, build-every-ePub-from-scratch approach.

Do you work from Word or from HTML, InDesign?