Sigil on Nook vs Sigil on Kobo vs Sigil on iBook

[rosshalde]

Ok, so as I said, I am new to all this.

I have experimented a bit on found some issues.

True/False - the same epub from Sigil can and will display differently on a Nook vs on a Kobo vs on iBook

1) Kobo and Nook show no blank pages and the TOC functions perfectly.
iBook has a blank page and for some reason has the TOC reference that blank page. As a general rule, does iBook have more quirks and in general suck?

2)Here is something else I actually see. On the Kobo, it seems to respect more of my stylesheet. I inserted code to tell it to leave no empty spaces.

body, div, p, h1, h2, h3, h4 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
Kobo respects this, but still makes everything look pretty by providing nice line spacing.

Nook, did not respect the code and at the beginning of a new chapter (only) it provided a top margin. I can select in the tools area a button that says "Publisher Default" which then seems to respect the code about margins and puts the beginning of the chapter all the way at the top, but it then doesn't provide any assistance in making it look nice on the Nook. There is 0 spacing between lines so it is not nice to look at. When I try to adjust the spacing, it does, but then switches back to Nook takes control. All or nothing seems to be Nooks way of dealing with this level of control.

Suggestions? Should I just build in code in Sigil to give everything the desired line spacing? Then either the device will make it look nice, or if I use the Publisher Default, presumably it was also accept my spacing.....if so, is the code here

body, div, p, h1, h2, h3, h4 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
going to prevent me from having line spacing?
If not, what do I need to define in the css to get the desired line spacing.
If the above code will mess up line spacing, what do I need to change?
Here is my current css

sup{
font-size: 67%;
vertical-align: 33%;
}
sub{
font-size: 67%;
vertical-align: -10%;
}
p{
margin: 0px;
}
.s1{
color: #000000;
font-size: 75.0000%;
font-style: normal;
font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: 0.0000em;
margin-bottom: 0.0000%;
margin-top: 0.0000%;
padding-left: 0.0000%;
padding-right: 0.0000%;
text-align: left;
text-decoration: none;
text-indent: 0.0000%;
text-transform: none;
}
body, div, p, h1, h2, h3, h4 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }

.h1{
margin-top:0em
}
.s2{
font-weight: bold;
text-align: center;
}
.s3{
text-align: justify;
text-indent: 0%;
white-space: normal;
}
.s4{
font-size: 87.5000%;
font-weight: bold;
text-align: center;
}
.c1{
font-size: 116.6667%;
}

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by rosshalde

True/False - the same epub from Sigil can and will display differently on a Nook vs on a Kobo vs on iBook

Hmm, true. But, it has nothing to do with Sigil though. In general an ePUB can be displayed different on different readers and programs. It is a curse we have to bear. Part of the problem is that the specifications are open for different interpretations and that some things are just ignored.

Originally Posted by rosshalde

1) Kobo and Nook show no blank pages and the TOC functions perfectly.
iBook has a blank page and for some reason has the TOC reference that blank page. As a general rule, does iBook have more quirks and in general suck?

It differs per version, but I have heard a lot of issues with iBooks. They don't really support ePUB, but more iPUB. That is, Apple's idea of an ePUB. I do have to say that the current version seems to be a lot better than the older version. Issue is of course backwards compatibility.

Originally Posted by rosshalde

2)Here is something else I actually see. On the Kobo, it seems to respect more of my stylesheet. I inserted code to tell it to leave no empty spaces.

Ah yes, the curse (or blessing for others) of Publisher defaults. They can drive you bonkers. I hate it when my stylesheet is ignored, but I have seen (commercial) ePUB when it is a good thing. The quality of some stylesheets...

I would recommend making your stylesheet in such a way that it works for you. Sometimes adding !important after the rule in the stylesheet will force the reader to use it.
Most people test if their ePUB at least displays like they want with ADE (Adobe Desktop Edition), usually version 2. The reason behind it, is that a lot of standalone readers use the mobile rendering engine of Adobe.

There is no one stylesheet to have an ePUB render the same on all readers/programs. You can try to make it best as possible. There is a reason why professional e-book makers have a zillion devices on which they test the results...

[Notjohn]

I have found that a well-formatted epub from Sigil works very well on Nook and Kindle (and Kindle apps including IOS). I don't own an iPad and have never bought the iBooks version of one of my books.

Also, because of my distaste for the closed Apple universe, neither can I upload directly to Apple. I previously used Lulu for this but more recently have switched to Draft2Digital. I find that my Sigil epubs from D2D look better on my Nook device than those I uploaded directly to Nook Press, as it is called. (By "better" I mean they look as I intend them to look, and as they do look on Kindle readers.)

I upload the identical epub to the KDP and to D2D, except for an included cover in the D2D version.

You can see my style sheet at http://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com/

Oh, and I should add that I don't mess with line spacing! I use top-margin on chapter headings etc and on certain paragraph styles. The Kindle reader last year increased its line spacing to the point where it's almost 1.5. Nook is not quite so spacious, but there is certainly lots of room there, something like 12 on 15 point in a print edition.

[EowynCarter]

[QUOTE=Toxaris;2961686]Hmm, true. But, it has nothing to do with Sigil though. In general an ePUB can be displayed different on different readers and programs. It is a curse we have to bear. Part of the problem is that the specifications are open for different interpretations and that some things are just ignored.
/QUOTE]

That.
Welcome in the world of e-book making.

I never dealt with iBook myself, but i have a friend how makes e-books. And i-book usually is the subject of her rant. (And her clients demanding crazy things)

Tips : KISS (keep it simple stupid ), the simple it is, the better. You're less likely to get difference,and it's easier to find the cause of problems.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Tips : KISS (keep it simple stupid ), the simple it is, the better. You're less likely to get difference,and it's easier to find the cause of problems.

That is certainly true. I don't use drop-caps, tables, or embedded fonts in my epubs, though I am told that they work just fine.

(What convinced me about drop-caps was Amazon's changing the line spacing a year or two ago, so that a drop-cap formed per Amazon's instructions now floated forlornly next to the second indented line of text.)

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

(By "better" I mean they look as I intend them to look, and as they do look on Kindle readers.)

Dealing with clients who have come directly from enjoying themselves in an orgy of PRECISELY spacing every line of a printed version is one thing. But when writing from scratch, always think structure, not appearance.

Write your book in Word, with consistent use of paragraph and heading styles, it will convert perfectly to EPUB and then on to Kindle with a clean, clear, readable layout. Heck, if you use the Footnotes feature in Word properly, it will even translate with automatic jump-links! Drop it into InDesign, you'll get a great-looking print layout. But the more you fuss over layout in the original, the more trouble you'll have.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Write your book in Word, with consistent use of paragraph and heading styles, it will convert perfectly to EPUB and then on to Kindle with a clean, clear, readable layout. Heck, if you use the Footnotes feature in Word properly, it will even translate with automatic jump-links! Drop it into InDesign, you'll get a great-looking print layout. But the more you fuss over layout in the original, the more trouble you'll have.

Sigil doesn't import/open Word docs, does it? I put my Word docs through word2cleanhtml dot com online.

I'm told that newer iterations of Word do a better job of exporting to / saving as html, but my own version routinely turns a simple <p> into 90-100 characters, which can certainly add up in a conversation-heavy novel.

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Sigil doesn't import/open Word docs, does it? I put my Word docs through word2cleanhtml dot com online.

I'm told that newer iterations of Word do a better job of exporting to / saving as html, but my own version routinely turns a simple <p> into 90-100 characters, which can certainly add up in a conversation-heavy novel.

No, but Calibre does. Forget anything you've been told about exporting html from word, just drop a well-structured dog sex in to calibre. (I said docx of course, but I much prefer my computer's version! ☺)

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I'm told that newer iterations of Word do a better job of exporting to / saving as html,[....]

Alas, no. Word still saves the files the same. On the other hand, I directly create an ePUB in Word, so I don't mind that much.

[David Kudler]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Alas, no. Word still saves the files the same. On the other hand, I directly create an ePUB in Word, so I don't mind that much.

Say WHAT?

Also, yes, welcome to the wonderful world of ebook design.

The wonderful thing about using ADE 2.0 as your standard is that it supports basically nothing. Yippee! Vanilla for everyone!

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by David Kudler

Say WHAT?

Also, yes, welcome to the wonderful world of ebook design.

The wonderful thing about using ADE 2.0 as your standard is that it supports basically nothing. Yippee! Vanilla for everyone!

I assume your surprise is regarding creating ePUB in Word. Well, exporting a Word document as ePUB is not that hard... Just install my add-in.

[David Kudler]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I assume your surprise is regarding creating ePUB in Word. Well, exporting a Word document as ePUB is not that hard... Just install my add-in.

Ah! Thank you. Converting Word docs to clean HTML before pasting them into ePub docs has been such an annoying part of my workflow for so long. I'll have to run and check this out.

[Calenorn]

One bit of trivia from my experience using the NOOK Simple Touch:

When an epub uses <p> the NOOK overrides my css to format the parargraph in one respect, that is, if I use the css to set the paragraph indent to zero, the NOOK still indents paragraphs. Clearly the device has some internal settings that trump the css; I don't know how to change those.

I got around this by changing all the <p> tags to something else, like <standard>. When I set the properties for <standard> in the css, then the NOOK obediently omits the indentations.