Letter-spacing

[kamanza]

Is there a way to make letter-spacing work in epub?

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by kamanza

Is there a way to make letter-spacing work in epub?

Yes, just use the letter-spacing CSS.

But why do you want to use it?

I would strongly recommend against using it though, since readers of ebooks can use many different fonts/font-sizes, and it will most likely cause letters to clash into each other.

[kamanza]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

But why do you want to use it?

I only want to sometimes use it for headings. It works in Sigil and in Calibre viewer, but does not in ADE.
Apparently, I'll just have to insert spaces manually.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by kamanza

It works in Sigil, but does not in ADE.

I don't believe letter-spacing works in RMSDK (EPUB2), but it might work in EPUB3... but again, I strongly recommend against using it.

Originally Posted by kamanza

Apparently, I'll just have to insert spaces manually.

Why not just leave the text as it is?

<h2>CHAPTER 1</h2>

Trying to insert forced spaces:

<h2>C H A P T E R 1</h2>

will just cause many more issues (especially Text-to-Speech). Also see the "Accessibility Concerns" heading in the MDN link above.

[kamanza]

Thanks for replying.
I'm not formatting books for publication, I'm only prettifying them for myself & for a couple of friends, so I don't have to worry about Text-to-Speech, etc. And i like the way C H A P T E R 1 looks.

[Turtle91]

If it's just for you/friends and your devices support letter-spacing css, then it's easiest to just use that.

[Ghitulescu]

A solution would be to customise the font (change the tracking eg in FontForge / Metrics / Set both side bearings), but this implies the reading software/hardware would read and apply the correct tracking from the font (might be needed to be exported as old style for some software to work), and of course to be able to sideload them.

[Moonbase59]

My advice: If you really have to use letter-spacing (I know some old German texts that would require it),

• do use the CSS property instead of, say, non-breaking spaces or the like.
• only use relative units (like ex, em, etc.) instead of fixed units (like px).

This should at least help to avoid odd justification, searching, TTS and accessibility problems.

The letter-spacing property has been there since CSS1 (and SVG 1.1) and received a rather good reception, although it’s officially still a "recommendation", see caniuse.com. Thus, some e-readers might not have implemented it.

And of course never use it on scripts like Arabic, where some letters must stay connected.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Moonbase59

If you really have to use letter-spacing (I know some old German texts that would require it)

You only need to use this property if you want to faithfully reproduce the look of old German blackletter books.

Originally Posted by Moonbase59

And of course never use it on scripts like Arabic, where some letters must stay connected.

Actually, only six of the 28 letters don't have a distinct medial form. Besides, Arabs wouldn't use letter spacing for emphasis, because they have a special letter for lengthening words (tatweel), which looks like a hyphen.

Without tatweel: تطويل
With tatweel: تـطـويـل

[Moonbase59]

I see there is lots of knowledge here in this forum. Fantastic, I like that.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

You only need to use this property if you want to faithfully reproduce the look of old German blackletter books.

Guess what I’m just playing with… ;-) Fortunately, we nowadays have (OpenType) technology that allows stuff like switching between blackletter and Antiqua views, embedding typesetting rules, and correct searching. (I love Ulrich Zeidler’s LOV fonts, check out ligafaktur.de.) Another use might be reproducing spaced text written on a typewriter (when we still had manual typewriters) and keeping searchability intact.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Actually, only six of the 28 letters don't have a distinct medial form. Besides, Arabs wouldn't use letter spacing for emphasis, because they have a special letter for lengthening words (tatweel), which looks like a hyphen.

Without tatweel: تطويل
With tatweel: تـطـويـل

A real interesting excursus into Arabic, appreciated!

[Jellby]

Check http://unifraktur.sourceforge.net/letterspacing.html too, if you don't know it.

[Moonbase59]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Check http://unifraktur.sourceforge.net/letterspacing.html too, if you don't know it.

Cheers for the reminder, totally forgot about that page. Playing around, I promptly found a bug (I suppose it is with the LOV fonts, but not 100% sure): The "automatic" doesn’t cope with spacing correctly (check marked words, correct typesetting in parenthesis).

Tested this using Calibre Reader 5.34, Thorium 1.8.0, Foliate 2.6.4.

Test EPUB included, just in case someone wants to try. (Needs "publisher’s settings" or at least "publisher font" to render correctly.) See also my post in the E-Reader Forum (German).

[Ghitulescu]

So, what is the solution to use in an ePub2.01 if one needs to replicate an old fraktur text?
These use spacing as emphasis and (rarely) bold. There are extremely few (fraktur, blackletters) that have more than one weight.

EDIT: I mean, letter spacing is not mandatory for epub, and all examples I have found so far are actually for html/internet.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

So, what is the solution to use in an ePub2.01 if one needs to replicate an old fraktur text?

I used   for ADE 2.0.1 and letter-spacing: 0.25em; for all other readers.
For an example, see this book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

I used   for ADE 2.0.1 and letter-spacing: 0.25em; for all other readers.
For an example, see this book.

If you want, you can also use   (thin space) instead of a full space.