Inconsistent Spacing

[N00ter]

I have created a fairly large ePub file (5MB in size or so). The process I used was that I put the entire book together in MS Word 2011 and then exported as a filtered HTML file. I then loaded the HTML file into Calibre and converted it to ePub and mobi. The mobi file reads just fine in the eReaders that I've tried. When I load the ePub into my iPad and read it in iBooks, however, it has awkward spacing.



Any thoughts on what I could do to fix this? I'm somewhat at a loss and running out of ideas.

[Toxaris]

First of all iBooks has it quirks and strange way of working. That being said, I don't think it is your problem in this case.
If you use Word, it is good to save it as filtered HTML. However, even that file is really bloated and contains tons of unnecessary code which can cause unexpected effects in rendering on readers. Using Calibre to convert will not help you there.
If you really want to solve this, there is no solution but to clean either the ePUB or the HTML export of Word.

If you don't want to look at the code at all, download and use Atlantis Word Processor. Load your Word document in that. Check your layout and then you can save as ePUB.

[N00ter]

I will give Atlantis a try.

[N00ter]

One problem, however, is that I can't use Atlantis on my mac. Is there any mac alternative?

[WillAdams]

Set the text FLRR (flush left, ragged right).

Every ebook viewer I've seen has a greedy, one-line at a time, justification algorithm (w/ no hyphenation).

You _might_ be able to help the text by inserting discretionary hyphens into long words like ``establishmentarian'', but only one those readers which actually support such.

If you want more control than that you'll need to make an App or a .pdf.

William

[Toxaris]

I don't think justifaction is the issue, but the spacing at the location of the endnote. So, vertical spacing.

Sorry, don't know of a Mac alternative. Personally I would use my HTML-export macro from Word or a thorough cleanup in Sigil. For that basic (X)HTML/CSS knowledge is required.

[N00ter]

Is vertical spacing something I can control in Sigil? The vertical spacing in relation to the hyperlinks really does appear to be the culprit.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by N00ter

...When I load the ePub into my iPad and read it in iBooks, however, it has awkward spacing....
Any thoughts on what I could do to fix this?...

Which "awkward spacing" are you referring to??

If you are referring to the horizontal word spacing seen in the third line then there is nothing you can do other than to spec the book to use left alignment instead of justification or to use different reading software. There is nothing you can do in the book's code to change the reader's justification decisions (word spacing, letter spacing, hyphenization, and/or not justifying a problem line).

If you are referring to the vertical spacing before line five, then there are things you can do that can/may help. You can either change the superscript endnote to not be superscript or reduce it's size. The former always works to restore uniform line spacing but looses the traditional look. The latter, size reduction while retaining the superscript, works sometimes with some reading software depending on the amount of the size reduction and the abilities of the ereader.

[N00ter]

I think I'm just going to change the endnote style so that it is the same size as the rest of the text. In fact, I just did it, and it worked well. Now everything is aligned and attractive like I wanted. It's too bad the iPad doesn't allow attractive superscripts that don't mess up the vertical spacing.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

[mmat1]

Originally Posted by N00ter

One problem, however, is that I can't use Atlantis on my mac. Is there any mac alternative?

Is Open Office / Libre Office available for Mac ? If yes, there's a plugin to create an epub, no need to bother calibre.

You might try Toxaris' "Word to clean html" Export Macro (here in this forum). I can't give a guarantee, but maybe it works on a mac as well.

But some junk-code in the html is not your problem in this case.

Originally Posted by N00ter

Is vertical spacing something I can control in Sigil? The vertical spacing in relation to the hyperlinks really does appear to be the culprit.

You can control nearly any aspect of an epub with Sigil, the downside is it needs some experience with Html /Css coding. You should do what dwig mentiones to cleanup the vertical spacing.

BTW, a question to the others: Is there any "soft-hyphenation" in Html, such as Winword uses it ? A dash which can be placed inside a word and is only shown, if the word is separated at a line-end ??

[JSWolf]

Use Sigil to go in and have a look at the CSS and remove ALL instances of line-space.

[N00ter]

JSWolf, if it's a large book, is there a way to do it without going line by line?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by N00ter

JSWolf, if it's a large book, is there a way to do it without going line by line?

You don't have to go through it line-by-line if the problem is in the CSS. So just look at the CSS and remove every instance of line-height and see what happens. And if it doesn't fix things, then just search for line-height and when you see it, remove it. Then it should be fixed as fat is inconsistent line spacing.

[sellew]

I also found the same problem with ADE (in Sony PRS650). I handle it by using the 'vertical-align' property in the CSS code, setting it to:

vertical-align: text-top;

then it respects the line spacing.

To be more specific, I assign this property to the <sup> tag or to the class it is using.

[N00ter]

Every line-height: property in the ePub is set to 1.2. All of the vertical-align properties were set to middle.

Here is a new piece of information, because changing those two properties listed above haven't worked. It is the first paragraph under each new section-heading that has the tight spacing. I have examined almost the entire book and am finding very consistently that this is the case. Why would only the first paragraph after a new section heading have this tight spacing?