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Old 05-11-2012, 12:57 PM   #1
MacEachaidh
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Help please with dropcap/font issue

I'm having a problem with a commercial epub file that's formatted with embedded fonts and a dropped cap at the start of every chapter. Neither is showing up on my Touch, which is running the latest firmware with no hacks or customisations, and I can't figure out why.

Because I'm trying to learn HTML/CSS formatting for epub (and also because I want it to work!), I'd be grateful if anyone has any insight into why this file won't display as designed on my KT.

It works fine on my Win7 PC in both ADE and the latest version of Sigil. But on my KT, I can't get the embedded fonts to show up, no matter what font setting I choose (even after I copied the fonts in question into a fonts folder on the KT), and the dropped cap shows up with the spacing as dictated in the CSS, but the cap itself appears unbolded and the same size as the regular body text.

I've attached a drastically cut-down copy of the book in question, with the fonts and CSS included, just the opening page of the first chapter that uses a dropped cap, and all but the necessary graphics removed. I'd be grateful for any observations people can make as to why this isn't working on my Kobo.

Thanks!

(p.s. Not relevant to my enquiry, but:
The book in question is "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer, a first-hand account of a terrible day in May 1996, when disaster descended onto four separate expedition teams at or near the summit of Mount Everest, killing a dozen climbers. Tragic story, but I thoroughly recommend it for a gripping real-life read and a cautionary tale on the perils of hubris and taking Nature for granted.)
Attached Files
File Type: epub Dropcap sample.epub (1.52 MB, 157 views)
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Old 05-11-2012, 01:43 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MacEachaidh View Post
the dropped cap shows up with the spacing as dictated in the CSS, but the cap itself appears unbolded and the same size as the regular body text.
It doesn't work for me either, but note that the dropcaps style has an absolute size for font-size. That really is not correct if you are going to be changing overall font-size in the document. I changed it to 400% and then it worked just fine on the Kobo. I didn't look into the issue of font-weight but prima facie I don't see where it is set to bold, so that should be easily fixable as well.
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Old 05-11-2012, 02:07 PM   #3
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Thanks for looking at it, BB.

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Originally Posted by BensonBear View Post
It doesn't work for me either, but note that the dropcaps style has an absolute size for font-size. That really is not correct if you are going to be changing overall font-size in the document. I changed it to 400% and then it worked just fine on the Kobo.
Ahh, OK, that's helpful. So, for my own learning: it's better to use, say, percentages or em measurements than font sizes in points? I can see how that makes sense.

Thanks again!


(I've got a couple of teach-yourself books on HTML and CSS generically, but does anyone know of any that deal with how these are applied specifically to ebooks?)

Last edited by MacEachaidh; 05-11-2012 at 02:09 PM.
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Old 05-11-2012, 02:19 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by MacEachaidh View Post
Ahh, OK, that's helpful. So, for my own learning: it's better to use, say, percentages or em measurements than font sizes in points? I can see how that makes sense.
I really don't know, I have not studied these issues of typesetting, but indeed it seems only logical that one would set some base sizes (ideally, just one) and then define other sizes in terms of those sizes. I suspect a lot of renderers can figure out what a person wants even if it is not done this way, but looks like the Kobo renderer fails. You will have to adjust the other absolute measures as well, most likely (such as line height).

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(I've got a couple of teach-yourself books on HTML and CSS generically, but does anyone know of any that deal with how these are applied specifically to ebooks?)
Offhand, can't imagine why there would be much difference. More likely it is just that Kobo and/or other renderers do not do exactly the same thing, because there are lots of complicated little gotcha's all over the place. It's well known that browsers do not do the same thing with the same css or html.
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Old 05-11-2012, 05:51 PM   #5
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