Got E-Ink, Want E-Paper : Background Textures on EPub

[gmw]

Hi All,

(Not sure where to put this, so starting here since I was doing it on a Sony Reader.)

I was experimenting today: I thought I'd try to load a background "texture" image via the css of one of my epubs (why? see below). I found some textures that looked okay on the computer screen (see here, choose textures and then stationery). I altered an epub and loaded it onto my Sony 650 ... and the result was awful. It was like someone had spilt e-ink all over the screen. And when I closed the disaster of an ebook the reader appeared to restart itself - as if powering on from scratch, no other books or bookmarks were lost but the restarted device did not register having opened by the new disastrous epub (which I then deleted as useless).

Does anyone know if background images are possible/supported? (Either by epub and/or by Sony Readers - perhaps using some other format.)

Perhaps it is just a matter of using the right sort of background image, if so, does anyone know what is the "right" sort.


Why would anyone want to do this? Because it's there! ... No, more seriously, I've already mentioned on another thread that it's probably time I got my eyes/glasses checked (and I'm going to do it, any day (or week) now), and I am hoping that after that I will be more comfortable with my reader. That said; There is little doubt now that I find the reader harder on my eyes (even using the too-large medium font) than reading a paper book. I seem to get tired faster, it's as if my eyes have trouble focusing at the right distance, and when I looked at the background, the "white" screen, it occurred to me that it was innately difficult to focus on; that it was almost like the words were sitting in the air rather than on a surface. So, thought I: lets solve the problem by presenting a textured surface beneath text. At the very worst it would prove or disprove my theory ... or so I thought. As it turns out, the worst was that it didn't work and that it seemed to upset the reader. But hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

[tpw]

Since ePubs are basically glorified HTML pages I would have thought the appropriate background css style would have worked. Can you post the lines you used in the style file?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by tpw

Since ePubs are basically glorified HTML pages I would have thought the appropriate background css style would have worked. Can you post the lines you used in the style file?

body {
text-align: justify;
background: url(chimage.jpg);
}

The text-align was already in there, I just added the background.

The file I experimented with was "Pride and Prejudice" off the Project Gutenberg website - etext# 1342. In the epub file from that site there are three .css files, the above change was made in 0.css and the result tested successfully in a normal browser before zipping, renaming back to epub and then installing into Calibre and from there to the reader.

The image file is from the right side of the first row of "stationery 1" on the link in the OP (called weep4 on the site but saves as chimage).

I wondered if that image may be too dark so I also experimented with an edited version - one that I washed out in The Gimp to almost white. But even that very faded file made everything completely unreadable - even the most faded grays seem to be being drawn by the reader as black. (I was going to attach a copy but the images on that site are not public-domain as such.)

This was something that I thought my limited html/css skills where up to ... and I do think I got it all right (certainly it works in a browser and the final epub works as intended/expected in the Calibre viewer).

[natasha_fawn]

I just have to say, even if it didn't work as hoped on the reader, I think this is a really clever idea.

You need to check the ePub groups to find the CSS that is supported in ePubs. I suspect it is only a subset of CSS as some of it would not be used in ebooks.

As far as using a background in an ebook on an eInk reader I would say that it would not work well even if supported. Even the new Pearl eInk screens only support 16 levels of gray, so most background textures would just clutter the screen and make it difficult to read. It might work for a screen that supports 256 colors, but not a 16 grayscale.

[gmw]

Urged on by the compliment of being called clever (thank you Natasha), and the question of whether the display was capable of such a feat (thank you Jack), I took my experiment to the next step. From within Firefox I did a print to my pdfcreator printer and tried the result on my reader. Attached are the results. (Excuse the less than sharp images but even my camera seems to have some difficulty focusing on the screen - and the zoom and proximity means a tiny depth of field.) From left-to-right:

• p1-epub-plain shows an epub with no background, medium font.
• p2-epub-pale shows the same epub with a very very pale background, also medium font in case you were wondering.
• p3-pdf-pale shows the result of the same pale background epub printed (on the computer) to pdf.
• p4-pdf-dark shows the result of the same epub printed to pdf but using the original (darker) background image.

I think the last shows promise ... although perhaps some level between the pale and the dark would be best.

I think the images demonstrate that the reader screen is capable of showing a page background, so any shortfall from epub must be in the viewer software (or standard) I should think. It is nice to see that it's not a hardware limitation.

As to whether a "paper" background will aid focus/reading in any way ... the proof will be in the reading. Maybe my next book I will try to prepare the full text using pdf.

(One thing I like about pdf is the ability to specify a font size in between the too-small "small" and the too-large "medium" available by default, but of course the downside is not being able to change it without reproducing the pdf).

[elcreative]

A lot of the impressions concerning contrast, clarity , fatigue etc are basically in the eye of the beholder. I hope this works for you, personally I love the clarity and difference between type and background without the eye-straining light from an LCD... which also illustrates the personal argument as we've already been told that some people don't get eyestrain from LCDs (well lucky them, most of us do). What a lot of didacts forget to take into account is a simple fact... there are an incredible variety of eye states and ages amongst us which considerably affect how each individual views a screen of whatever type and layout.

@gmw, You've got a lot to learn about ebooks and readers. I personally think a background image will make the reading horrible on the eyes of most, but it might work for you. And why in the world would you want to use PDF, EVER. You can change the font sizes for ePubs via the CSS or using calibre.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by jswinden

@gmw, You've got a lot to learn about ebooks and readers. I personally think a background image will make the reading horrible on the eyes of most, but it might work for you. And why in the world would you want to use PDF, EVER. You can change the font sizes for ePubs via the CSS or using calibre.

I certainly do have a lot to learn - which is why I have spent as much time as I have experimenting with the device (believe it or not I do actually have other things I could be doing). Whether the background image will help or hinder ... well I wont know unless I try it.

Why would I use PDF? I can think of various reasons:

• It is a much more mature technology and there are many tools available to dealing with PDFs, whereas epub is recent - and while it may be based on xhtml is obviously not mature yet, as the shortcomings in the epub viewing software amply demonstrate.
  
  (The following reasons are possibly just consequences of the first one...)
  
• I can create PDFs easily using a "printer" on my computer, printing to a 9cm by 12cm page produces PDF documents ready to go on the reader - and this can be done from any application, I don't have to be an xhtml/css expert to do it.
  
• If I should want, I can produce documents with a fixed appearance - something that is predictable regardless of the screen/device.
  
• I am familiar with working with PDFs
  
• I have read that others here have found more success with PDFs than with other formats, perhaps for some of the reasons I state here.

All that said: Yes, I can certainly see the potential advantages of the epub format, and it was my first choice. However, as I've already noted here and elsewhere, the reader produces a "small" that is too small and a "medium" that is too large - for my preferences. You are right, I could go into Calibre and produce a CSS that fixes the font to a specific size, but then that rather defeats one of the big reasons for using epub. Once the technology matures a bit more I expect epub will be quite good and believe it is probably "the one to watch" with regard to novels and such on readers.

But I do believe that PDF has it's place, even on ebook readers, I do not think it appropriate to be as dismissive of that technology as your post seemed to suggest.