epub vs kepub

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Thank you, I'll look into the other options

In case it helps, I believe the Patcher should work on your Dropbox-downloaded books however the KOBOTOUCH Modify CSS option wouldn't.

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

It's possible Josieb1 isn't using GeoffR's patch, but only adding the lines to her reader to get the check box to show in the settings.

But if you use GeoffR's patch and set it up correctly, you can set the spacing to whatever you want to get minimal space both at the top and bottom of the page, you really take advantage of full screen use with it with epubs with his patch.

I love the 11/441 for pages in your image! How did you accomplish that? Thanks for posting it.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by pghaworth

I love the 11/441 for pages in your image! How did you accomplish that? Thanks for posting it.

From the 2nd post in GeoffR's patch thread, under "Other Patches" where it says "A patch to change the footer text, from "Page xx of yy" to "xx/yy": (libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch)" will show another link for what you add into GeoffR's patch.

What I changed it to is the the display I prefer is:

<Patch>
patch_name = `Custom footer`
patch_enable = `yes`
#
# Changes the footer text with something shorter
# (not sure how it affects translations)
#
replace_string = CAA164, `Page %1 <i>of</i> %2`, `%1 / %2`
</Patch>

Note that I added a space before and after the / for the page numbers. For my bad eyes and the font, it was just too scrunched together. The extra spacing makes it easier for me to read.

[anacreon]

I very much prefer kepubs:
* for all books the page looks better to me with a header and footer, whether the screen is 6" or 6.8" - but this is obviously subjective
* annotated books don't work well with epubs on kobo (they were okay with sony)
* the zoom possibilities for pictures are convenient
* the page number by chapter felt strange at first, but I wouldn't go back to the page number by books. This is especially true for complete works, or collections of short stories, and I jump page for each poem in poetry collections. If I want to know where I am in the whole book, I tap bottom centre to get the % top centre. Also I add the number of pages as a first line in the metadatas to have the information at hand.

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

From the 2nd post in GeoffR's patch thread, under "Other Patches" where it says "A patch to change the footer text, from "Page xx of yy" to "xx/yy": (libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch)" will show another link for what you add into GeoffR's patch.

What I changed it to is the the display I prefer is:

<Patch>
patch_name = `Custom footer`
patch_enable = `yes`
#
# Changes the footer text with something shorter
# (not sure how it affects translations)
#
replace_string = CAA164, `Page %1 <i>of</i> %2`, `%1 / %2`
</Patch>

Note that I added a space before and after the / for the page numbers. For my bad eyes and the font, it was just too scrunched together. The extra spacing makes it easier for me to read.

I would want the space before and after the / also. I am used to displaying things this way from my cost accounting / job costing work. Clarifies things very nicely. Thank you for taking the time to explain so fully. Absolutely perfect for me.

ETA - is it also possible to right justify the x / xx, or is the middle the only option?

[arspr]

Originally Posted by Jellby

When I tried (in 3.5.0, I believe), I was disappointed by kepub, it didn't keep some of the formatting of by epub (I just renamed the .epub to .kepub.epub), I mean things like centered headings, pagebreaks...

It's probably just the way the user's preferencences (justification, font, etc.) are applied on top of the book's CSS, but I have learnt how to deal with ADE, I don't want to learn to deal with something different now.

I don't follow you.

First of all. Do not convert epubs into kepubs by simply renaming them. Some other modifications should be made (IIRC a lot of <span>s are inserted in order to make annotations work fine).

Secondly. GUI settings are "usually" applied over the book's CSS in both formats. Unless I'm fully wrong there's no difference in the behaviour of both renderers.
I mean this is true for font type, where your GUI setting will override any of the internal book settings. But in font size it will only change the base size, so fonts in em units would be updated but fonts in pt units won't in both cases, epubs and kepubs...

Third. Text alignment should perfectly work in kepubs. I've never found one issue about it.

Buuuut, yes, page-break-whatever properties DON'T work in kepubs who knows because of what design criteria . So yes, some forced (or avoided) page breaks will be absolutely ignored in kepubs...

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by pghaworth

I would want the space before and after the / also. I am used to displaying things this way from my cost accounting / job costing work. Clarifies things very nicely. Thank you for taking the time to explain so fully. Absolutely perfect for me.

ETA - is it also possible to right justify the x / xx, or is the middle the only option?

I would ask that question in GeoffR's patch thread, it's quite active, especially after a new firmware version is released. He's the genius behind the patch, if it's possible, he would know.

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I would ask that question in GeoffR's patch thread, it's quite active, especially after a new firmware version is released. He's the genius behind the patch, if it's possible, he would know.

Thank you again. I intend to do that, was just curious if you knew off-hand.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by arspr

Third. Text alignment should perfectly work in kepubs. I've never found one issue about it.

Like Jellby, in the past I also experienced epub centred text and images not being centred when converted to kepub. On thinking about it a bit more I think my problem must have been that I mistakenly had the Kobo font settings Justification option set to Justify when I should have had it set to Off (i.e. don't overwrite any text alignment in the book).

Just a personal opinion but I think the Kobo justification override should only attempt to override text-align settings of left or justify and always leave alone settings of center or right.

[duncann]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

From the 2nd post in GeoffR's patch thread, under "Other Patches" where it says "A patch to change the footer text, from "Page xx of yy" to "xx/yy": (libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch)" will show another link for what you add into GeoffR's patch.

What I changed it to is the the display I prefer is:

<Patch>
patch_name = `Custom footer`
patch_enable = `yes`
#
# Changes the footer text with something shorter
# (not sure how it affects translations)
#
replace_string = CAA164, `Page %1 <i>of</i> %2`, `%1 / %2`
</Patch>

Note that I added a space before and after the / for the page numbers. For my bad eyes and the font, it was just too scrunched together. The extra spacing makes it easier for me to read.

Just a note about this patch. I used this with version 3.11 and one day, out of the blue, the sleep image had a white top margin of around 10 pixels. I couldn't figure out what was causing it and even did a factory reset, which got me to 3.7 and back to a properly stretched sleep image. Updated to 3.11 and used the above patch again, but I made the replacement string

"%1 / %2"

the same length as the original.

"     %1/%2     "

Haven't had a problem yet. I suspect that might have been the cause because I remember reading about keeping the patch replacement strings the same length as the originals.

Another oddity was sometimes the page numbers where huge and even partly cut off by the bezel. Haven't had that problem either.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Like Jellby, in the past I also experienced epub centred text and images not being centred when converted to kepub. On thinking about it a bit more I think my problem must have been that I mistakenly had the Kobo font settings Justification option set to Justify when I should have had it set to Off (i.e. don't overwrite any text alignment in the book).

Just a personal opinion but I think the Kobo justification override should only attempt to override text-align settings of left or justify and always leave alone settings of center or right.

That's one of the issues I dislike about kepubs as well. But even when I purchase a kepub from Kobo, it still had everything aligned left and not centered, so I really don't think it's from converting epub to kepub. I think if you select justified text in the settings, it overrides everything as you said and not just the main body of text.

But I also dislike the wasted space at the top and bottom, I don't want a top header while I'm reading, I can remember the name of the book. And using page numbers for chapters only isn't anything I'd ever want to use.

Originally Posted by duncann

Just a note about this patch. I used this with version 3.11 and one day, out of the blue, the sleep image had a white top margin of around 10 pixels. I couldn't figure out what was causing it and even did a factory reset, which got me to 3.7 and back to a properly stretched sleep image. Updated to 3.11 and used the above patch again, but I made the replacement string

"%1 / %2"

the same length as the original.

"     %1/%2     "

Haven't had a problem yet. I suspect that might have been the cause because I remember reading about keeping the patch replacement strings the same length as the originals.

Another oddity was sometimes the page numbers where huge and even partly cut off by the bezel. Haven't had that problem either.

You should post this info in GeoffR's thread for the patch. How I think it works is if your spacing is off, only that one section is affected, so you might screw up the bottom footer only, or the patch just doesn't take. I've been using his patch including the custom footer on 2 readers and haven't had any issues. But again, I'd post in his thread to be sure.

If you select a different font for the page numbers, the spacing will be different. When I deselected Avenir that I preferred just to test something else, the bottom half of the default text was cut off. It's just a matter of changing the numbers for the padding, but it will be different for different fonts apparently.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by arspr

First of all. Do not convert epubs into kepubs by simply renaming them. Some other modifications should be made (IIRC a lot of <span>s are inserted in order to make annotations work fine).

OK, I was not really testing kepub vs. epub, but the Kobo renderer vs. the Adobe one. I create most of the epubs I read from scratch, and I want control on the code, I don't want tons of meaningless <span>s, thank you, I will stay with the "pure" epub format.

Secondly. GUI settings are "usually" applied over the book's CSS in both formats. Unless I'm fully wrong there's no difference in the behaviour of both renderers.

This was only a guess. But what I mean is that when the user selects "justify", the reader could apply it (on top of the book's CSS) in different ways. A possible way is adding an implicit "body { text-align: justify }" rule. Another way is a "* { text-align; justify !important }" rule, and yet another is ".normal-text { text-align; justify }". The first would be my preferred one, the second overrides some alignment which is not meant to be overriden, the third requires the class "normal-text" to be used in the code. I don't know which are the chosen ones in the different renderers, but it seems to me they are different, and I'm used to work with ADE's one.

Third. Text alignment should perfectly work in kepubs. I've never found one issue about it.

If/when I test again, I'll give a more detailed report on what I don't like.

If you are interested, could you try this test?

[tshering]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I create most of the epubs I read from scratch, and I want control on the code, I don't want tons of meaningless <span>s, thank you, I will stay with the "pure" epub format.

Those meaningless <span>s are a very convenient way to identify an exact position without the need to walk through the DOM tree.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Jellby

This was only a guess. But what I mean is that when the user selects "justify", the reader could apply it (on top of the book's CSS) in different ways. A possible way is adding an implicit "body { text-align: justify }" rule. Another way is a "* { text-align; justify !important }" rule, and yet another is ".normal-text { text-align; justify }". The first would be my preferred one, the second overrides some alignment which is not meant to be overriden, the third requires the class "normal-text" to be used in the code. I don't know which are the chosen ones in the different renderers, but it seems to me they are different, and I'm used to work with ADE's one.

Yes, the justify button works differently for kepubs than for epubs: for kepubs it overrides the alignment for div and p; for epubs only body.

This means that using the justification settings on the device will cause a lot of things that remain centred in epubs to be justified in kepubs.

[ElWorm]

Hi, I just received my Kobo H2O two days ago. I side-loaded a book in epub format via Calibre and started reading. This book had an illustration that was very small and I could find no way to enlarge it. I was also disappointed in the speed of the pages turning. I was beginning to wonder if I had made the wrong choice and should have gotten the Voyage.
After reading this thread I installed the Kobo Touch Extended Driver plug-in for Calibre, deleted the book from my Kobo and re-installed it.
What a difference!
I could now enlarge the illustration. Pages are turning noticeably faster. I no longer feel as though I made the wrong choice. I think kepub is better than epub, at least for this book.
Thanks, fellow forum users!