Aura ONE Missing Kobo Aura 1 Header? Also Footnotes

[JasperGeh]

Hey people

I recently got a Aura One and really enjoyed reading with it. When I was starting a new book, however, the header with the book title was missing, so the text stretched to the very top, there was a larger gap at the bottom of the screen, and page numbers were overlaying with the text (I figured I can switch those off in the settings). See the pictures attached.
I found that this was the case with a number of my ebooks.

I am not deep into ebook-formatting/coding and have basically no idea what to make of this. It's okay so set fonts and sizes new, but some ebooks being rendered this weird, is a bit of a turn-off. On the Kindle, they all look uniform. What's the reason here?

Similarly for footnotes. Some open as pop-ups, other just jump to the corresponding page in the Notes-section. On my old Paperwhite the same ones open as a popup. Others, which don't pop-up on the Kindle, do so on the KA1. Is there a system behind it? Unfortunately the really footnote-heavy book only opens pop-ups on my old Paperwhite...


I would really appreciate some insight into this! The KA1 is less than a week old, so I am thinking of just returning the KA1 to get another Kindle. Would miss the Pocket integration though.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JasperGeh

Hey people

I recently got a Aura One and really enjoyed reading with it. When I was starting a new book, however, the header with the book title was missing, so the text stretched to the very top, there was a larger gap at the bottom of the screen, and page numbers were overlaying with the text (I figured I can switch those off in the settings). See the pictures attached.
I found that this was the case with a number of my ebooks.

I am not deep into ebook-formatting/coding and have basically no idea what to make of this. It's okay so set fonts and sizes new, but some ebooks being rendered this weird, is a bit of a turn-off. On the Kindle, they all look uniform. What's the reason here?

Your first image is of a kepub format book but your second image is of a standard epub book. Kobos run 2 different applications for the 2 formats.

Only kepubs display the book title in the header. There are quite a few differences between the kepub app and the epub app. You will find other threads in this forum discussing the pros and cons of each. One was very recent so you shouldn't have far to look.

Books bought and sync'd directly from the Kobo bookstore servers will be in kepub format, but there are several other ways to format-shift your sideloaded books to kepub format if that is your preference. Using the Calibre ebook management software is one way but there is also a standalone kepubify utility, again, discussed elsewhere in these forums.

Originally Posted by JasperGeh

Similarly for footnotes. Some open as pop-ups, other just jump to the corresponding page in the Notes-section. On my old Paperwhite the same ones open as a popup. Others, which don't pop-up on the Kindle, do so on the KA1. Is there a system behind it? Unfortunately the really footnote-heavy book only opens pop-ups on my old Paperwhite...

Only kepubs will display footnotes as pop-ups, standard epubs (or anything else) will not. If you have a kepub which does not display footnotes as pop-ups then it is usually due to a problem with the way the footnotes have been coded in the book's internal HTML code. If this is the case I'm afraid it's only going to be fixed by opening the book in an epub editor (calibre or Sigil), rolling up the sleeves and fixing the HTML.

Edit:
I see from your other thread that you have installed KOReader. This is yet another variable to contend with in how your epubs will display. I can't offer any advice on that but hopefully you'll get some answers over there.

As you are probably discovering, Kobos offer lots of choice but finding your personal version of 'perfect' can be a bit overwhelming to start with

[JasperGeh]

Thank you very much, that was quick!
I sideloaded everything from Calibre and didn't even realise I had a mix of kepub and epub in my library. If the nicer rendering and footnotes are a kepub feature, I'll convert everything then.

And yes, I made seperate threads to distinguish between my KOReader and Kobo questions. Everything here referred to Nickel, but I hope I'll get my KOReader questions answered as well

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JasperGeh

Thank you very much, that was quick!
I sideloaded everything from Calibre and didn't even realise I had a mix of kepub and epub in my library. If the nicer rendering and footnotes are a kepub feature, I'll convert everything then.

And yes, I made seperate threads to distinguish between my KOReader and Kobo questions. Everything here referred to Nickel, but I hope I'll get my KOReader questions answered as well

Woah! Before you rush off to use calibre to do a full conversion of everything to kepub consider the following alternative. The KoboTouchExtended calibre driver will format-shift (not convert) epub to kepub on-the-fly during calibre send-to-device. Kepubs will be sent to the device but will not be stored in your calibre database - less clutter.

You should also check out the other Kobo-specific calibre plugins if you haven't already done so:
Kobo Utilities
Kepub Input
Kepub Output
Kepub Metadata Reader
Kepub Metadata Writer

[JasperGeh]

*everything I transfer, was what I meant, but I would've still converted. Format shifting sounds definitely better, thank you again
And I'll also check out the Kobo plugins. My Calibre is still pretty much set up for my Kindle.

[Mrs_Often]

Just a small addition FYI: there is a bug in the latest firmware (4.9.11311 or 4.9.11314) that affects the top margin in epubs by shifting the text up. I think what you see is this behaviour, so it is not the standard ePub view. There are a few workarounds that have been explained in other threads about the firmware (I think one is changing the reading settings if I recall correctly), but if you're planning on reading everything in kepub format it doesn't matter

[Readirect]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Woah! Before you rush off to use calibre to do a full conversion of everything to kepub consider the following alternative. The KoboTouchExtended calibre driver will format-shift (not convert) epub to kepub on-the-fly during calibre send-to-device. Kepubs will be sent to the device but will not be stored in your calibre database - less clutter.

You should also check out the other Kobo-specific calibre plugins if you haven't already done so:
Kobo Utilities
Kepub Input
Kepub Output
Kepub Metadata Reader
Kepub Metadata Writer

OR you could "unclutter" your Calibre database by keeping everything in kepub and deleting epubs. If Kobo is your only epub reader, kepub is a much better format

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Readirect

If Kobo is your only epub reader...

But, for me, it isn't, because I also want every book easily & trouble-free readable on my Android devices with my favourite epub apps.

I want my calibre master copy as the 'best archive format' available. Obviously a personal opinion but I consider that to be EPUB. Kepubs are less-than-ideal for manual editing in the calibre Editor (or Sigil) and I do a lot of this. All those KoboSpans get in the way of seeing the wood for the trees.

I've moved over to only reading kepubs on my Kobo devices these days (after eventually finding workarounds for most of the things epubs are better at) but I wouldn't want kepub to be my 'master' format.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Readirect

OR you could "unclutter" your Calibre database by keeping everything in kepub and deleting epubs. If Kobo is your only epub reader, kepub is a much better format

Whether epub or kepub is a better format is subject to quite a bit of debate. Since I'm a bit of typography lover, I find myself preferring epub. I don't read that many books with images or footnotes so tap to zoom and popup footnotes are not features I would make much use of. OTOH, ligatures and kerning are items that I find myself noticing while I am reading. Another item is that I really don't like is the header on kepubs. I seldom forget what book I am reading while I am reading it and trying to make the page look more like a physical book page is a bit silly, IMHO.

Basically, epub handles the core functions of reading such as kerning, ligatures, line spacing, justification and hyphenation better while kepub's image zoom, reading stats, annotation and popup footnotes are not necessary for the core function of reading.