How to change font size and font style?

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by theducks

all you need is to add a 'fall-back' name(s) to the list. If the font is not on your device, the next will be tried (Ariel is a sans-serif family of fonts)

as a learning point can you give an example chunk of css for that please, I'm OK with just deleting the explicit font names but am open to learning smarter tricks.

I am suprised that sony reader can't make an intelligent substitution for ariel italic , unaided, as that's a common microsoft font

[theducks]

Originally Posted by cybmole

as a learning point can you give an example chunk of css for that please, I'm OK with just deleting the explicit font names but am open to learning smarter tricks.

I am suprised that sony reader can't make an intelligent substitution for ariel italic , unaided, as that's a common microsoft font

  font-family: "Century Schoolbook", "Times New Roman", serif;

the device would have to 'guess' a lot

Note the last is a "generic" family that should have worked on your device if it was set in the style.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

That is how you got 'Many styles' in the first place
Word processors tend to make trashy conversions

There is no reason a simple book should have more than 10 styles.

Body
cover style
titlepage style
Chapter title block style
First Paragraph (optional), dropcap (optional)
regular paragraphs (can be default body stle. so redundent
scene break style
fine-print style (copyright, raves)

Most CSS I see in publisher ePub is basically a catchall. They just toss in everything so they can use the same CSS for all their books and it is a mess.

[Matt Butts]

I find it's best to just default to the e-reader's fonts, which you can do by using generic font names (serif, sans-serif, and monospace) and relative point sizes.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most CSS I see in publisher ePub is basically a catchall. They just toss in everything so they can use the same CSS for all their books and it is a mess.

That is why there is the 'Delete Unused Styles' feature; 2500 lines => 300 (which is still overkill, since many really duplicate others in attributes. It must be the KISfS thinking: 'You must use the Copyright styles only on the copyright page'.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by theducks

That is why there is the 'Delete Unused Styles' feature; 2500 lines => 300 (which is still overkill, since many really duplicate others in attributes. It must be the KISfS thinking: 'You must use the Copyright styles only on the copyright page'.

Ducks:

Usually, it's something minor in the reader's view--for example, vertical space before or after, or a paragraph that's flush left, but needs space before/after, like a Copyright page. The usual "no-indent" style paragraph used in the body of the book generally won't have vertical space after, for example--so you can do it the lazy way (blank/empty paragraphs with an nbsp) or you can do it with a style.

At our shop, we do use named styles for these types of instances, because it's simply cleaner coding. It's not really OCD...it's just easier. If the client comes back and says, "oh, gosh, I meant to say, I wanted all those lines on the copyright page centered," and you've used a style that was used for the first para of each chapter, plus an empty para, you can't simply edit the style--you have to make a new one, regex the copyright page, etc. Simply saves time in the long run, and of course, we do have a House stylesheet.

Have I ever used a perceptibly-empty paragraph, due to tiredness, frustration, whatever? Oh, yes. More than I'd like to admit. (And I live in dread of getting caught by my Crews, who have had the lecture often!). But seriously, it's not "correctness" thinking...it's just faster in the long term. It's decidedly not faster in the original coding, but I can truthfully say we get a lot (a lotta lotta) books with formatting elements strewn liberally throughout--emails, facebook posts, Tweets, notes to friends, newspaper clippings...those can really drive up your CSS style count.

Hitch