Clara HD Default font size, line spacing and margins

[hobbit87]

Hi there! My first post

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Kobo and all in all I'm very happy with it. So far I've been sideloading epubs via Calibre. I'm new to eReaders, epubs and Calibre.. but have been getting along just fine. I have a list of Calibre plugins to try at some point, but so far just a vanilla Calibre experience.

There is something I don't quite understand. I'm currently reading a free epub that I downloaded from the internet (no DRM). Without having changed any settings on my Kobo from their defaults, I get 14 lines of text in quite a large font and a fair bit of whitespace in margins for the book I'm presently reading. In Calibre when reading the same book, on the same page, it displays 29 lines of text in a smaller font. I don't think I'd have thought much of it, but I connected the device to to OverDrive and the text for those books makes better use of the Kobo Clara 6" screen. Also if I look at a preview whilst in the Kobo store it also maximises the 6" screen space. So books via Kobo store and OverDrive seem to render better.

What is causing the sideloaded epub to display this way? I've tried some other epubs I have downloaded and they seem to render in a similar way. Much more whitespace above and below the text, large font and bit padding in the margins.

What do other Kobo users do? Is there some setting that needs changing?

Many thanks!

[codychan]

You didn't mention the formats on you device, epub or .keub.epub.

But I haver two suggestions
1. It is better to convert other ebooks like epub or mobi to .kepub.epub
2. You can manually edit epub ebook using calibre to control the text style such as font family, font weight, line height and all those spaces.

[hobbit87]

.epub. I have some .mobi but for some reason Calibre converts those before sending to the device even though the support pages for it state it supports .mobi. The same books render just fine when reading in Calibre, so it seems it’s the device that does something to it? If I manually edit the book, I’d need to do that for each book?

[hobnail]

My guess would be that it's the book's CSS. Some are paying more attention to it and some are paying less attention to it.

One way to try and "normalize" the book would be to use calibre to convert it, from EPUB to EPUB. Calibre "deconstructs" the book into XML and then reconstructs that XML into EPUB. In calibre's convert dialog box adjust the settings in the Look & Feel pane; in the Fonts tab I have the base font size set to 0pt, minimum line height at 0%, and line height at 0pt. In the Styling tab I have all of the boxes checked (Fonts, Margins, etc.). In the Page Setup pane I've selected Tablet for the output profile and Default profile for the input profile, and margins are all set to 0pt.

This conversion process will rename your epub, e.g., from book.epub to book.original_epub so you might want to copy it to your desktop before you do the conversion.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by hobbit87

.epub. I have some .mobi but for some reason Calibre converts those before sending to the device even though the support pages for it state it supports .mobi. The same books render just fine when reading in Calibre, so it seems it’s the device that does something to it? If I manually edit the book, I’d need to do that for each book?

I've found that converting .mobi books to AZW and then to ePub makes better ePubs. I don't anything about manipulating the CSS.

[codychan]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I've found that converting .mobi books to AZW and then to ePub makes better ePubs. I don't anything about manipulating the CSS.

Personally I don't rely on the conversion for better styles, mostly of time, If I found the book on my device has some style issue, I would edit the azw3 or epub (html+css)manually using calibre and resend it to my Kobo device.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by codychan

Personally I don't rely on the conversion for better styles, mostly of time, If I found the book on my device has some style issue, I would edit the azw3 or epub (html+css)manually using calibre and resend it to my Kobo device.

Yeah, but that would take time and effort to learn... and I'm lazy. I don't have to do this very often, only when an eBook is terribly formatted. If my Kobo won't change the line width for a particular ePub, I just read it in another eReader, a different brand that's not quite as particular.

[John F]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Yeah, but that would take time and effort to learn... and I'm lazy. I don't have to do this very often, only when an eBook is terribly formatted. If my Kobo won't change the line width for a particular ePub, I just read it in another eReader, a different brand that's not quite as particular.

I'm very similar. I do no editing for formatting, and use conversion.

I don't recall the last time I couldn't change font size, line spacing, or margins. This is for epubs. And I'm patching.

[hobbit87]

Is it common/typical that a public domain epub downloaded from the internet may require conversion/CSS overriding to display/format correctly on the device?

Would this issue go away if I use the TouchExtended plugin and use kepub ?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by hobbit87

Is it common/typical that a public domain epub downloaded from the internet may require conversion/CSS overriding to display/format correctly on the device?

Would this issue go away if I use the TouchExtended plugin and use kepub ?

If you open the ePub with Sigil or Calibre's Edit Book, you will find a stylesheet. That stylesheet can (but doesn't always) specify things like font size and line spacing. All ePubs have stylesheets and they are only as good as the person producing the book. The book you downloaded may have some weird padding on the line height or the font size.

Some renderers pay more attention to the rules in the stylesheet than others. That likely explains why the book looks okay some places (the Calibre display), but other places it doesn't look as good (I believe the Kobo renderer pays very close attention to book styles).

The reason people are trying to have you convert the book is to see if the conversion process dumps those bad instructions.

Another experiment you could try is downloading the same book from another source. Public domian ebooks are put together by different groups of volunteers. The book won't be exactly the same as different volunteers follow different styles. The differing editions of the same book will likely look better to you.

I don't know where you got your book from, but for public domain books, you might try Standard eBooks, The Faded Page or even here at Mobileread.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't know where you got your book from, but for public domain books, you might try Standard eBooks, The Faded Page or even here at Mobileread.

I've had good luck with Feedbooks

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

If you open the ePub with Sigil or Calibre's Edit Book, you will find a stylesheet. That stylesheet can (but doesn't always) specify things like font size and line spacing. All ePubs have stylesheets and they are only as good as the person producing the book. The book you downloaded may have some weird padding on the line height or the font size.

Wait until you run into an epub that uses inline styles instead of stylesheets. For me, that's where the RemoveInlineStyles plugin for Sigil can become a great timesaver. One recent epub I edited had 47 stylesheets, all 47 contained one item that set the size of the page in pixels with all other styles being done inline. Barf!

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Wait until you run into an epub that uses inline styles instead of stylesheets. For me, that's where the RemoveInlineStyles plugin for Sigil can become a great timesaver. One recent epub I edited had 47 stylesheets, all 47 contained one item that set the size of the page in pixels with all other styles being done inline. Barf!

I wish we had a thread where we could list our nightmares in ebooks. I recently had one where every punctuation, including single and double quotes and apostrophes, had a span around it to make it bold.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by hobnail

I wish we had a thread where we could list our nightmares in ebooks. I recently had one where every punctuation, including single and double quotes and apostrophes, had a span around it to make it bold.

We will have that thread as soon as someone (looking at you for instance) start it!

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by PeterT

We will have that thread as soon as someone (looking at you for instance) start it!

Ok, next time I get a wacko book I'll start it, unless someone beats me to it.