Re: Sony misreading epub layout of poetry - how do I solve it?

On 5/16/11, joseph harris <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sony [which uses Digital Editions from Adobe] is failing to get the
> detail right. This involves css instructions for line positions. Almost
> every other line needs to be indented, but they are showing up as all at
> the left margin. Does anyone know what the difference is in
> interpretation that is causing this? Does Sony use different details in
> css; or is it more limited in what it can recognise?  There seems to be
> a similar problem with Kobo.
>
>
Joseph,

I have a Sony eReader, and yes indeed just about everything shows up a
but different in the Sony as opposed to other readers. For instance,
if the text is fully justified it will end up ragged right. Centering
is honored as is paragraph indent. But just about everything else
requires some really tricky tap-dancing to get it to display right.

That's the bad news. However, there is good news as well. If you want
things to end up, as a lot of poetry does, sitting just so on the line
start along the line you want a placement for needs to be defined by
the left margin. Assuming you are using something like MS-Word you
would then have the left indent for that line moved in the 1/4", 1/2",
1" or whatever suits your fancy. Setting this up as such in MS-Word
and using a conversion program such as Calibre will show how it
handles all of these little idiosyncrasies. And more good news... If
it works in the Sony, it's a good bet it will work on just about any
other reader as well. Sony's eReader is kind of the lowest common
denominator.

While this is time consuming and does not resolve the justification
issue it does provide satisfactory results. The Sony eReaders were
originally tuned for the BBeB format and there is a fairly close
approximation to ePub so that, my thoughts anyway, they have
implemented the use of ePub but not fully engaged it.

-- 
Best Regards,

Russ Davis
Gray Dog Press


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