tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post4763861417342326196..comments2023-06-04T10:34:35.636-04:00Comments on The eBook Test: Is Adobe Hindering eBooks?Mike Canehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12396654716615965650noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-13375683612627702582009-07-12T15:43:17.486-04:002009-07-12T15:43:17.486-04:00You don't have to do something ugly like HTML ...You don't have to do something ugly like HTML super- and subscripts with a normal slash between them. You can instead build a fraction with unicode super- and subscripts with a fraction slash between them. Compare a unicode built-in fraction to a unicode constructed one: ⅔ ⁶⁄₇<br /><br />This looks better in some rendering engines that others, so they probably won't look similar in your browser.Ianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03448054571228602908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-76597956264103247162009-04-08T13:30:00.000-04:002009-04-08T13:30:00.000-04:00>>>I made the Abyss in my spare time as a...>>>I made the Abyss in my spare time as a result of your earlier blog about giving it a go.<BR/><BR/>Good God. This is getting recursive. And I'm flattered.<BR/><BR/>The tinted images were just placeholders. I intend to use the Google ones. Those aren't the best, but they're larger, untinted, and I can always upgrade them later.<BR/><BR/>Since it was free, I had no qualms UnZipping it. I figured it was put there to look at for the curious. If it had a password (can it have one?), I wouldn't have gone further due to lack of skillz.Mike Canehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12396654716615965650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-76667718727816780152009-04-08T12:11:00.000-04:002009-04-08T12:11:00.000-04:00Mike,I only just came across your post today after...Mike,<BR/><BR/>I only just came across your post today after a bit of a track-back on TeleRead. I made the Abyss in my spare time as a result of your earlier blog about giving it a go. It was an interesting book, with a few interesting structures so I used IGP:FLIP and put it together "in my spare time" - so I have to take exception to the "professional" label - I was running in enthusiastic ePub supporter mode at the time. <BR/><BR/>Regretfully It didn't go through our normal QC processes, and I didn't have access to the scan images (where are they from?) so the fraction thing took me a bit by surprise. I took some eBook interpretive liberties with the book. I decided to drop dot-leaders on tables as I felt they would hinder reflow, and the space above and below the table is a 1em margin on the table block. The table is elastic with the width of the reader viewport. This is another issue with ADE I don't particularly like (Stanza has the same problem), they don't like vertical margin statements and strip them off. I can see why, so larger images go to the top and bottom. <BR/><BR/>AZARDI, Calibre and Stanza all use the WebKit rendering engine. So they are effectively the Browser in a box. Because of the Webkit high level of compliance with CSS, pushing of CSS-3 and superb SVG rendering, they fulfill most of the core engine requirements as long as you don't overdo the CSS. <BR/><BR/>This was always intended as a free example, so no surprise about the unzipping. We will be putting up about 50 more on the site in the next week or so, and encourage people to use AZARDI R2 to play with the internals and modify things interactively. I would like to have a go at the fractions with SVG, if these are the only ones I will update the onsite version. That should be interesting!<BR/><BR/>Anyway. Thanks for an amazing deconstruction, and comments. Of course I have a lot more to say, but it's late and I gotta go home!RichardIGPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14909822902439934843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-6577276916949751692009-04-07T22:22:00.000-04:002009-04-07T22:22:00.000-04:00Just for show'n'tell, here's the CSS I did for the...Just for show'n'tell, <A HREF="http://b10mediaworx.com/b10mwx/images/epub-css.jpg" REL="nofollow">here's the CSS I did for the EPUB of the project I've been working</A> on that involves poetry and illustrations.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://b10mediaworx.com/peculiarpages/download/2/" REL="nofollow">Here's the EPUB file output.</A>MoJohttp://moriahjovan.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-22270004940076241162009-04-07T19:53:00.000-04:002009-04-07T19:53:00.000-04:00>>>Can you post the actual EPUB file so t...>>>Can you post the actual EPUB file so that you can see if this is a rendering issue in ADE or an issue with your markup?<BR/><BR/>There's a link to the pro version of Abyss in the post. And it can be UnZipped, because I've just done so.Mike Canehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12396654716615965650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-60112610810865254762009-04-07T15:14:00.000-04:002009-04-07T15:14:00.000-04:00Can you post the actual EPUB file so that you can ...Can you post the actual EPUB file so that you can see if this is a rendering issue in ADE or an issue with your markup?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09144682639750463790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-8844972711521279442009-04-07T10:38:00.000-04:002009-04-07T10:38:00.000-04:00>>>Yes, that could be Apple. Or Microsoft...>>>Yes, that could be Apple. Or Microsoft, or Google for that matter.<BR/><BR/>I don't see Microsoft getting back in. There has to be a story there about why their eBooks effort just fizzled out. Too bad too -- says the rampant MS hater! -- because, as you can see from the two other posts, I really think highly of MS Reader.<BR/><BR/>Now Google is an interesting idea! Yes, with all the backlog they've stolen, they now have an interest in eBooks big-time. Perhaps even moreso than Amazon. Plus they have Android. I wonder if Google would gobble up an existing bit of software -- such as Stanza -- or do its own?Mike Canehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12396654716615965650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-20469193736126445912009-04-07T00:30:00.000-04:002009-04-07T00:30:00.000-04:00I've heard a fair amount of grumbling regarding Ki...<B>I've heard a fair amount of grumbling regarding Kindle formatting issues - poor support for tables, failure to support fixed width fonts, etc.</B><BR/><BR/>Kindle sucks, at least from my perspective.<BR/><BR/>I put my 740-page doorstopper in Kindle in straight HTML. That was agonizing. It took me DAYS to get that halfway right and I still am not happy with it.<BR/><BR/>I put this project (illustrations and poetry) into Kindle uploader as a PRC file and it came out without a hitch--but it still looked...not great. I had to tweak the HTML for it (why? I used Mobipocket Creator to grind out the PRC file, natch), but I got it in three tries. Took maybe an hour.<BR/><BR/>That was apropos of nothing in this post, really. Just blowing off some Kindle steam.MoJohttp://moriahjovan.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-33187475604088385682009-04-06T21:04:00.000-04:002009-04-06T21:04:00.000-04:00Yes, that could be Apple. Or Microsoft, or Google...Yes, that could be Apple. Or Microsoft, or Google for that matter.<BR/><BR/>I'm still of the opinion that Apple has no interest in the book business, and it's not because of ePub or any other technical constraint. The issues surrounding licensing and the associated difficulties of dealing with publishers are unnecessarily complex for what would ultimately be a small potential payoff. Books are a tiny business relative to the other types of media Apple sells. <BR/><BR/>What Apple has done with the next version of the iPhone OS is to essentially open the platform and the marketplace enough for others to build an ebook business on top of. I believe that's as close as Apple will ever get to the book publishing business.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13356925269296877767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-35083064543888476212009-04-06T20:42:00.000-04:002009-04-06T20:42:00.000-04:00>>>The alternative is a tightly controlle...>>>The alternative is a tightly controlled non-standard spec with rendering software owned by a single company.<BR/><BR/>And that could be Apple.Mike Canehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12396654716615965650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7888403915883527494.post-11067303886233688992009-04-06T20:17:00.000-04:002009-04-06T20:17:00.000-04:00Too much to talk about here. I'll just note that ...Too much to talk about here. I'll just note that you shouldn't confuse the rendering engine with the format either. Adobe DE is not a requirement for rendering ePub. Stanza will continue to use WebKit on the iPhone.<BR/><BR/>The bigger issue is that as we see wider ePub implementation we could see an ebook equivalent of the browser wars. Not all rendering engines will support the spec in quite the same way, leading to a range of challenging formatting issues across devices and applications. <BR/><BR/>The alternative is a tightly controlled non-standard spec with rendering software owned by a single company. We have a good example of that now. It's called Kindle. And even Kindle has problems. I've heard a fair amount of grumbling regarding Kindle formatting issues - poor support for tables, failure to support fixed width fonts, etc.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13356925269296877767noreply@blogger.com