First Line Pseudo Element in epubs

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by m_pluto

A little late, but I just saw this and I'll give it a go! Thank you!

Are you doing pseudo elements for yourself or for something for sale? If it's for sale, forget the pseudo elements and use spans. If it's for you, go for it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

On epub3 first-line pseudo elements is honored. On Kobo for Android and iOS, works for both, epub and kepub. But I don't know if the rendering engine of your Kobo Sage have been updated with the last version.

You have it wrong about Kobo. Kobo uses an older version of RMSDK and it pseudo elements DO NOT WORK. For KePub, yes. For ePub, no.

So if it's a book for sale, use spans and not pseudo elements.

[m_pluto]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Are you doing pseudo elements for yourself or for something for sale? If it's for sale, forget the pseudo elements and use spans. If it's for you, go for it.

It's just for my own consumption, I'm rather particular about how I like my books to be formatted on my e-reader. I also prefer the pseudo element for first-line because it dynamically adapts to the first line. I did use <span> for a while early on, but I really didn't like how it looked to have the first 2-5 words defined and the rest of the line looking different. Plus it was a lot more work to go in with <span> for the first paragraph of every chapter & first paragraph after every ornamental/section break.

Though speaking of books for commercial sale, I've actually seen a fair number of them that use the pseudo element for first line, so *shrug*.

And I have it set up so that all my epubs are sent to my kobo as kepubs, so it's not a problem for me to get them to render. I figure I'll stick with using kepubs as it's less work to use a pseudo element than to manually break up html files in the editor to get a page break.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You have it wrong about Kobo. Kobo uses an older version of RMSDK and it pseudo elements DO NOT WORK. For KePub, yes. For ePub, no.

So if it's a book for sale, use spans and not pseudo elements.

Pseudo elements have been around for a VERY long time...possibly longer than e-books... I would be VERY surprised, and disappointed, if Kobo didn't support such a very basic selector. Are you sure it isn't supported at all, or maybe you missed an update or something???

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Pseudo elements have been around for a VERY long time...possibly longer than e-books... I would be VERY surprised, and disappointed, if Kobo didn't support such a very basic selector. Are you sure it isn't supported at all, or maybe you missed an update or something???

It's not supported for ePub but is for KePub. There are two different renderers. RMSDK used for ePub is old and doesn't work with pseudo elements. But the renderer for KePub does work with pseudo elements.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by m_pluto

It's just for my own consumption, I'm rather particular about how I like my books to be formatted on my e-reader. I also prefer the pseudo element for first-line because it dynamically adapts to the first line. I did use <span> for a while early on, but I really didn't like how it looked to have the first 2-5 words defined and the rest of the line looking different. Plus it was a lot more work to go in with <span> for the first paragraph of every chapter & first paragraph after every ornamental/section break.

Though speaking of books for commercial sale, I've actually seen a fair number of them that use the pseudo element for first line, so *shrug*.

And I have it set up so that all my epubs are sent to my kobo as kepubs, so it's not a problem for me to get them to render. I figure I'll stick with using kepubs as it's less work to use a pseudo element than to manually break up html files in the editor to get a page break.

And if you were reading any eBooks with a pseudo element on your Kobo in ePub, it would not work. You have to read KePub for them to work.

[m_pluto]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And if you were reading any eBooks with a pseudo element on your Kobo in ePub, it would not work. You have to read KePub for them to work.

The whole point I started this thread was to ask if there was a way to get either epubs or kepubs to get both pseudo elements and page breaks to both work on one of them, as I've only been able to get each of them to do only one of the two.

I've now learned that no epbus don't do pseudo elements on kobos, but someone was kind enough to give me some CSS that should help get my kepubs to start showing page breaks so I won't have to manually split up HTML files. Haven't had a chance:time to try it out yet, but I'm optimistic and will report back when I have the chance!

Finally I've honestly never noticed any difference between any of my books that are on my kobo that are epubs vs epubs so ����*♀️. So long as they look like how I want them to, I'm happy.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by m_pluto

The whole point I started this thread was to ask if there was a way to get either epubs or kepubs to get both pseudo elements and page breaks to both work on one of them, as I've only been able to get each of them to do only one of the two.

I've now learned that no epbus don't do pseudo elements on kobos, but someone was kind enough to give me some CSS that should help get my kepubs to start showing page breaks so I won't have to manually split up HTML files. Haven't had a chance:time to try it out yet, but I'm optimistic and will report back when I have the chance!

Finally I've honestly never noticed any difference between any of my books that are on my kobo that are epubs vs epubs so ����*♀️. So long as they look like how I want them to, I'm happy.

Manually splitting the files in the calibre editor is a matter of go to where you want the break in the preview. Click the icon to the left of the refresh icon. The move the mouse point into the preview window. When the line is where you want the break, click and the file will split at that point.

If you want to read ePub, you'll need to use spans instead of pseudo elements. If you want to read KePub, you can use pseudo elements. But don't read those eBooks as ePub as the pseudo elements will not work. If you are unsure of where you want to read the book use spans and you'll be able to read as ePub or KePub.