Quotes and blockquote

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Sure, but that isn't actually formatting. That's the author either blithely ignoring all normal standards, or being one of those people that's adamantly supporting blog-style formatting, etc. It's not like...choosing to use the enter key, (empty paragraphs) instead of margin, to create space between a heading and body text. I realize that's a fine distinction and perhaps, a distinction without a difference, but to me, the things we spoke about before were the differences between competent formatting, (top-margin instead of enter-enter-enter, for example), versus some gazoomba making a bad choice around his/her novel. See what I mean?

I've seen some do a sort of inbetween a paragraph space and no paragraph space with a .3em space between paragraphs. I prefer without that, but I could put up with it. It's the full space plus the line space to make paragraph spaces even bigger then one line that's the worst. A full line is also not good. I find that when reading a book, the full line (or more) paragraph space can take me out of the book. Is that really the author's intention to let the reader be taken out of the story? I don't think so.

You've mentioned this around the Martian previously and I don't necessarily disagree with you, but IIRC, you could turn those off on a Kindle, no?

Yes you can. But then you do lose the correct formatting. For example, the mono font is used for something specific and if it's not there, it's not as easy to read. I do forget if the sans-serif is needed or not.

Yabbt, that's from like, 2011-2012. They're not going to go back and fix those! :-)

I have seen some older eBooks fixed, the code changed, or a completely new version.

I would agree with that. I wish that they'd pay me to fix them all, but there you go. If wishes were horses....

Hitch

I could also be paid to fix eBooks. I;d make a lot of money and I do think that a lot of people would like the way they looked.

[phillipgessert]

I doubt questionable ebook formatting will go away before the desire to make em look like print editions does. That sort of thinking slots the ebook into second-class citizen status that is difficult to overcome. Dodgy ebooks often get their start in print-first workflows where print-focused decisions were made at every step, undoing them being time-consuming and unpopular. And the idea that the ebook could surpass the print edition, just in ways the print edition couldn't target in the first place, is not given much real priority in those scenarios.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I doubt questionable ebook formatting will go away before the desire to make em look like print editions does. That sort of thinking slots the ebook into second-class citizen status that is difficult to overcome. Dodgy ebooks often get their start in print-first workflows where print-focused decisions were made at every step, undoing them being time-consuming and unpopular. And the idea that the ebook could surpass the print edition, just in ways the print edition couldn't target in the first place, is not given much real priority in those scenarios.

Yeah, this^. I spent a lot of time, straddling both horses, trying to make each unique and special, without making the eBook version that second-class citizen you're talking about. It ain't easy, brother Phillip, as you know all too well!

Hitch

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I doubt questionable ebook formatting will go away before the desire to make em look like print editions does. That sort of thinking slots the ebook into second-class citizen status that is difficult to overcome. Dodgy ebooks often get their start in print-first workflows where print-focused decisions were made at every step, undoing them being time-consuming and unpopular. And the idea that the ebook could surpass the print edition, just in ways the print edition couldn't target in the first place, is not given much real priority in those scenarios.

We kind of went through this in the early days of the web, when web page designers were people with a print background; Pagemaker, Indesign, Quark, etc. and, for an example, they kept trying to get a fixed layout like they could with a printed page. Who can forget page layouts that used tables or spacing with zero width gifs?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by hobnail

We kind of went through this in the early days of the web, when web page designers were people with a print background; Pagemaker, Indesign, Quark, etc. and, for an example, they kept trying to get a fixed layout like they could with a printed page. Who can forget page layouts that used tables or spacing with zero width gifs?

Idiot Web designers STILL do that. Stupid sites that need a desktop & Mobile version, or on desktop you have to change browser window size.

I format for ebook first & then when final proof is done then Save-As with the page size in the name and format the paper versions. My websites work on 4.3" phone to 2K 24" with a single version. Make desktop browser window phone number of pixels and it's the same as on the phone. Use a 10" to 14" Android HD tablet and it looks like desktop, you don't get a stupid mobile version like most "leading" websites serve.

Headers, footers, notes, footnotes, contents, index/concordance, images, page numbers, spacing/margins etc are all different for paper. I tried both workflows. I started with work flow for paper as I had decades of experience producing and training. Considered HTML workflow for a while as input to Mobi Creator but a docx Save As with styles, headings etc for epub works best. Easy to adapt final version for paper. All proofs & annotation now on eink via epub & Calibre. The proof for paper is only about changed and extra content.