Custom CSS Stylesheets for Calibre's Viewer

[TheGene]

Hi Kovid could you tell me where/how do I change the CALIBRE_USE_DARK_PALETTE variable using Linux Mint 19.3? That bright white is really quite overwhelming after a few hours of working in Calibre ...

[kovidgoyal]

Just google how to set environment variables in mint. And if you are talking about th eviewer specifically you can choose a different color scheme for it in its preferences, no need to set an environment variable at all.

[TheGene]

Ha that was as simple as opening a terminal and typing

env CALIBRE_USE_DARK_PALETTE=1 calibre

and voila!! Yes definitely much easier on the eyes ...

Thank you for this awesome program.

[dunhill]

Originally Posted by TheGene

Hi Kovid could you tell me where/how do I change the CALIBRE_USE_DARK_PALETTE variable using Linux Mint 19.3? That bright white is really quite overwhelming after a few hours of working in Calibre ...

1-From the main menu we right-click where Caliber is and set it on the desktop.
2-We create something as a shortcut and in that icon right click of the mouse preferences.
3-In the Order line we write: env CALIBRE_USE_DARK_PALETTE=1 caliber
We double click on this icon and if we have a black theme in the system it will put us in dark mode

[Uncle Robin]

I know basically nothing about CSS etc, but want to change the line spacing used in my Calibre Viewer. I tried copying and pasting one of the templates at the start of this thread

body {
color: rgb(255,255,255);
background-color:rgb(0,0,255);
text-align:justify;
line-spacing:1.8;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:4px;
margin-right:50px;
margin-left:50px;
text-indent:2em;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
color:white;
text-align:center;
font-style:italic;
font-weight:bold;
}

but applying it makes no difference to the line spacing. I have experimented with different values for 'line-spacing' but so far 1.7, 2.7 and 3.8 all make exactly no difference to how the lines appear on my viewer. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT The dangers of unquestioning C&P - it was "line-height", not "line-spacing". Lesson learned!

[drglenn]

In the example you posted:

text-align:justify;
line-spacing:1.8;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:4px;

You must include a space after the : in the css attributes in order to display properly. When values are entered incorrect as in the above from the css code you posted they are ignored as you are experiencing

For example:

Wrong usage line-spacing: 1.8;

Correct usage line-spacing: 1.8;

[Marius1952]

When converting from PDF to EPUB the book comes fine except the contents which is spread along the many pages. How can I fix it?
My current code is as below:

body {
color: rgb(0,0,0);
background-color:rgb(255,255,255);
text-align:justify;
line-spacing:1.8;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:4px;
margin-right:50px;
margin-left:50px;
text-indent:2em;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
color:white;
text-align:center;
font-style:italic;
font-weight:bold;
}

Under Filter Style Information I have selected all options except Floats and I also added to Other CSS Properties: line-height

can you help me to have a perfect CSS coding so every converted book will come up well? I don't know programming so I rely on brains like you guys but I need common instruction to understand. The best would be copy/paste what is necessary.
thanks
namaste
Mariusz

[Drongo]

I'm trying this with Calibre 4.99.12 - some epub wants to have justified text, urgh - and it's doing the line-height attribute (there just as a test to see what's happening) but not the text-align:

body, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
text-align: left;
line-height: 200%;
}

Any ideas?

[BetterRed]

Moderator Notice

FYI: I merged two threads with similar names and purpose.

BR

[Edemen]

I am using the Pocketbook Inkpad 3 Pro. The native reading program does not allow widows and orphans. So the number of lines on a page is not always equal which annoys me
What CSS used in Caliber will make widows and orphans appear?

[ps67]

Originally Posted by Edemen

I am using the Pocketbook Inkpad 3 Pro. The native reading program does not allow widows and orphans. So the number of lines on a page is not always equal which annoys me
What CSS used in Caliber will make widows and orphans appear?

This is not a issue of calibre viewer but anyway You can change the css in the calibre editor like this:

p{
widows: 1 !important;
orphans: 1 !important;
}

using !important You can overwrite eventual different widows/orphans values in the various p.something tag.

[Edemen]

It works! Thank you.

[CrazyBlend]

I have the latest version of Calibre (I think), 5.14. Whenever I open an epub file in the e-book viewer, I want the text to be left-justified rather than the default fully-justified.

I don't know anything about css styles, but, after browsing this thread, I entered the following text into the Preferences -> Styles text box, and clicked OK:

body { text-align: left; }

However, unfortunately, that had no effect. All my epub books are still displaying fully justified.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help.

[kovidgoyal]

* { text-align: left !important }

[CrazyBlend]

Thanks for the quick response! However, unfortunately, that still didn't work. I tried the version you sent:
body { text-align: left !important }
I also tried it with a semicolon:
body { text-align: left !important; }
Neither had any effect.