Help Needed: KOReader vs Nickel Features

[lumping-sugar66]

Hello KOReader community,

As someone genuinely curious about what KOReader can offer as an alternative to Kobo's Nickel, I've been experimenting with it. I'm impressed with the synchronization between multiple devices, as I use more than one, and the customizable UI appeals to me. However, I need help with a few things. I'm sure these issues are solvable, and I don't want to write off KOReader before doing some research.

I'll post a few pictures from my comparisons between my Clara 2E and Clara Aura Edition 2. In both examples, the font is EB Garamond, using the same files and book (kepubified ePUB). For every picture, there will be a high-resolution and a low-resolution copy in this post.

The first question is unnecessary hyphenation. Please see the image below. There are these unnecessary line breaks on each page, at least 2-3 times, whereas in the Nickel version, there's usually none. Is there a method to prevent these?

IMG_4328


In KOReader, there seems to be an issue with the margins. It looks like my epub has unbalanced margins on the left and right sides. I have checked with Calibre and Nickel versions. If I disable the custom CSS, the margin error seems to go away, but that seems excessive. I also wouldn't like to change the custom margins for each side, as the margins go out of alignment again when I change the font size. Any thoughts?


IMG_4329



I haven't understood the differences in the Render mode, but can I just say how much I appreciate the line spacing options? EB Garamond is one of my favorite fonts, but it has a huge line height embedded in it. KOReader lets me override it, which is great.

This menu and the lower bar (which toggles between different progress bars) I keep tapping by mistake. I could get used to it, but is there a way to change this?

IMG_4330



I think the contrast is actually sharpness. Can you correct me on this? I don't see any change in the contrast of the text, but the edges get way too sharp. Without going to the extreme points, the sharpness and the font weight additions look the same. What's the proper way to adjust these?


IMG_4331



What's the proper way to force the correct rendering of the text? I changed a few settings on hints, spacing, etc. Although I returned to the same settings, the page doesn't seem to return to the correct rendering. See the image below, the highlighted "toothbrush" seems too monospace even though the settings are otherwise.
IMG_4333


Can the sleep view be customized? I like having a cover view instead of the basic "Sleeping" text rendered over the last book page.

Thanks

[mergen3107]

https://koreader.rocks/user_guide/
This is for a start
Margins and in bottom menu. There is an option to sync L/R margins.

Hyphenation is controlled in top menu. There are algorithmic hyphenation or by hyphenation dictionary. You can also switch it off.

Contrast and sharpness indeed go hand in hand, but this is more about “boldness” (thickness of curvatures along the main character font lines), while sharpness comes as a side effect of tweaking it.

[mergen3107]

For sleeping, yes, there is an option to put a custom text (IIRC)

[mergen3107]

For all other styling, go to top menu, second tab, style tweaks.
There is so much flexibility with css…

[jonnyl]

As for your "toothbrush" example, you want to set Word Expansion to 'none'. You can find the setting in the bottom menu, font tab (AA).

[lumping-sugar66]

Thank you all, I was able to get the GUI to a place where I’m comfortable now.