Do you edit your eBooks?

ownedbycats · 03-12-2024, 10:46 PM

Out of curiosity, do you edit or format eBooks to your preferences?

issybird · 03-12-2024, 10:56 PM

No. I don’t care enough; it’s always good enough, mildly irritating at worst and not worth the effort. Generally they’re fine as they come.

Gardenman · 03-12-2024, 11:05 PM

I do not know how and I don't care enough to learn.

haertig · 03-12-2024, 11:18 PM

OTHER

I prefer my books as individual novels. Sometimes I will buy an anthology. And sometimes I will split up that anthology into individual books. But not always. It's random when I decide to do this.

Karellen · 03-12-2024, 11:29 PM

Always.
Every single book.

What could possibly fall under "Other"?

DNSB · 03-12-2024, 11:31 PM

Any ebooks in my calibre library have been touched to clean up metadata and covers, remove text-align: justify from the CSS, set the default font size to 1em, corrected any errors found by epubcheck, etc. For most books, it takes a couple of minutes and make my reading experience more consistent and enjoyable. For the most part, much of the cleanup is done by saved search groups in Sigil since my attitude is that if a task has to be repeated, let the computer do it.

I will read a book without that touchup but I find it annoying since it makes it harder to immerse myself in the book.

ZodWallop · 03-12-2024, 11:34 PM

I always open the ePub just to check that the book isn't a mess. In general, if the text is justified, there's aren't spaces between every paragraph and the whole book isn't in one file (and this is most books now), I'm good.

jackm8 · 03-12-2024, 11:54 PM

I pretty much always change cover. Even when I'm very lazy, when I'm not even sure that I'll read the book, I'll do something like this sample. I'll find an inner title (or whatever this is called) somewhere online, and I'll quickly edit it to target readers resolution.
Sometime I'll replace one cover with another, sometime I'll find a photo of first edition cover on an auction site, and use that, but most of the time I'll just make my own using my photos as background, and title and author in fonts of my choosing. My readers make a nice display piece like that, even though they look tacky, I suppose.

Other than that, I'll sometime experiment with initials and first words of chapters, and change chapter size and title. But all of that really rarely. I did fool around with embedding fonts a lot, before readers started to support custom fonts. Lately, I've also started to rip archive.org books into pdf's. A somewhat lengthy process of questionable legality. They have books there that are available to be borrowed, but you can't download source files, or pdf's... So I really don't know, but I guess that I'll keep doing it.

ownedbycats · 03-12-2024, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karellen

What could possibly fall under "Other"?

Honestly I just put it there to prevent complaints.

Karellen · 03-13-2024, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Honestly I just put it there to prevent complaints.

Yea, thought so. I wondered what that 1 vote could be and couldn't think of a scenario for it.

twowheels · 03-13-2024, 12:23 AM

I clicked other... with the answer being "very rarely". I'm not a re-reader, and I'm not one to keep tons of books on my device -- and I'm not too picky about the formatting.

I do occasionally set some custom book-specific CSS in KOReader, but that's temporary and goes away when I delete the book. An example of this was one of the Discworld books where every time there was a subject change I was confused because the paragraph breaks were only a few pixels wider than normal paragraph breaks, so I'd be a few sentences in or more before realizing the subject changed and would be confused -- so I set some custom CSS to put a horizontal line between the paragraphs when that happened (luckily it was a different paragraph style making it easy to do), which made the book MUCH easier to follow.

maddz · 03-13-2024, 01:14 AM

Other, usually to fix bad spelling and OCR artifacts on old non-commercially available books.

Comfy.n · 03-13-2024, 01:24 AM

I would answer: 'Often!' Not always. Not most of the time. Not just sometimes.

Sirtel · 03-13-2024, 01:25 AM

Always, every single one. Formatting, I mean; I don't bother with typos, unless I notice them while editing the formatting.

Aleron Ives · 03-13-2024, 02:18 AM

I will if the book is seriously malformed (e.g. one file for the whole book) or if I hate the cover art.

View Poll Results: Do you edit eBooks?
Yes, always or most of the time.	43	31.39%
Yes, sometimes.	17	12.41%
Yes, but only to fix issues	38	27.74%
No.	35	25.55%
Other (specify)	10	7.30%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 137. You may not vote on this poll

03-12-2024, 10:46 PM	#1
ownedbycats Custom User Title Posts: 9,575 Karma: 64960983 Join Date: Oct 2018 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H2O, formerly Aura HD	Do you edit your eBooks? Out of curiosity, do you edit or format eBooks to your preferences?

03-12-2024, 11:54 PM	#8
jackm8 Addict Posts: 218 Karma: 2818790 Join Date: Nov 2015 Device: none	I pretty much always change cover. Even when I'm very lazy, when I'm not even sure that I'll read the book, I'll do something like this sample. I'll find an inner title (or whatever this is called) somewhere online, and I'll quickly edit it to target readers resolution. Sometime I'll replace one cover with another, sometime I'll find a photo of first edition cover on an auction site, and use that, but most of the time I'll just make my own using my photos as background, and title and author in fonts of my choosing. My readers make a nice display piece like that, even though they look tacky, I suppose. Other than that, I'll sometime experiment with initials and first words of chapters, and change chapter size and title. But all of that really rarely. I did fool around with embedding fonts a lot, before readers started to support custom fonts. Lately, I've also started to rip archive.org books into pdf's. A somewhat lengthy process of questionable legality. They have books there that are available to be borrowed, but you can't download source files, or pdf's... So I really don't know, but I guess that I'll keep doing it. Attached Thumbnails

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03-12-2024, 10:56 PM	#2
issybird o saeclum infacetum Posts: 20,674 Karma: 225870683 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: New England Device: H2O, Aura One, PW5	No. I don’t care enough; it’s always good enough, mildly irritating at worst and not worth the effort. Generally they’re fine as they come.

03-12-2024, 11:05 PM	#3
Gardenman Wizard Posts: 1,104 Karma: 9177222 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: USA Device: sony prs-350,Nook HD+, Kindle 2nd gen, kindle keyboard	I do not know how and I don't care enough to learn.

03-12-2024, 11:18 PM	#4
haertig Wizard Posts: 1,804 Karma: 26951450 Join Date: Sep 2017 Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26	OTHER I prefer my books as individual novels. Sometimes I will buy an anthology. And sometimes I will split up that anthology into individual books. But not always. It's random when I decide to do this.

03-12-2024, 11:29 PM	#5
Karellen Wizard Posts: 1,362 Karma: 6794938 Join Date: Sep 2021 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Libra 2	Always. Every single book. What could possibly fall under "Other"?

03-12-2024, 11:31 PM	#6
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 40,603 Karma: 157444382 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Any ebooks in my calibre library have been touched to clean up metadata and covers, remove text-align: justify from the CSS, set the default font size to 1em, corrected any errors found by epubcheck, etc. For most books, it takes a couple of minutes and make my reading experience more consistent and enjoyable. For the most part, much of the cleanup is done by saved search groups in Sigil since my attitude is that if a task has to be repeated, let the computer do it. I will read a book without that touchup but I find it annoying since it makes it harder to immerse myself in the book.

03-12-2024, 11:34 PM	#7
ZodWallop Gentleman and scholar Posts: 11,360 Karma: 110455811 Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Space City, Texas Device: Clara BW; Nook ST w/Glowlight, Paperwhite 3	I always open the ePub just to check that the book isn't a mess. In general, if the text is justified, there's aren't spaces between every paragraph and the whole book isn't in one file (and this is most books now), I'm good.

03-13-2024, 12:23 AM	#11
twowheels Wizard Posts: 1,839 Karma: 13416738 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Kobo Clara HD, iPad Pro 10", iPhone 15 Pro	I clicked other... with the answer being "very rarely". I'm not a re-reader, and I'm not one to keep tons of books on my device -- and I'm not too picky about the formatting. I do occasionally set some custom book-specific CSS in KOReader, but that's temporary and goes away when I delete the book. An example of this was one of the Discworld books where every time there was a subject change I was confused because the paragraph breaks were only a few pixels wider than normal paragraph breaks, so I'd be a few sentences in or more before realizing the subject changed and would be confused -- so I set some custom CSS to put a horizontal line between the paragraphs when that happened (luckily it was a different paragraph style making it easy to do), which made the book MUCH easier to follow.

03-13-2024, 01:14 AM	#12
maddz Wizard Posts: 1,346 Karma: 29573004 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: UK Device: Kobo Forma, Icarus, iPad Mini 2, Kobo Touch, Google Nexus 7	Other, usually to fix bad spelling and OCR artifacts on old non-commercially available books.

03-13-2024, 01:24 AM	#13
Comfy.n want to learn what I want Posts: 1,284 Karma: 6433040 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: Calibre E-book viewer	I would answer: 'Often!' Not always. Not most of the time. Not just sometimes.

03-13-2024, 01:25 AM	#14
Sirtel Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,543 Karma: 230505502 Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Estonia Device: Kobo Sage & Libra 2	Always, every single one. Formatting, I mean; I don't bother with typos, unless I notice them while editing the formatting.

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03-13-2024, 02:18 AM	#15
Aleron Ives Wizard Posts: 1,436 Karma: 16297052 Join Date: Sep 2022 Device: Kobo Libra 2	I will if the book is seriously malformed (e.g. one file for the whole book) or if I hate the cover art.