Reflowable eBook, sections always starting on left in 2-page landscape?

[John Niernberger]

Julian,

I’m wondering if something like the following is possible without using a fixed layout:

In landscape mode at the start of chapters, the author would like introductory images to always appear on the left of a two page spread, where the chapter text would then start on the right.  This would go against a reflowable layout, but I’m wondering if there’s a setting or way of specifying that a section should always start “fresh” from the left if in landscape.  This would of course result in sometimes there being a blank page at the end of the previous chapter…

I can’t deny that he has a point - the printed book is this way and there is a strong correlation between the opening image and the chapter content and reinforcing can be considered important. 

I’ve experimented with changing it over to a fixed layout but I don’t like those books as a reader and in the little bit I experimented it’s going to be time-consuming to do so and creates more problems than it solves.

It seems like this option is available in the print-on-demand settings, but doesn’t seem to carryover back to eBook from what I see in the docs.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

[Julian Smart]

Hi John,

I'm afraid I don't know any way of doing that with a reflowable book. Normally I would try to think of a workaround, but I don't see one in this case.

Sorry!

Regards,

Julian

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[Michael Hoffmann]

Hello John, hello Julian,
I do not understand the question.
All clear when it comes to a printed book. But which eBook actually has two pages next to each other where the literary correct beginning of a page on the left or right should play a role?
Or have I misunderstood the question?

Michael

[John Niernberger]

Hello Julian and Michael —

Julian, thanks so much for your quick reply — that’s what I was afraid of. It makes perfect sense, this defeats the point of having a reflowable layout.

Michael — your question is a good one, I’m now wondering whether the 2 page spread might be more rare than I thought (the author and I are both doing testing on our iPads with .ePub in iBooks and my small Kindle doesn’t do this).  I do suspect though most larger tablets do.  It’s actually quite a nice way to read though I prefer Paperwhites.

Here’s a screenshot of the desired layout on an iPad Pro in landscape mode (and dark) in Dropbox, I’ll leave it up for a bit if folks are curious (just close all the nonsense they now put up first to see the image):  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/d6fw727kaihhjvy6bez8n/FofF.png?rlkey=a9lc52iqqu29vwgv3xjmphoxc&dl=0

All the best,

john.

On February 23, 2024 at 9:37:19 AM, Michael Hoffmann (m...@verindrach.de) wrote:

Hello John, hello Julian,
I do not understand the question.
All clear when it comes to a printed book. But which eBook actually has two pages next to each other where the literary correct beginning of a page on the left or right should play a role?
Or have I misunderstood the question?

Michael

Julian Smart schrieb am Freitag, 23. Februar 2024 um 16:31:43 UTC+1:

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[Michael Hoffmann]

Hello John,
I looked at the site on Dropbox -- very nice. But that's not something you do as an eBook, no matter what it's read on. Anyone who reads an eBook on a tablet or PC usually does so in a window and is therefore one-sided.

But I know such requests (and many more) from myself - just ask Julian. He's been groaning under my many ideas since 2012 - I've been working with Jutoh since that time.

All of my books are printed in four colors, have (large) amounts of fonts and are illustrated. I also use fonts and colors to make the novels easier to read and easier to understand. (This comes from coming from a non-fiction background.) My readers are divided about these design features, 50% like them, 50% dislike them. Plain text should be completely sufficient for some.

I'm trying to implement the whole designs on ePub too. Consciously ePub, the Kindle is the stupidest format (for all older devices) at all. It destroys all fonts, there are no colors anyway... well, my books aren't available on Kindle at the moment either. They don't like me anymore.

One of my novels of, let's say 550 pages, can have 180 illustrations -- that creates more than enough problems to place them all well. And that's how I would recommend it to your author: an image like the one on the left fills one page and the next one comes with the text. Any ePub reader can process this AND you can also identify something from the image. Of course, you can also let text flow around the image to the left or right if you make it smaller accordingly. However, most e-readers do not have more than 6 or 7-inch screens - I recommend to look through the e-book page by page on such a reader before delivery. You will experience miracles!

I wish you good luck with your work!

Best regards,
Michael

[John Niernberger]

Hi Michael —

Thanks so much, just to be clear that is a screenshot from the iPad — an exported, reflowable .ePub file from Jutoh in iBooks rotated into landscape mode… it might be less common but there are certainly situations where eBook readers (or maybe more accurately apps) display ePub files as spreads.  And unless I’m completely missing what you’re suggesting that’s exactly the way it’s set up - the image on the left is a full page image as are all images which begin the chapters, the “issue" arises when chapter text ends on the left.  iBooks does this for all eBooks, in Mac and tablets so it’s not a obscure thing.

I myself have a Kindle Paperwhite as I said and I prefer it to the iPad but there are plenty of folks out there who don’t have dedicated eBook readers but have tablets in which case holding in landscape mode offers a lot of physical and readability advantages… and that’s the way I read on the iPad unless there are certain images I want to see larger without zooming in which case I’ll rotate to portrait temporarily.

All the best,

john.

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