Quick question about e-book format.

[davejonescue]

Hello everybody. I am going to produce some ebooks (epub) which will have Latin on top, and the English translation on the bottom. Sometimes it will be 1-2 sentences, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes 1-2 paragraphs. My question is, in the formatting, I am planning on putting the Latin in italics, but I am uncertain if the English I should put in bold or leave regular? I am starting to lean more now towards bold, because the way the epub formatting is, there will be no breaks between paragraphs, but only indentations (I think thats what they are called.) What do you all, if you have an opinion, think would go better? I know that bold in an epub isn't as harsh as in a docx. But I would prefer people not have to struggle with the Latin seeming to mingle with the English if possible.

 

[Logan]

Hello everybody. I am going to produce some ebooks (epub) which will have Latin on top, and the English translation on the bottom. Sometimes it will be 1-2 sentences, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes 1-2 paragraphs. My question is, in the formatting, I am planning on putting the Latin in italics, but I am uncertain if the English I should put in bold or leave regular? I am starting to lean more now towards bold, because the way the epub formatting is, there will be no breaks between paragraphs, but only indentations (I think thats what they are called.) What do you all, if you have an opinion, think would go better? I know that bold in an epub isn't as harsh as in a docx. But I would prefer people not have to struggle with the Latin seeming to mingle with the English if possible.

I think I would set it off with a <blockquote> section (and you could have the Latin on top and English on bottom). Blockquotes typically have a 1 line of space at the top and one line of space at the bottom with somewhere between a 1 or 2 em on the left margin (some like to do a margin on the right but ereader space is already limited so I don't do that).

Another idea is that you can just set off the English either in line or in a blockquote and make a hyperlinked endnote or footnote to the Latin. This gets it out of the reader's way but they can click that hyperlink and if it's appropriate linked then it will appear as a pop-up (at least on Kindles).

 

[davejonescue]

I think I would set it off with a <blockquote> section (and you could have the Latin on top and English on bottom). Blockquotes typically have a 1 line of space at the top and one line of space at the bottom with somewhere between a 1 or 2 em on the left margin (some like to do a margin on the right but ereader space is already limited so I don't do that).

Another idea is that you can just set off the English either in line or in a blockquote and make a hyperlinked endnote or footnote to the Latin. This gets it out of the reader's way but they can click that hyperlink and if it's appropriate linked then it will appear as a pop-up (at least on Kindles).

Hey Logan, nice to hear from you. Yeah, I posted this trying to see what I should do before I created the Polanus ePUBs. But they are already out now. I went with italicized Latin on top, and bolded English on the bottom. And then a separate English only ePUB. But I will keep this in mind if we ever do another AI Latin transcription. Hope all is going well with you and family. I havent seen you on the Board for a bit, or maybe just missed you, and was actually thinking about you the other day, hoping all was going good.

 

[Jack K]

It you want to avoid large sections of bold text, or reserve your use of bold for headings and such, there are other ways to make your English text stand out from the Latin. You could use a different font size for each, or even a different font altogether. A sans-serif italic font might pair nicely with a serif Roman font that's a point or two larger, and the switch from one to the other would be noticeable to the reader.

 

[Logan]

It you want to avoid large sections of bold text, or reserve your use of bold for headings and such, there are other ways to make your English text stand out from the Latin. You could use a different font size for each, or even a different font altogether. A sans-serif italic font might pair nicely with a serif Roman font that's a point or two larger, and the switch from one to the other would be noticeable to the reader.

Good thought, but if it's a true ebook (e.g., epub, mobi, azw3, kfx) then the font family is controlled by the user. The publisher can override that by hard-coding the fonts but that's generally not a good thing. Similar with font sizes: the ereader is supposed to scale the book to the size preferred by the reader, so you can have relative larger or smaller but it's not going to be the same as with a PDF or printed copy.

I havent seen you on the Board for a bit, or maybe just missed you

All is well, I've just been intentionally trying to step away from a digital life