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Looking at that picture of the narrow column of text with so many very badly spaced lines of two or three words each firstly gives me flashback of my days in ne

Looking at that picture of the narrow column of text with so many very badly spaced lines of two or three words each firstly gives me flashback of my days in newspaper production and secondly makes me hope it has a landscape view option. Making the type smaller might help, but there's a reason most books don't look like that.

iamjackg 2y ago
It does. I have a Pro, not Plus, which I believe has a slightly wider aspect ratio. I was worried I was gonna find the typesetting unbearable for the reasons you mentioned but it's surprisingly okay, especially with smaller font sizes.
jrmg 2y ago
Good hyphenation and TeX-like paragraph-level justification (tries to balance whitespace throughout a paragraph rather than just filling each line up with as much as possible and breaking when a word overflows) would do a lot to fix that. The lack of these is most noticeable when text is in narrower columns. But even with larger e-readers it is, IMO, responsible for a lot of the “this still feels less readable than a book for some reason” vibe that ebooks (and lots of self-published paper books) still have. I really lament that in the switch to electronic text we seem to have forgotten what were thought of as basic requirements for readability in paper-based publication.
- skydhash 2y ago
  The first things I disable are justified text and hyphenation. And for some books, I disable the embedded styles when I'm reading (koreader). Some books markups are really bad so I don't have much hope for automated typesetting.
jerojero 2y ago
I have both a mooan inkpalm 5 and a boox palma and you can get books look much better in both. He is using a font size that's a bit too big. And there's too much spacing, you can configure all aspects. I get about 8-10 characters on these devices, the font isn't too small and the spacing is fine. With my settings I get about 70% of a book's actual page (I use the same book to compare) which is a fair compromise imo. It's fast to read shorter lines anyway because there's less horizontal travel distance. I actually think this aspect ratio is pretty great for reading. I also have a Kobo Clara 2E which has been relegated to just reading by the pool/bath/beach. Also, these devices are pretty good for manga reading if you're into that.
- elaus 2y ago
  > I get about 8-10 characters on these devices Sorry, maybe I'm dumb, but what does that mean? 8-10 characters per...?
  - jerojero 2y ago
    Sorry it is my bad. I meant words per line.
mzd348 2y ago
It's sold by a Chinese company, their software probably doesn't worry much about optimal formatting, since Chinese writing doesn't really have any spaces. It would be nice if koreader could run on it.
- nguyenkien 2y ago
  These moaan devices run android, so you can install KoReader.

iamjackg 2y ago

It does. I have a Pro, not Plus, which I believe has a slightly wider aspect ratio. I was worried I was gonna find the typesetting unbearable for the reasons you mentioned but it's surprisingly okay, especially with smaller font sizes.

jrmg 2y ago

Good hyphenation and TeX-like paragraph-level justification (tries to balance whitespace throughout a paragraph rather than just filling each line up with as much as possible and breaking when a word overflows) would do a lot to fix that. The lack of these is most noticeable when text is in narrower columns. But even with larger e-readers it is, IMO, responsible for a lot of the “this still feels less readable than a book for some reason” vibe that ebooks (and lots of self-published paper books) still have. I really lament that in the switch to electronic text we seem to have forgotten what were thought of as basic requirements for readability in paper-based publication.

skydhash 2y ago
The first things I disable are justified text and hyphenation. And for some books, I disable the embedded styles when I'm reading (koreader). Some books markups are really bad so I don't have much hope for automated typesetting.

jerojero 2y ago

I have both a mooan inkpalm 5 and a boox palma and you can get books look much better in both. He is using a font size that's a bit too big. And there's too much spacing, you can configure all aspects. I get about 8-10 characters on these devices, the font isn't too small and the spacing is fine. With my settings I get about 70% of a book's actual page (I use the same book to compare) which is a fair compromise imo. It's fast to read shorter lines anyway because there's less horizontal travel distance. I actually think this aspect ratio is pretty great for reading. I also have a Kobo Clara 2E which has been relegated to just reading by the pool/bath/beach. Also, these devices are pretty good for manga reading if you're into that.

elaus 2y ago
> I get about 8-10 characters on these devices Sorry, maybe I'm dumb, but what does that mean? 8-10 characters per...?
- jerojero 2y ago
  Sorry it is my bad. I meant words per line.

mzd348 2y ago

It's sold by a Chinese company, their software probably doesn't worry much about optimal formatting, since Chinese writing doesn't really have any spaces. It would be nice if koreader could run on it.

nguyenkien 2y ago
These moaan devices run android, so you can install KoReader.