The starting quote marks at the end of a line in my epub file are separated from the words quoted.

[PeterAleff]

The starting quote marks at the end of a line in my epub file are routinely separated from the word quoted which appears on the next line. The formatting contractor accurance.com who prepared this epub file tells me that this is a feature of Adobe Digital Edition 2.0 and that there is nothing they can do to correct this. Are they correct, or else how can this problem be overcome?

[sjpt]

I can't see this bad behaviour on a file I'm looking at in ADE2.0.

There probably is something they could do to force the complete quoted word to come on a line,

but it would be quite clumsy for them.  Probably wrap it to it looks like 

    <span style="white-space:nowrap">"quotedword"</span>

(or cleaner with appropriate css)

But maybe ADE would get even that wrong.

Maybe they are using the &quot; or &ldquo; form and leaving a space after the ';' (or using a space instead of the ';')?

You can see if 1.7.2 has the same bug.

[PeterAleff]

Thank you, sjpt, for your reply. The problem occurs only in portrait mode with a side-by-side two-page display on my desktop screen. So far, I tried only the "medium" font size, but there the separation of the quote marks from the words quoted happens consistently whenever that quoted word falls at the end of a line. I am using ADE2.0. In landscape mode and single-page display, I did not observe the problem.

Please explain what you mean by "appropriate css". I saw an advertisement by one formatting contractor that they establish a style sheet for each device, but how does that work, and how do I translate this into instructions for my present contractor? There is presently no space between those quote marks and the words quoted.

Thank you in advance for your additional help.

[sjpt]

A formatting contractor will know what I mean by "appropriate css".

Whether they manage to find such css that is able to work around ADE bugs is another matter.

Unfortunately, experimenting with such things is pretty time consuming, and so likely to be expensive.

If the document is not DRM you could try a different reader program ~ almost anything will be better than ADE.

However, if you are preparing this for sale that might not be appropriate.

~~~

css files give formatting rules, for example how to lay out paragraphs, space between them, indentation, etc.

Normally a style sheet for each device will allow for things like device size and resolution,

and also (possibly) for bugs in the device software that means is does not interpret the css rules correctly.

[PeterAleff]

Thank you, sjpt, for your frank answer. I am indeed preparing my manuscript for sale as ebooks, and a bug like that with the separated quote marks is in my opinion not commercially acceptable. I am not planning to use DRM, but how can I tell my future readers to not use ADE if that is what their reading device runs on?

Are there css style sheets available for purchase, or do they need to be specially constructed for each book?

Thank you in advance for your continued help in squashing this bug.

[sjpt]

I'm not sure about buying css style sheets. 

You don't need one for each book; if you want to have a series of books all with the same general format,

then they should all use the same style sheet on a given device, but maybe different style sheets for different devices.

All the books will then have one consistent look on a given device, and a different consistent look on another device.

ADE only runs on PCs and Macs.  There are lots of different ereader software apps out there for running on different devices.

For a dedicated device, you are stuck with the reader the device provides.

For tablets you can download different ereader apps, for example Bluefire (my favourite, ios, Android), Aldiko (android) and DReader and DL Reader (windows RT).

I don't know if the readers/apps are derived from the same root as ADE in any way and likely to show similar bugs.

If it is not DRM, you should certainly try on Calibre, which is the most popular (free) ereader app for computers.

If you care to create a very short non DRM extract (complete with css) and post it somewhere on the web I'll have a quick look.

If you have inclination to get more involved yourself,

there is free software called sigil (https://code.google.com/p/sigil/) that will help you get off the ground and experiment.

[PeterAleff]

Thank you very much, sjpt, for your helpful answers. I don't have a css for any part of my book yet, so I cannot post the requested sample. The sigil site has moved and is now at this link https://github.com/user-none/Sigil. The software there with its list of source codes look more demanding than what I think I can safely handle, so I am now looking for a formatting contractor to whom I can write in plain language what I want my ebooks to look like.

In any case, have again Vielen Dank for your advice, and may the Adobe administrators add 1000 points to your name!