Hi,

I'm just getting into .cbz, after ~7 years publishing fixed-layout EPUBs through the Apple Books platform, and was wondering about the spread view in YACR (and other .cbz readers?) - I only have the Mac version so far, but when I set it to 2-up / spreads view, it puts the cover on the left, and then pulls all the pages out of order through the rest of the book. Traditionally you'd start with the front cover on the right, inside front on the left etc.

Is this a bug / YACR design decision / universal way all cbz readers function, or is there a workaround / setting I can use to configure the first page as "right" in spreads? I thought about putting a blank page in as the first page, but that would then become the icon in the library app, I presume?

Apologies if this is the wrong topic thread etc.

Thanks.

Hi,

this is something it needs a setting to control the behaviour. What's the layout of a digital comic file? Well, there is not single answer to this question. Sometimes showing the cover alone is the right behaviour other times it is not.

There is an issue opened in github about it. I'll add a setting in the future.

A comic book is just a regular zip, rar, 7z or tar archive with a bunch of pictures in it. A comic book reader is just an image viewer for compressed archives. That is the gist of it.

The common way to start a comic book is showing the cover in the center. Usually this is followed by a spread page, so our double page mode would sync with it. As it is pretty common these days that spread pages are served as two separate pages, the synchronization does no longer work. Note that this also affects those users who read in single page mode as they need to switch to double page mode to view the spread page.

So, for maximum compatibility I recommend putting a spread page directly after the cover and serving your spread pages as single files or both single and double files.

Thanks for the responses folks.

To clarify, it's standard in publishing for odd-numbered (counting the cover as 1) pages to always be displayed to the right of the spine (in a left-to-right language book). What I'm seeing YACR on MacOS do, is display odd pages to the left of spine, when double page mode is switched on.

My books are designed around the pagination being fixed on the basis of odd-right - scene changes, dramatic reveals etc, they're all structured on the basis that a spread reveal happens on an odd-to-even page turn.

I don't think putting two pages into a single physical file is going to be a solution - I'd assume that would scale weirdly on a portrait screen? If someone puts the reader in double page mode, would there be 4 pages on screen at once?

The icon for the library app, that's always taken from the first file in numerical/alphabetical order in the .cbz/cbr - is that correct? I'm assuming I could make "slipcover" files to "wrap" the 1st and last page of the book, so the slipcover page would be on the left, and cover on the right.

Does the Automatic mode of the iOS app handle this more gracefully - eg isolating the cover / page 1 to a single page, then proceeding for the rest of the book with evens-left, odds-right? Or is that purely about switching singles to doubles based on orientation (which I'm assuming would still produce the odd-left problem)?

cheers.

Yes, the files are ordered alphabetical and numerical. I recommend using leading 0es (001 instead of just 1),some older readers might sort it badly otherwise.

Generally, most if not all readers will show a joined double page as a single page in double page mode. It just gets plain ugly otherwise. So if a spread page is shown,the page counter will advance just a single page, which basically forces the sync. You could simply use a blank page for that.

Following a joined spread page with the single pages you joined is mostly for readers who read in single page mode. First you see the spread page as the author would have intended it, but too small because single page mode shrinks it. This is then followed by the single pages with the right scale for details.

When reading a book, you start on the left side. YACReader mimics this. The only excemption is the cover and sometimes the last page, for which we need to add an exception. The recommendations I am giving you should work well with most readers.

So if my single page is 1000x2000px (WxH) portrait, are you suggesting I structure the book with:

Cover - 1000x2000px (standard single page)
Inside Cover & Page 01 - 2000x2000px (double width page)
Page 02 - 1000x2000px (standard single page), Page 03 - 1000x2000px (standard single page)
Page 04 - 1000x2000px (standard single page), Page 05 - 1000x2000px (standard single page)

etc...

Is that correct?

Well a square page with exactly the same height and width might be problematic. Make it wider than it is high. But otherwise that structure would work with most readers. Remember that there is no real standard for comic book readers and people have different habits for reading.

Thanks again - I'll have a play and see what works - I can always offer the books in multiple .cbz options in addition to Fixed-Layout EPUB so readers can get the version that plays best with their reader.

Is there any movement amongst reader apps towards a standardised XML-stlye manifest file in cbz - like we use in EPUB for the TOC definition, so an author can optionally specify start page, cover (icon) image, spine orientation, reading direction etc?

cheers,

No, it always was and still is just a bunch of pictures in an archive file. Some readers have added XML metadata files to allow tagging comics and storing metadata, but that isn't what you are looking for.