 |
| The Evolution of Imperfection |
I have now 153 (non-fiction) e-books on my ten years old KOBO Auro HD reader. I never encountered problems with reading any of the books on it. A few days ago I bought Laurence D. Hurst (2025) 'The Evolution of Imperfection'. For the first time I discovered annoying problems with displaying content. In my e-reader a graph (Figure 6.1) is either displayed in an extremely small and consequently non readable size or is not displayed at all depending on the font size settings.
To check whether this fault is specific to the e-reader, I checked the display in the online KOBO browser application. Unexpectedly, Figure 6.1 in chapter 6 refused to show up with any font size or page setting. A large table, Table 6.1, is only visible and readable at specific settings, but is truncated at more comfortable bigger font sizes.
 |
| Empty space where fig 6.1 should show up (browser) |
However, the graph is definitely present in the e-book:
 |
| Display of the page in the e-book reader |
As can be seen in the above picture, although the graph is displayed, and the caption is readable, the graph itself is so small that labels cannot be read. This makes the illustration worthless. This is not the only illustration that gives troubles (for example Figure 2.1 and 2.2 are also absent). In a scientific book graphs and tables are essential. So, the book is kind of damaged and should not be sold in this condition. These errors make you think twice before buying a scientific e-book.
Has anybody experienced similar problems? For example with the Amazon Kindle e-reader or browser?
The book is important for those interested in evolution, and I will blog about it as soon as I finished it.
