Hyphenation in iBooks
UPDATE: Since iBooks Version 1.2 there is no need for any Javascript hacks. iBooks does hyphenation natively.
The iBooks eReader Software for iPad and iPhone does currently not do any automated hyphenation. To add to the problem iBooks comes with a default setting that forces body text to justified alignment. Typesetting guys seem to agree that justified text and no hyphenation is a no-go.
Rick Gordon asked on Twitter if it was possible to use the Javascript based Hyphenator. As iBooks is based on WebKit it should be possible. So I did a test and it works fine. See the results here:
It also looks better with left aligned text:
I am not sure if such an ePub will make it into the iBookstore. You will have to try for yourself. Matteo asked for a demo ePub to see how this is done. You can download the Hyphenation ePub Demo and take a look at the code. It is fairly simple, just stick to the hypenator documentation. The hyphenation ePub validates epubcheck 1.0.5. I also tested it in Adobe Digital Editions but it does not seem to work there.
