Please bear with me, I'm not skillful in publishing, I'm just a user of a tool.

This tool is a e-book converter from DRM-free epub format to pdf. Converter is written on Python and calls Prince for final conversion.
Resulting pdf is used on e-readers like Kindle, Nook, and Sony readers. All these e-readers provide built-in dictionaries. User selects (highlights) word (Sony, Nook) or places cursor next to the word (Kindle) and software automatically invokes dictionary search.
Format of script output is controlled by external css. User can set justification options in css file.

We (several people people were fighting with this issue) noticed that left justification provides pdf with perfectly working dictionary. However, full justification option creates pdf with randomly working dictionary - some word invoke dictionary but vast majority does not. Most often (Sony reader) we even couldn't select a word because whole line was highlighted.

Finally, we understood that left justified pdf provided white spaces as word separators while fully justified pdf did not.
We assume that words are "drawn" on the line without any white space as separators.
These lines confuse e-reader software and force selection of entire line instead of separate word.

Our script greatly improves readability of e-books on e-readers and Prince is a perfect tool to build these e-books. However, missing white-space separators are a big trouble for user.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or this is by design. If this is a bug please take measures to fix it.
If this is by design I can only humbly request an option for future release that allows user to switch output
to white-space-separated words.

This shows that I have selected one word in a justified text. Following the word is a space. So fully justified text still allows for selecting just one word in Adobe Reader.

I have written software [Princess] that uses this ability to select a word or phrase in a paragraph to adjust the tracking of a paragraph. If gives the illusion that you are able to apply the tracking directly to the PDF. In reality it places the selected word or phrase in clipboard, checks for unique paragraph, adjusts the tracking on the source paragraph, creates new PDF, and then displays it again in Adobe Reader.


This shows ONE space highlighted.

Michael will need to tell you what is inserted to make the line justified. But at least to Adobe Reader it looks like a full space. And it is just space that is placed on the clipboard or my program would fail to find the match.

Hope this helps some.

Jim Albright
Wycliffe Bible Translators

1. selectedWord.png‎ 19.4 kB
2. space.png‎ 18.7 kB

Unfortunately, software used by Sony and Amazon e-readers fails to recognize words in fully justified pdf, evidently this software is different from Adobe Reader.

As far as I understand, this is Adobe Reader Mobile issue vs Adobe Reader. My friend selected word "none" (see attached image 1) in Adobe Reader and also in freely downloadable software (from Sony) Reader Library that uses the same Adobe Reader Mobile that runs on Sony e-readers.
See how Adobe Reader Mobile highlights cluster of words instead of single word "none"?

Than he inserted manually white spaces between all words in the same phrase and saved the file (see attached image 2). This time Reader Library (uses Adobe Reader Mobile) allowed to select single word "none."

1. clipboard01en.png‎ 260.0 kB
2. clipboard02cfvf.png‎ 108.9 kB

Thanks for pointing out the problem. So this doesn't seem to be a Prince issue at all.

Jim Albright
Wycliffe Bible Translators

Sure, this is a Adobe Reader Mobile issue. However, we are between a rock and a hard place here: evidently, Adobe will not fix Mobile in foreseeing future and Prince currently doesn't insert white-spaces as separators in fully justified text.
Well, this is not about e-readers and their dictionaries only, this is about any mobile device at large using Adobe Reader Mobile.
Just imagine those millions smartphones and tablets devoid of ability to select accurately text at Prince generated documents with intention to paste it somewhere else.
In the light of this, "white-space" user option in future release might be beneficial.

Hi Sam, just as an experiment I've attached a PDF file with three paragraphs of text: left aligned, justified, and justified+space. For this last paragraph every word has had a hidden space appended to it. It should look identical, but can you confirm that it does not display the odd select behaviour in mobile Acrobat?

1. test.pdf‎ 40.4 kB

Mike, thank you for looking into this.
I checked your file on Sony PRS-950 e-reader. This reader uses Adobe Reader mobile.
Highlighting as expected:
Left: Highlights each word
Justify: Highlights entire line and even more.
Justify+space: Highlights each word, built-in dictionary finds some words with common Latin roots.
So, spaces really help.

Hi Mike,

Prince 8 is out. Any option for space separators?