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KB0258: Why is scaled image quality poor in Adobe Digital Editions?

When images are scaled in ADE and other software derived from the same code base, such as Bluefire Reader, images scale poorly - something that's particularly noticeable with screenshots and other images containing text. This generally happens on PC and Mac software, and not on devices.

By contrast, Kindle viewers, Nook, Kobo, AZARDI, Apple Books and other software and ebook devices scale pictures perfectly well. This is just a fault with ADE and derived software.

It's recommended that you always set a percentage width for images. If you left images without any scaling, the results depend on the resolution of the device - so images could be tiny on a high-resolution device, for example. On ADE, the images might look better in some scenarios, if you are viewing the Epub on a monitor with a medium or low resolution: ADE won't scale the image if it fits in its window. However, on a high-resolution monitor, the image may be tiny.

There isn't really a good solution to this dilemma, except perhaps to supply an alternative Epub file with no scaling, if you have your own web site.

To compile a file with no sizing, you could create two box styles "Image With Scaling" and "Image Without Scaling". Don't set any sizing in your images, but in "Image With Scaling", set the width to, say, 100%. Format your images with the box style "Image With Scaling". Then, create a new configuration, and set the configuration option Box style substitutions to "Image With Scaling:Image Without Scaling". When you compile with this configuration, size information will be omitted, apart from maximum size added by the configuration option Limit images to viewer size.

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