Theodore of Mopsuestia: awful quality

Logos has recently published "Theodore of Mopsuestia: Commentary on the Minor Pauline Epistles" at the rather premium pre pub price of $70, it appears to me that the formating is on occasion awful, like it is a machine scan with no attempt to actually electonically format the result.

For example here is a screenshot:

On the ipad it looks even worse, with the text failing to flow most of the time and huge gaps between words appealing randomly.

Am I missing something here?

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Comments

MJ. Smith

It looks to me as if the text itself alternates between single and double columns. Outside that I don't see anything unusual. What am I missing?

Mike Pettit

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376207#Comment_376207

Surely column use should be controlled by logos, not be formatted by default. Logos lets you choose whether to use columns or not but this is not possible when you hard code the formatting as you would in a printed book.

I really do not like it, but perhaps this is just me.

Jacob Hantla

No it's not you. This is something that is unacceptable and certainly not in keeping with Logos quality standards. I hope that they send this back to the text department.

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376207#Comment_376207

It looks to me as if the text itself alternates between single and double columns. Outside that I don't see anything unusual. What am I missing?

It seems that Logos is just replicating the original layout of the book.

That section from Philemon isn't available in the Google books preview, but other parts are. Here's a section from 1Timothy that has similar variable column formatting:

Theodore of Mopsuestia: Commentary on the Minor Pauline Epistles, page 345

I find it just as confusing here in the original book, so I'm not sure Logos is to blame.

Philana Crouch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376216#Comment_376216

This type of formatting occurs in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English a specific example is the Testament of Simeon 6:5. What is being displayed is an alternate version of the text. The double column is how they are displayed. I think it might be helpful to have a black vertical line seperating the colums, it would be easier to read. But the double colums are needed, essentially they are displaying parallel versions. I don’t think getting rid of the double colums would be a solution, it helps to see the differences. Are there alternative methods of displaying two versions so you can easily identify the variations?

Vincent Setterholm

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376216#Comment_376216

Read the Introduction at xxvi on the The Translation. It explains the use of two columns for some of the material. This arrangement is part of the design of the book.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376227#Comment_376227

Thanks Vincent. I think it's just a matter of getting used to the layout although on the desktop a little more white space could help. Unfortunately, on mobile devices this would be an additional problem.

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376216#Comment_376216

That section from Philemon isn't available in the Google books preview, but other parts are. Here's a section from 1Timothy that has similar variable column formatting:

Theodore of Mopsuestia: Commentary on the Minor Pauline Epistles, page 345

As Vincent said above, this is by design. So others can see, Logos' rendition of this seciton matches pretty closely:

Mike Pettit

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376312#Comment_376312

I am not convinced that closely following the printed conventions for a book is the correct way to render an electronic resource, if this was the case we would force the electonic flow to mirror how the printed book looks which is not the case and is a feature that Logos repeatedly reminds us of. We would be forced to have fixed footnotes on each page and there would not be an hover over features.

Saying that my proposition was obviously slightly unfair as it is probably a matter of judgement, not lack of attention.

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/376227#Comment_376227

Read the Introduction at xxvi on the The Translation. It explains the use of two columns for some of the material. This arrangement is part of the design of the book.

I take back my comments. Thanks Vincent