I have a strong personal preference to see a blank line after every paragraph in ebooks and I've been converting and uploading all my ebooks to MR this way. But I know some disagree and I now see that at least a few people strongly disagree. Can I see a show of hands, please? I'd like to know if I need to change my ways or at least format two sets of books (one for me and one for uploading). Thanks.

It's entirely a matter of personal choice, VR. I prefer not to have them myself, but I have no strong objection to them. What I was objecting to, in the post to which you're probably referring, is the use of blank lines where they simply shouldn't be - eg between lines of poetry.

Note that most implementations of the MobiPocket Reader will leave a gap of about half a line between paragraphs, so adding an "explicit" blank line is not really necessary in Mobi books.

Hope you didn't read more into my post than I intended! :)

There's no misunderstanding, Harry. But your post did cause to me think about this topic which I have wondered about for some time. I was unaware, for example, that Mobipocket Reader applies an additional small gap between paragraphs. I wish the Sony Reader did that. I wouldn't want the additional full line in that case. And I can see how one and a half lines in Mobipocket would be annoying. Still, I would like to know people's preferences and adjust accordingly.

My personal preference is not to have blank lines between paragraphs, but to have an indent. My reasoning is that this means fewer page turns, so a slightly longer batter life.

But I have no objection to reading a book with blank lines between paragraphs, and, where there are very long paragraphs, a blank line can improve the look of the book.

I would carry on just as you are, VR. Your books always look very good.

I have a strong personal preference to see a blank line after every paragraph in ebooks and I've been converting and uploading all my ebooks to MR this way. But I know some disagree and I now see that at least a few people strongly disagree. Can I see a show of hands, please? I'd like to know if I need to change my ways or at least format two sets of books (one for me and one for uploading). Thanks.

Well, if you are formating a book, you should really use the format you prefer yourself. It's up to the reader to adapt to the book, not the other way around :)

As for myself, I have no real preferences in the matter. As long as it's a good book, it doesnt really matter for me if there is a blank line between paragraphs or not. And it's not something I stop and think about either :)

I'd better amend that in the interests of accuracy: some implementations of the MobiPocket Reader insert spacing between paragraphs - eg the CyBook Gen3 does. Others, such as the Windows MobiPocket Reader, don't (but it does allow you to adjust the inter-line spacing).

All versions of the Mobi reader indent the first line of a paragraph (unless this is specifically altered by the book itself).

My personal preference is not to have blank lines between paragraphs, but to have an indent. My reasoning is that this means fewer page turns, so a slightly longer batter life.


Yes, the important point is that paragraphs need to be delineated in some fashion, whether it be by an indent, or by extra spacing. By default, with most Mobi implementations, you get both - an indented first line and about half a line spacing between paragraphs.

This subject is quite interesting for me, too.

First, my personal view is that I like to have paragraphs separated by one empty line.

FBReader, which I use extensively on my EEE, offers the possibility to introduce such a line by making it possible to adjust the distance between paragraphs in a properties tab. Mobi reader software does not offer that possibility. Neither do any hardware readers, afaik.

So it's up to personal preferences for the ebook maker, I guess. Worth a feature suggestion to mobi and the hardware readers, though.

I do find a blank line separation between (fully justified) paragraphs visually appealing while reading ebooks, but, oddly enough, not as much when reading pbooks!

I think this has manifested itself from first reading ebooks on my Gemstar REB1200 since, by default, the native software used to convert .html to .imp, uses blank line separation.

As a result, that's what I was first exposed to, so I "guess" I prefer it better.

While writing my Mobi2IMP software converter, I did discover a way to make a .imp without blank line separation, but then use of an indent was most definitely required!

Should you change your methods of ebook creation? NO! I can just take your .prc version (if available) and then roll my own using Mobi2IMP.

BTW, keep up the good (converting) work!!!

I do find a blank line separation between (fully justified) paragraphs visually appealing while reading ebooks, but, oddly enough, not as much when reading pbooks!

I agree and I'm not sure why. After a year and half reading on a Sony Reader, it still seems just a touch unnatural in ways I can't describe and I find the blank line between paragraphs comforting. Perhaps if the display format was larger (an iLiad, for example) I wouldn't need the blank lines.

As to changing or not changing the way I create ebooks, yes, I understand that it's my choice and that I should do what I want. But I also want to do what is most useful for people who will read them and if I can make a small change that makes a difference, I will choose to do that. Of course, I say that but I think I'm still doing em-dashes incorrectly and haven't made the effort to fix that either. And I still have posted books that have hundreds of annoying textual errors that need correcting. It seems that everything is a work in progress with me.

It seems that everything is a work in progress with me.

It never stops being a learning experience. Look at the number of books that I've posted multiple versions of!

As to changing or not changing the way I create ebooks, yes, I understand that it's my choice and that I should do what I want. But I also want to do what is most useful for people who will read them and if I can make a small change that makes a difference, I will choose to do that. Of course, I say that but I think I'm still doing em-dashes incorrectly and haven't made the effort to fix that either. And I still have posted books that have hundreds of annoying textual errors that need correcting. It seems that everything is a work in progress with me.
but just think vr if everything were perfect in the world how boring that would be. :)

as long as paragraphs are delineated by something (indent or blank line) i'm happy... i think i do prefere (somewhat) a blank line, because the tendency for ebooks is to format them with very little margin space (sometimes none at all) and i need some white space in the page. if there are decent margins, then just an indent is fine.

ironically i can't seem to decide what my personal preference on this is, i think my taste has been influenced by working in web too much (in html, paragraphs are automatically separated by a blank line, unless you define it otherwise, now that seems quite normal to me for any kind of screen reading).

To me, it is a readability issue. The blank line allows the eyes to signal the end of a paragraph and, therefore, the start of the next iteration of the thought. I feel that it is easier to read that way.

Does the Kindle automatically add spacing between paragraphs, pshrynk, like the Gen3 does?

The haggard Omnibus that I dl'd yesterday (Thanks Harry!) does not have spaces between the paragraph breaks. they are indented, thankfully. the book i bought from Amazon today also does not. The Pratchett book I bought from FW also does not.

Thanks!

My preference is for indention and no blank lines, as in most printed books.

In the mobipocket ebooks I've made, I enclose every paragraph in <P></P> tags (that's what they are for, after all). It should be a feature of the reader to display the paragraphs as the user prefers. The default seems to be some indentation and a little bit (much less than a line) of vertical space. My Cybook currently does not allow this to be changed, but I wish it did, and I would keep the indentation and set the spacing to none.

The defaults can be overriden for specific paragraphs. The first paragraph in a chapter, for instance, has a larger space above and no indent, so it is <P WIDTH="0em" HEIGHT="2em"></P>

I prefer the blank line because it makes it easier for me to read ebooks on my Sony 505. As I get older, the eyes don't work as well. I also prefer slightly wider margins. Truthfully, I find most of the ebooks I buy from Sony Connect to be formatted for my reading tastes -- except for the font size. I wish all ebooks were formatted in 11 point base font and that any footnotes also be formatted in that same size. I am currently reading a trilogy about the civil rights movement in the U.S. and am always dismayed when I have to go to an explanatory footnote because the font size is so small, making it difficult to read.

I prefer the blank line because it makes it easier for me to read ebooks on my Sony 505. As I get older, the eyes don't work as well. I also prefer slightly wider margins. Truthfully, I find most of the ebooks I buy from Sony Connect to be formatted for my reading tastes -- except for the font size. I wish all ebooks were formatted in 11 point base font and that any footnotes also be formatted in that same size. I am currently reading a trilogy about the civil rights movement in the U.S. and am always dismayed when I have to go to an explanatory footnote because the font size is so small, making it difficult to read.

Isn't that one major benefit of an eBook reader over a printed book, though - the fact that when your eyes do get tired, or you're reading in poor light, that you can make the text larger?

Yes, the important point is that paragraphs need to be delineated in some fashion, whether it be by an indent, or by extra spacing. By default, with most Mobi implementations, you get both - an indented first line and about half a line spacing between paragraphs.

It is generally 2 pixels more between paragraphs I believe. It seems not to be related to font size.

Dale

I want to be as close the the pbook experience as I can get with my ebooks. For me, that means spaces after paragraphs and margins around the sides.

I prefer a bit of a gap, but not a whole line's height, between paragraphs, but I'm not fussed if it's not there, so long as the first line of the paragraph is indented. And I realise most (all?) fiction isn't published that way, so for that I really don't mind; but for non-fiction it's really helpful to have a bit of a gap.

I want to be as close the the pbook experience as I can get with my ebooks. For me, that means spaces after paragraphs and margins around the sides.

But do you want a gap of a whole line between paragraphs? Very few - if any - pbooks have that.

Strong preference against the blank line in my case: I want the typesetting of my e-books to be like a book, not a webpage. That means indented paragraphs, margins and hyphenation.

For fiction I do not want to have blank lines since I think it indicates a distance in content that is not there for fiction. For technical papers I want to have a blank line between paragraph since each paragraph usually have a purpose and a blank line help to indicate that you should understand the whole paragraph before you continue.

I find it interesting that I had assumed that most pbooks have some additional space after each paragraph. I assumed that because ebooks just look wrong on my Sony without that extra space. But Harry's right. I've checked dozens of my pbooks and haven't found one yet with that extra space. Curious how the mind works.

And now that I've looked at this some, I find that I don't like the tiny margins in the ebooks I've been making. And then there are those ugly fonts. sigh.

I prefer the blank line because it makes it easier for me to read ebooks on my Sony 505. As I get older, the eyes don't work as well.

Same for me.

I notice all the responses on the forum have a space between paragraphs.

The results are interesting, here's what I think: we should avoid blank lines between paragraphs in the source of the e-books BUT reading system should allow us to tweak the spacing between paragraphs. In both Mobipocket and ePub, this can be easily modified using CSS properties.
I might extend also at some point the settings for customized PDFs on Feedbooks with "advanced settings" too, this could be one of the options available.

The think is, if you do use blank lines, then you'll have to make sure that blank line separators are at least two lines and easily distinguished from a blank line. Also some books start the first paragraph of a section with no indent. That too sometimes must be taken into account. And in a book like that, having no paragraph indents will lose the format if the first paragraph of a section with no paragraph indent.

I personally prefer no extra blank lines and paragraph indents. I like to have more text per screen for less screen turns. I did read one book that was posted here with blank lines between paragraphs and no indents. It did bug me when I was reading it. When there are a lot of short lines, that's when it's most annoying to me.

However, if you are using Book Designer to make an LRF eBook then you can make two copies, one with lines and one without. But as I stated above, you'd then have to sort out possible issues with the formatting if you make a book with blank lines.

But do you want a gap of a whole line between paragraphs? Very few - if any - pbooks have that.

"I want to be as close the the pbook experience as I can get with my ebooks."

Whatever spacing there is in pbooks is what I want.

Whatever spacing there is in pbooks is what I want.

But pbooks usually don't have any spacing between paragraphs...

But pbooks usually don't have any spacing between paragraphs...

Whatever spacing there is in pbooks, is what I want. :)

"I want to be as close the the pbook experience as I can get with my ebooks."

Whatever spacing there is in pbooks is what I want.

That's why I was a little confused by your subsequent comment that:

For me, that means spaces after paragraphs

because most printed books don't have spaces between paragraphs - they just indent first lines :).

Isn't that one major benefit of an eBook reader over a printed book, though - the fact that when your eyes do get tired, or you're reading in poor light, that you can make the text larger?

Yes, it is an advantage but it is also a disadvantage. I have found that it first depends on the original font size used and second on how large the size becomes when it gets increased. It becomes very frustrating to read a book with 6 words constituting a page :).

I find that if the base font size is 12 point, then S or M on my Sony is fine. Unfortunately sometimes M isn't quite right and L becomes unreadable.

I expect that in a few years we will be able to exert much finer control over text size standardly, perhaps even being able to set our readers to have a default font and margin size (which is something we should be able to do now, I would think).

I have a strong preference for indented paragraphs, no intervening line, no blank pages to simulate the printed version, comfortable margins and leading (1.2% of the point size is the accepted typographical convention).

I expect that in a few years we will be able to exert much finer control over text size standardly, perhaps even being able to set our readers to have a default font and margin size (which is something we should be able to do now, I would think).

That's one of the things I like about the CyBook - the fact that one can choose any font with which to read a book, and the choice of 12 text sizes. Gives you a lot more control than the Sony does.

My personal prefference is to have a *small* space after a paragraph.

I use mostly rtf files and I set the "space after paragraph" to some small number, so the space is perhaps a milimeter wider between two paragraphs than it is between lines.
6" screen is too small for a full width empty line between paragraphs IMHO

I think that you should definitely format the book the way *YOU* like it. If somebody disagrees they are welcome to post their own version. They can even try to contact you for a "source" file and tweak it to their liking with minimal effort.

I read a lot of fiction, which tends to have a lot of dialogue; each quote tends to be a separate paragraph. All the novels I have downloaded so far do not have spaces between paragraphs, but indents instead, which I think is correct. Some of the books can have 5-10 paragraphs per page (on a 6" screen). Imagine if a blank line was between each paragraph - as there are only 20-25 lines per page, you would waste up to 25-50% of the screen on blank lines, which is just plain daft.

There is at least one reason why people use blank lines on web sites (as indeed do I) - if you try to indent paragraphs using the tab key you not get an indent - the cursor instead jumps to another control. It is easier to tap enter twice than to enter+space+space+space+space to get an indented paragraph.

There is at least one reason why people use blank lines on web sites (as indeed do I) - if you try to indent paragraphs using the tab key you not get an indent - the cursor instead jumps to another control. It is easier to tap enter twice than to enter+space+space+space+space to get an indented paragraph.

Well, I use a stylesheet :rofl:

Well, I was hoping this poll would clarify something like a consensus preference. No such luck. And the strong preferences make it clear that a user-selected option should be available on the reading devices.

About ten days ago, I uploaded Kenneth Grahame's Wind In The Willows in two forms: one with a blank line after each paragraph and one without. I see now that there have been 51 downloads of the LRF "with" and 35 of the LRF "without". Some of those downloads may simply have been the result of curiosity but otherwise it would seem to confirm that there is a sizeable fraction of MR members who prefer the blank lines. If there are any vendors of ebook readers reading this, please take note that it might be a good idea to have this as a user-selected option on their readers.

About ten days ago, I uploaded Kenneth Grahame's Wind In The Willows in two forms: one with a blank line after each paragraph and one without. I see now that there have been 51 downloads of the LRF "with" and 35 of the LRF "without". Some of those downloads may simply have been the result of curiosity but otherwise it would seem to confirm that there is a sizeable fraction of MR members who prefer the blank lines. If there are any vendors of ebook readers reading this, please take note that it might be a good idea to have this as a user-selected option on their readers.

On the CyBook you automatically get a slight gap (about 1/3 line) between paragraphs. I find that this greatly enhances the readability of the book compared to having the paragraphs one after the other with no gaps.

I find personally that having a gap of a whole line between paragraphs is too much.

On the CyBook you automatically get a slight gap (about 1/3 line) between paragraphs. I find that this greatly enhances the readability of the book compared to having the paragraphs one after the other with no gaps.

I find personally that having a gap of a whole line between paragraphs is too much.

Thanks, Harry. That may explain why most of the PRC files that were downloaded of that title are of the copy with no blank lines.

On the CyBook you automatically get a slight gap (about 1/3 line) between paragraphs.

Yes, if the paragraphs are created with the <P> tag (not with <DIV>, as it is sometimes seen).

Yes, if the paragraphs are created with the <P> tag (not with <DIV>, as it is sometimes seen).

Yeah, on Feedbooks we use <p> tags and I add a slight space between paragraphs in ePub and PDF (not a blank line).

Since we use a very specific stylesheet on Feedbooks, we could imagine something like this for Calibre users:
- API integration to directly download files from Feedbooks
- settings based on the styles that Feedbooks use (changing the chapter headers, paragraphs, blockquote, dropcaps etc...)
Otherwise I could probably offer something similar to our custom PDF option.

Of course, most of these settings should be on the reading system side, except for chapter headers or dropcaps.

I had not seen this poll before and I would like to express my personal preferences toward line breaks between paragraphs. It probably comes from my days as having been a book printer. Yes I actually was involved in printing books with paper.:thumbsup:

I forgot to say that we always added line breaks in the books we produced.

I forgot to say that we always added line breaks in the books we produced.

A break of an entire line, so that, for example, a passage of dialogue with lots of short lines is, in effect, "double spaced"? That just looks "wrong" to me.

A break of an entire line, so that, for example, a passage of dialogue with lots of short lines is, in effect, "double spaced"? That just looks "wrong" to me.

I agree, Harry. For most of the ebooks I read, there is very often only one paragraph break per page and that becomes tedious for me for some reason if there are no blank lines. But The Wind In The Willows, for example, contains lots of short dialogue and in that case I find a full blank line between paragraphs rather annoying. I think I would quite like the ability to control that property myself.

This is just one of the reason that the e-book is so great. Anyone with a little time and patience can create the book that they enjoy to read. On the other hand most people and I don't mean Mobileread type people, think that this is a waste of time, my spouse for instance.

But I think I'm still right, there should always be a break after a paragraph.:rofl: Remember the more breaks in the book means ultimately more pages for the printer to print making them more money.

And thanks HarryT for the wonderful tutorial for book designer.:thumbsup:

And thanks HarryT for the wonderful tutorial for book designer.:thumbsup:

You got that right!

Anyone with a little time and patience can create the book that they enjoy to read.

Ideally, things like margins, font, idents, spacing, etc. should be options in the reader, no need to change the book, just set your preferences.

Ideally, things like margins, font, idents, spacing, etc. should be options in the reader, no need to change the book, just set your preferences.

I agree with you, and that's one of the reasons I prefer to use the MobiPocket format, because that's the approach that Mobi takes - don't "hard code" such things as font, justification, margins, etc, in the book (unless it's vital) but leave them for the user to choose. With a Sony book, on the other hand, it's all "hard coded".

OK, I give up my wife just pulled out several books off the shelf at random and showed me that none of them had paragraph breaks. They all had large indents and looked good. Jeez that's hard to admit.

But I still like line breaks. I wish that one could control the size of the breaks.

So I will say it again all you non paragraph line break people are right.:rolleyes:

I don't think it's an "all or nothing" thing, acprinter. I think that most people would agree that a space between paragraphs looks better on a small screen, such as a PDA, but when you get up to a 6" screen size, I personally prefer indented paragraphs like most printed books have.

Being able to choose would be the best option! :D

For my own conversions I simply add 6pts between paragraphs and indent by 12pts. This is easily done and gives the most readable and pleasing display on my 505.