Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg Bell
Let me bounce this off you. For my novels (in Sigil) I use an external style sheet. Being as unsophisticated (a euphemism if ever there was one) as I am, and since if I use a style for italics this will complicate my external style sheet and since if I just use the toolbar italic button it just shows up as the <i></i> deal, wouldn't I be better off just using the tool bar italic button for my italics? (when composing)
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Yes, epubs should use an external style sheet. The plug-in I use for LibreOffice creates the epub directly, including this external style sheet with all the used styles set up for me. (I presume there is something similar available for Word, but don't know the details.) Since I don't have to manually set up this style sheet I don't see any particular benefit in not using a style for emphasis (it's not like it's a difficult style to define).
Having got that disclaimer out of my system, there is probably not a huge difference, either way, in the case of emphasis, because I don't imagine there will be situations where you want to change how it is displayed. BUT, remember what I said in another post, don't make the mistake of making the same assumption in other cases. As a general rule: avoid using explicit formatting. But as an exception to the general rule, plain italics for emphasis doesn't seem likely to cause a problem.