Pages Not Breaking

[msmith65]

I'm doing a recipe book - color photos, lots of lists - and the authors would like for each recipe to start on a new page.

I'm using this at the end of each recipe:

  <hr class="sigilChapterBreak" />

But when I open the .epub with the Kindle advanced previewer (converting to .mobi in the process), there's just a line where the chapter break should be. A forced page break doesn't appear to happen.

I have seen posts here that suggest breaking the file into multiple files, so the page breaks will be automatic. Whoo, I really don't want to do that, as it will make navigation while editing very difficult. Is there another way?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by msmith65

I'm doing a recipe book - color photos, lots of lists - and the authors would like for each recipe to start on a new page.

I'm using this at the end of each recipe:

  <hr class="sigilChapterBreak" />

But when I open the .epub with the Kindle advanced previewer (converting to .mobi in the process), there's just a line where the chapter break should be. A forced page break doesn't appear to happen.

I have seen posts here that suggest breaking the file into multiple files, so the page breaks will be automatic. Whoo, I really don't want to do that, as it will make navigation while editing very difficult. Is there another way?

That is just a 'marker' for the F6 key (Split on chapter markers).
Just wait, knowing that is where it will hapen

[DiapDealer]

Simply marking where the chapter breaks are supposed to occur will do nothing when converted to MOBI—as you've obviously discovered.

Now that you've marked the breaks, you're going to want to go ahead and utilize the "Split at Chapter Markers" feature if you want Kindlegen (Previewer) to create breaks. Kindlegen knows nothing about Sigil's hr classes—nor should it.

If you don't want to physically split up your html file, you can insert a div with a unique class and then use CSS to assign the "page-break-before: always;" attribute to that class. I believe kindlegen will honor that.

[msmith65]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Simply marking where the chapter breaks are supposed to occur will do nothing when converted to MOBI—as you've obviously discovered.

Now that you've marked the breaks, you're going to want to go ahead and utilize the "Split at Chapter Markers" feature if you want Kindlegen (Previewer) to create breaks. Kindlegen knows nothing about Sigil's hr classes—nor should it.

If you don't want to physically split up your html file, you can insert a div with a unique class and then use CSS to assign the "page-break-before: always;" attribute to that class. I believe kindlegen will honor that.

Since I'm breaking a page before each h1 and h2, can I build something into their definitions in the CSS that will force the break before?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by msmith65

Since I'm breaking a page before each h1 and h2, can I build something into their definitions in the CSS that will force the break before?

Simply add the following line to the stylesheet:

h1, h2 {page-break-before: always;}

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by msmith65

Since I'm breaking a page before each h1 and h2, can I build something into their definitions in the CSS that will force the break before?

You bet. Just like Doitsu indicated, if you already have an element in your document that you consistently want a page break to precede, then by all means ... no need to add extra code. Just assign the page-break-before attribute to whatever element (or element class) works for you.

[Toxaris]

Beware. If you also put margins in the same elements in the stylesheet, the margins might be ignored in ADE.

[Jellby]

Only the top margin, actually, and that's in accordance with the CSS spec (which says it may be ignored). That's at least with CSS2.1:

Originally Posted by CSS2.1

When a forced page break occurs here, the used value of the relevant 'margin-bottom' property is set to '0'; the relevant 'margin-top' used value may either be set to '0' or retained.

And despite what the note says, the situation in CSS3 does not change in the right direction:

Originally Posted by CSS3

the computed values of the relevant 'margin-top' and 'margin-bottom' properties are set to '0'.

EDIT: Ah, the future spec may say something different:

When an unforced page break occurs here, both the adjoining ‘margin-top’ and ‘margin-bottom’ are set to zero. [...] When a forced page break occurs at (1), the used values of any adjoining ‘margin-bottom’ are set to zero.

(emphasis mine, it says nothing about margin-top in forced page break, meaning it is retained.) But this is CSS3, which is not applicable even for ePub3, I'm afraid.

[Toxaris]

Hmm, did not check the specs. Sounds silly though.