chapter break no large gaps

[Mohan-V-Allied]

Hello Everyone,

I've been a visitor to this site for awhile now and have picked up alot of information and tips. Thanks to everyone who's posted.

The reason for this post is that I'm stuck and cannot find the information I'm looking for.

By now I've learned to covert files into epub using Sigil and break the files down at the chapters.

But I have a file with no chapter heading, which I've broken up at certain points. But what I want is the document to flow freely from the end of a chapter break to the start of the next chapter break.

So, far every way I insert a chapter break causes the page on my reader to have a blank section after the last part of the chapter. Isn't there a way that the last chapter finnish's the a blank line then the start of the new chapter?

regards,
V. Mohan

[Toxaris]

In short: no.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Mohan-V-Allied

Isn't there a way that the last chapter finnish's the a blank line then the start of the new chapter?

Only if you merge all your "chapters" back into one big html file and remove any and all CSS page-breaks.

Not recommended at all, by the way (unless the whole file turns out to be less than 260K, or there-about).

[theducks]

don't confuse Chapter Breaks whit Header Margins (Headers being what most chapter titles/numbers use)

You may want to adjust : margin-top and margin-bottom

Your document is really a stack of boxes.

H# boxes on top of P,Div or Blockquote boxes and kept in place by the Body Box which is wrapped (and labeled) with the HTML stuff.


Read up (and understand) on the HTML 'Box Model'.
Then you will know how to use and avoid misuse of empty lines and BR

Margin (IMHO the most common used)
Padding (for those special cases to keep things away from the Border)
Text-Indent

All the above can be used to affect the edges of the Text or Image and without looking at the stylesheet can be hard to distinguish which was used to obtain what you see.

There are LOTS more to stylesheets that affect the Look and arrangement of the text but a KISS stylesheet works very well for simple documents.

BTW Continuous Chapter flow (chapter ending and next chapter start on the same page) went out in the 60's

[mrmikel]

What is the general nature of your document?

Perhaps if we understood why you want it to be one long and interminable block of text we could help you address your concern. Most people want white space and some relief for the eyes that blank space provides. But perhaps you have some reason which we might meet if we knew what it was.

If it is just that it does leave awkward amounts of white space, then Toxaris is right and it is designed that way because what will be on a page varies as a reader changes the size of the text.

If like many people you want a fixed format then pdf is the way to go. Everything will be, in one size at least, exactly where you want it.

[Ripplinger]

Instead of trying to use chapter breaks where you want to start the new chapter, wouldn't it work by just starting a new html page where you want the new chapter to start for the OP? I also find doing that makes it much easier for edits, to find what section I'm looking for.

I thought pretty much all readers work the same, that a new html page will trigger a new page within the reader.

[Sabardeyn]

Originally Posted by Mohan-V-Allied

So, far every way I insert a chapter break causes the page on my reader to have a blank section after the last part of the chapter. Isn't there a way that the last chapter finnish's the a blank line then the start of the new chapter?

I'm not sure I understood what you wrote. Are you saying:

• the last page of a chapter has enough blank lines to fill the remainder of the current page/screen, and the next chapter begins on the next page/swipe?
• that the last page of a chapter is followed by one entirely blank page, so that you would have to page/swipe twice to get to the next chapter's text?

I'm not sure how the rest of the community here feels about whitespace in ebooks, but I generally recommend moderate whitespace amounts at the beginning and end of chapters. Approximately two lines of text is sufficient.

This is particularly necessary, IMO, at the end of a chapter because if the user scrolls downward (instead of paging/swiping) they hit the end of chapter and a page turn occurs, which replaces the text the user was reading. Without the ending whitespace, the user has to flip back and carefully reposition the text to read, but not so far as to cause a page turn again.

Why two blank lines? Because some users have "insert a blank line between paragraphs" on. For these users a single blank line isn't sufficient whitespace for them to recognize the end of chapter. Two lines are required to do that.

[theducks]

I do similar to Sabardyn

I set the Top and Bottom Margin on the Chapter heading (for the block for multi line chapter heads) style to 2em. IMHO a nice balanced whitespace without wasting huge amounts of screen.

I mainly use Top margins in the <p> body of the text as a bottom margin can cause MRSDK to create a 1 or 2 line orphan (needlesly) to accomodate the margin at the end of the last line.
Note: I am swipe challenged, my reader has page turn buttons so the past end of chapter does not happen frequently to me

[Mohan-V-Allied]

To everyone,

Thanks for your input and advice.

To clear up a few points; the document I have, has no chapters just small sections separated by dividers. I made chapter breaks at various points, but I wanted the sections broken by the chapter break to flow like the rest of the document.

I was hoping to have the new chapter flow right after the old chapter, hence not giving the impression of having broken up the document. With only one blank line and not the several you get after some chapter breaks.



regards,
V. Mohan

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Mohan-V-Allied

To everyone,

Thanks for your input and advice.

To clear up a few points; the document I have, has no chapters just small sections separated by dividers. I made chapter breaks at various points, but I wanted the sections broken by the chapter break to flow like the rest of the document.

I was hoping to have the new chapter flow right after the old chapter, hence not giving the impression of having broken up the document. With only one blank line and not the several you get after some chapter breaks.



regards,
V. Mohan

Logical breaks rather the what you get from programs like calibre when there is no detectable clear choice.

Just check that you book does not have an inner <div> wrapper style assigned to the body contents that has a sizable top/bottom margin. I usually remove those when found and set the CSS for body style for the bulk of the body <p> and set up others as needed. (Code by exception)

<body>
<div class="chapter">
<p>stuff</p>
<p>stuff</p>
<p>stuff</p>
</div>
</body>

[Toxaris]

But still the new file will always start on a new page. There is no way to have the files all flow into each other.

[cybmole]

and unless its a short book, some e-readers e.g. Sony will choke & fail to display it after you rebuild it as a single file. if it;s only for your own use than no big issue but if you plan to publish then you want it to work on all popular e-readers

so your best compromise is to accept the need for some page breaks then choose where best to have them

[Notjohn]

You say "e.g. Sony" -- are there other e-readers that won't display an epub that's a single file?

I rather like having Sigil break my book into multiple files, since it's so easily done and doesn't seem to cause any problems, such as pointing the toc or a footnote to the wrong place. But it does seem rather odd, given that since 1991 I've had a word processor that can so easily handle an 80,000-word book without choking (WordStar 7D).

(Speaking of WS7, there's a chap building a clone called WordTsar that will run on 64 bit Windows 7 and beyond. Perhaps I can delay retirement for another ten years!)

[Toxaris]

The newer Sony's can open those files, but will be terribly slow the further you go into the file. A page swap can take seconds then. I believe it has to do with the low memory in the readers. I also believe that all older readers have that issue, not only the Sony.

[theducks]

My PEz has the same 260K limit. Even if the file is just below 260K, it takes forever (I have seen 2+Minute forevers) to open.
Everything become sluggish.

If tou have a Hot machine, thchange will be so snappy, why worry about a (chapter) file switch-out