Managing Scene Breaks during Conversion

[Nathan0015]

Hi Everyone,

I was hoping to get a little help on managing my scene breaks during the conversion process. My primary use for the kindle is reading all of my fanfiction away from my computer, and as such I end up converting primarily HTML files to Mobi format. Every writer has a different preferred method for identifying their scene breaks from ######### to ****E E ****, so I'm trying to find a good way to identify a scene break and then ensure there is a space above and below the break.

The best way I have thought of to do this is using the search and replace function to identify which items are centered using this regular expression:

<p style="text-align:center;">.*?</p>

This works beautifully for selecting every scene break an author can come up with. Now that I can find them though I'm not sure about how to add the breaks above and below them. Also, this unfortunetley finds Chapters as well as scene breaks, so if I could figure out a way to exclude any center aligned text that uses the word chapter, that would be incredibly helpful as well.

Hopefully I managed to accuretley describe what I am striving towards, and if clarification is needed I would be happy to expound further. I would greatly appreciate any help anyone could give.

[ldolse]

Have you tried the 'format scene breaks' option under heuristics? It automatically handles/formats the most common types of scene breaks. You could tie this with the 'markup chapters' option to avoid chapters being screwed up, or use a combination of markup chapters with your regex.

You'll also need to use extra css under look and feel to re-center your chapter headings if you use the markup chapters option.

[Nathan0015]

I have tried using the 'format scene breaks' during conversion, but it does not seem to do anything. I am unclear on exactly what that option looks for to determine whether or not something is a scene break, or how to adjust that determination (if that is possible).

*Edit*

I think I found a way to do what I want using the search and replace, If I can copy the data found in the first search. For Example:

<p style="text-align:center;">.*?</p>

This searches for anything contained in my center aligned tags (which is what I want it to do). When It goes to the replace option is there a way for me to reuse the information it found between the tags? Ideally I would just want to replace the searched for information with the same information, plus <br/> before and after, so:

Search:
<p style="text-align:center;">.*?</p>
Replace:
<br/><p style="text-align:center;">.*?</p><br/>

while hopefully preserving whatever the .*? was

[jackie_w]

I'm no Regex expert, but you could try:

Search:
(<p style="text-align:center;">)(.*?)(</p>)

Replace:
\1<br />\2<br />\3

I think the line-breaks should be inside the <p> tags, not outside.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I'm no Regex expert, but you could try:

Search:
(<p style="text-align:center;">)(.*?)(</p>)

Replace:
\1<br />\2<br />\3

I think the line-breaks should be inside the <p> tags, not outside.

Flightcrew would scream about naked <br />

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by theducks

Flightcrew would scream about naked <br />

Are you saying that my suggested solution is invalid?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Are you saying that my suggested solution is invalid?

No
I agree the <br /> must be within <P> tags

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by theducks

No
I agree the <br /> must be within <P> tags

Oh good, that's a relief

[Nathan0015]

Thanks so much guys! That code worked great, and with a couple of minor modifications my conversion process is almost seamless.

Thanks again for your help!