Originally Posted by William Campbell
And others prefer indents and no extra spaces. This is precisely why I say that ebook formats should do neither, but rather simply indicate to the reading device, this is a paragraph, here is another. This is a new passage, this is a new chapter...
Then, based on the user's options, set at their personal device, they can tell the reading hardware to either not indent and add one extra space, or indent and not add the space. Passages could have a dingbat (~, *, etc.) for non-indented texts, or as some readers prefer, passages of indented text without extra space have one blank line separating the passages (sections within a chapter, typically indicating scene changes).
Make formatting the responsibility of the device, under user control, not hard-coded into the content. Content should be fully FLEXIBLE and not device-dependent. As should have been learned from the printing industry's troubles to digitize (another story altogether), ebooks need device-independence. How it should have been to begin with, and I hope, how it will be, ultimately.
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