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James_Wilde · 04-01-2011, 02:17 PM

I have a LibreOffice (odt) document which has been recreated from a nuked file (placed in a text-only program to remove ALL formatting) after which I have done the following:

1. formatted all text as 12pt Linux Libertine, with no space between paragraphs, a first line indent of 0,5 cm, and single line spacing
2. formatted all chapter titles as 16pt Linux Libertine, with a page break before, 2 cm before, and 1,5 line spacing
3. formatted certain words and phrases in italics
4. inserted 6 jpgs at various points

I have unzipped this odt and examined the contents file and styles file, and see no abnormalities (on a previous occasion, with OpenOffice, I found a number of non-breaking spaces added haphazardly).

I have run this file through Calibre to generate a mobi file, with no space between paragraphs and a 0.5 em indent (I've also tested with 1.5 and 0)

Out comes a file which in both Calibre and Kindle for Mac shows a very ragged line of indented paragraphs. Here is what it looks like after I mark it in Calibre and do a copy and paste. I have marked spaces with the # symbol, since the MR editor removes space at the beginning of a line. It's not an exact match, but it indicates the problem:

##This novel is set in Sweden and China. As a consequence the names of persons and places will be unfamiliar to most of you. I hope you have fun with them.
For those of you who are interested, the Swedish letter Å or å is pronounced like the 'au' in 'autumn' or the 'a' in 'water'; Ä or ä is pronounced like the 'e' in 'bed' although it can be long, like the 'a' in 'spare'; and Ö or ö sounds like 'ir' in 'bird', although you should purse your lips as you say it.
###I have also included some simple Mandarin words or phrases, and these are presented using pinyin, which is a method of using western letters with some more or less familiar-looking accents to indicate how they should be pronounced. The meaning of these words is hopefully clear from the context. I leave it to you how you cope with internally voicing them. Purists, though, will disapprove of the fact that, in the mobi version, I have shown them without tonal accents. The problem was that not all ebook readers can display the accented letters properly. Kindles cannot, for example, so the mobi version does not include them.
#My thanks to Nancy Yip, who first gave me the idea for this story, and subsequently was an unfailing source of information on China, including pointing me to a superb book on a province near GuangXi. Yes, Nancy really exists, although perhaps not

end of sample.

I'd love to know what it is that is screwing up my 0.5 cm indents and even more, how to stop it.

04-01-2011, 02:17 PM	#1
James_Wilde Guru Posts: 802 Karma: 4727110 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Sweden Device: Iriver Story	Indents again I have a LibreOffice (odt) document which has been recreated from a nuked file (placed in a text-only program to remove ALL formatting) after which I have done the following: 1. formatted all text as 12pt Linux Libertine, with no space between paragraphs, a first line indent of 0,5 cm, and single line spacing 2. formatted all chapter titles as 16pt Linux Libertine, with a page break before, 2 cm before, and 1,5 line spacing 3. formatted certain words and phrases in italics 4. inserted 6 jpgs at various points I have unzipped this odt and examined the contents file and styles file, and see no abnormalities (on a previous occasion, with OpenOffice, I found a number of non-breaking spaces added haphazardly). I have run this file through Calibre to generate a mobi file, with no space between paragraphs and a 0.5 em indent (I've also tested with 1.5 and 0) Out comes a file which in both Calibre and Kindle for Mac shows a very ragged line of indented paragraphs. Here is what it looks like after I mark it in Calibre and do a copy and paste. I have marked spaces with the # symbol, since the MR editor removes space at the beginning of a line. It's not an exact match, but it indicates the problem: ##This novel is set in Sweden and China. As a consequence the names of persons and places will be unfamiliar to most of you. I hope you have fun with them. For those of you who are interested, the Swedish letter Å or å is pronounced like the 'au' in 'autumn' or the 'a' in 'water'; Ä or ä is pronounced like the 'e' in 'bed' although it can be long, like the 'a' in 'spare'; and Ö or ö sounds like 'ir' in 'bird', although you should purse your lips as you say it. ###I have also included some simple Mandarin words or phrases, and these are presented using pinyin, which is a method of using western letters with some more or less familiar-looking accents to indicate how they should be pronounced. The meaning of these words is hopefully clear from the context. I leave it to you how you cope with internally voicing them. Purists, though, will disapprove of the fact that, in the mobi version, I have shown them without tonal accents. The problem was that not all ebook readers can display the accented letters properly. Kindles cannot, for example, so the mobi version does not include them. #My thanks to Nancy Yip, who first gave me the idea for this story, and subsequently was an unfailing source of information on China, including pointing me to a superb book on a province near GuangXi. Yes, Nancy really exists, although perhaps not end of sample. I'd love to know what it is that is screwing up my 0.5 cm indents and even more, how to stop it.