Quote:
Originally Posted by Purple Lady
Just because a paper book doesn't have spaces is not a reason an ebook shouldn't have them. That's the beauty of ebooks - you can have them presented to you the way you want. It seems like more people don't want them than do, but that's different than saying there should be no spaces because paper books don't have them.
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I simply meant, that if publishers thought that people
needed or even wanted whitespace between paragraphical content in order to follow along, I think that they would have done so before now. We've had every type of publishing for the past 200 or more years; pre-typesetting, hand-crafted, hand-duplicated (go, monks!), typesetting, post-typesetting, word-processed, etc., and the generalized standard has been
no additional whitespace between paragraphs, except for early readers, kids' books and textbooks, for the reasons stated above. Even the earliest preserved works don't have it (there will now commence a big long discussion about how the only reason that was so was due to scarcity of materials, just wait for it.)
Amazon expressly asks that additional whitespace not be used; I think B&N does (don't remember), and KOBO. Don't know if iBooks mentions it anywhere.
My
personal preference as a reader is certainly not for wasted whitespace, but if the trend changes, and more people want web-style formatting, then, fine, that's what we'll do in my business. {shrug}. I'm not the paragraph police, but I will say, not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers, that it
seems very silly to me. If having web-style formatting helps someone keep their place in what they're reading, then, certainly, I can see why they might prefer it. It's not my personal choice.
Hitch