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Old 05-01-2017, 10:00 AM   #25
Purple Lady
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw View Post
JSWolf, the odd thing is that I knew this distinction but had not thought to apply it to my FirstParagraph style - so thanks for the reminder. The potential problem here is with exactly what you are complaining about: that not all readers support all aspects of CSS, or they may decide to override it. In which case you can be left with no break - and if the FirstParagraph style keeps its zero indent then not only may no breaking line appear, it can end up looking as if it's part of the previous paragraph.

Which would seem to bring us back to Purple Lady's suggestion that all breaks should have some visual confirmation of the break (something other than just a blank line). I typically use a centred "- - -" or "* * *" in a smaller font so that the break is apparent without being an eyesore. Ideally I would like to use pseudo-element (before/after content) to insert such text, but not all viewers support this capability.

It can be difficult to come up with styles that work well across all viewers. It seems to be necessary to assume the end user does not know CSS, and that an viewer app may do almost anything it wants with the CSS, and this forces the use of safe alternatives as far as possible, and these are not always ideal for end user maintenance.
I think that JSWolf's suggestion doesn't give enough space. I use small margins so it might be enough for me to notice, but if someone uses larger margins it might not be enough for them to notice. Also, even with my small margins I might notice that there is more space at the top of the page but think that it is just CSS done poorly or the reader not displaying well.
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