[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by PHigby

I'm working on a language learning textbook. In one of the exercises, there are underscore markers where the student needs to provide the missing word. The author has (blank underscore) ________ as his formatting, but when I export to flowable epub out of Indesign it's gone and doesn't show.

Any suggestions how to retain the formatting?

I don't know if I understand you well but if you want something like "________" in your epub, that is easy to get with the css property "text-decoration: underline;". For example:

1. In your css stylesheet:

.underscore {
    text-decoration: underline;
}

2. In your .xhtml file:

<p>This is an example <span  class="underscore">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p>

Another way to get the same result is by using the property "display: inline-block;". For example:

1. In your css stylesheet:

.underscore {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 8em; /* here you can set the length of the underscore */
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}

2. In your .xhtml file:

<p>This is an example <span  class="underscore"></span> very easy</p>

Maybe this solution is more elegant but the the blank underscore will have the same length in all cases and with the previous method, you can control that by using so many & nbsp; as the length of the word of your choice.

I hope this help you.

Regards
Rubén