[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

FWIW, you're not actually supposed to set this to justified for MOBI, either. Just a comment....

Why not? Anyway, it works and I do it in all my books, including ones on Amazon for several years.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Not to be pedantic, but "left justified" doesn't actually exist

To be pedantic, you are actually being pedantic.
I can be just as irritatingly nitpicking if I put my mind to it.
But all it does is piss people off and start feuds.

Originally Posted by Hitch

On which devices are you saying that you can adjust line-spacing? Do you mean manually? Do you mean via coding?

Kindle PW3, "Aa" Page/Spacing
Of course, I could set it in CSS too.
However, "Alignment" is greyed out. "This book does not support Left Alignment and other enhanced typography options." So I assume that's only for KFX, and I'm making KF8.

Originally Posted by Hitch

As far as I know, trying to manually adjust line-height is pretty much only doable in K4PC/Mac and the newest K10 Fire. I certainly can't do that on any other device in our collection, which is fairly extensive, from PPWs to Voyages to Fires to iPads with K4iPad on them, and the aforementioned K10 (and of course, my much-loved ancient K2).

Are you distinguishing line spacing from line height? Spacing certainly can be adjusted. Height though, Kindle ignores anything I've tried to do (e.g. for standing caps, which always have extra spacing added below the line).

Originally Posted by Hitch

As jhowell said, it's supposed to be what it sounds like--the initial, or default, coding for an element, prior to any changes via coding. It's for pretty much anything, not just alignment, AFAIK.

I actually do know what the word "initial" means.
What I asked was not in general, but where does the "initial" value in an epub or mobi come from? Is it in a standard somewhere?

Originally Posted by AlanHK

What does "initial" mean anyway?
Where is the "initial justification" defined? Is it different for each device, reader?

Originally Posted by Hitch

What's bizarre, though, @jhowell, is, isn't initial supposed to be overridable? Designed to be? Not act as the override itself? Or am I wrong about that?Hitch

Basically what I was asking.

Originally Posted by jhowell

In the CSS specification for text-align "initial" is defined as:
a nameless value that acts as 'left' if 'direction' is 'ltr', 'right' if 'direction' is 'rtl'

So for left-to-right text a CSS property declaration of "text-align: initial" is equivalent to "text-align: left". There is nothing in the specification about it being treated differently in terms of being overridable.

For books in KFX format (Enhanced Typesetting), Amazon allows the user to override the alignment of justified text to be left-aligned instead. That is independent of the CSS used AFAIK.

Seems I came across as a clueless idiot who needs to have words like "justify" or "initial" laboriously explained, but finally that answers the actual question I was posting about. Thanks.