Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
Varying bottom margin doesn't bother me personally in the least. But spaces between paragraphs do, when they're different from the spaces between lines inside the paragraph. Those have to go. (Scene-breaks don't count, they must have spacing, of course).
I'll never understand why people insist on putting spaces between paragraphs in an ebook. It's a book, not a webpage. Yes, I'm afraid I'm rather anal about this.  |
Well, you can be as anal as you wish, but it's not that uncommon, even in print. I don't mean the idiotic practice of putting a full line of whitespace, between first-line-idented paragraphs; I mean the practice of, for example, using a
very small additional amount of space, between paragraphs. I don't mean between scene-breaks, either--which need them. I mean, regular old paragraphs. For example, here's an eBook that we made (don't blame me for the sidebars),
http://www.booknook.biz/media/com_tw...Blood_MOBI.png . That tiny bit of additional space helps the person reading the book get a small visual "break" between her very dense paragraphs. On some devices, like smartphones, you can end up with a wall of text. This is the original print layout--
http://www.booknook.biz/media/com_tw..._Blood_PDF.png and you can imagine what that layout, wihtout that teeny breath of air, looks like on a smartphone. Ignore the sidebar entirely--I can tell you, it's dense. It's not people trying to make it look like a webpage; it's a small cue, to let people know "hey, new para here." That's all.
I can tell you that that book, on KF7 devices, (which don't have that teeny-weeny bit of space) can get pretty damned dense, pretty quickly. Do you ever read on your smartphone, or an older eInk? If you do, then you know whereof I speak.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Paragraphs are "units" of text, and personally I like a small gap (0.2-0.3em) between them.
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Exactly. I don't hold with needless space. Or block-style, for fiction/memoirs, etc. But the
entire point of typography--both print and digital--is
to facilitate ease of reading, by the reader. Not merely to look foofy or what-have-you. The point of GREAT typography is to ensure that the book doesn't get between the reader and the story/content. Making a wall of text, just to stick to some idea that ANY space between paragraphs is a sin, is not serving the reader. It's sticking to rules for no reason.
AND, while we're on the subject, I would suggest that everyone who thinks that using that wee bit of space, above/below, around subheads, etc., is against the "rules," that you should read Robert Bringhurst--the modern father of Typography--in "The Elements of Typographic Style," (20th Anniversary Edition), pages 39-43. In those pages, he explains where that additional leading (margin, essentially above/below a paragraph)
must be used. That doesn't change, just because it's an ebook. In print, you can do other things so that the squaring of the page is accomplished--but in eBooks, you
can't.
So, do you give up
readability around blockquotes, around indented content, pullquotes, some letter to a fictional character, etc., in an eBook, just to stick with rules that honestly, don't even exist?
Hitch