Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
2. Empty space can be reliably done. I use padding-top: 2em and that works even if the section/scene break falls at the bottom/top of the screen. Plus, you should have the first paragraph of the new section be non-indented. Using margin-top: 2em is not reliable and doesn't work for the bottom/top of the page.
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It's not correct to say padding-top is the best solution in all scenarios. The fact that padding is still honored at the top of a new 'page' doesn't mean the publisher (or reader) will
want it to do that. Extra padding at the top of a new page is a "big waste of space" - as you so like to point out from Chapter headers - and is even compounded when you make use of the widows/orphans setting. As you know, using widows/orphans will push a paragraph onto the next page leaving a couple lines of empty space at the end of the first page plus a couple lines at the beginning of the 2nd page due to the padding-top.
Using margin-top will reliably put spacing between paragraphs in the middle of a page, and if it just so happens that the widows/orphans pushes the next paragraph to the next page (leaving space at the end of the previous page) it will NOT put even more space at the top of the next page. This is much cleaner, IMO, and doesn't waste the valuable reading landscape.
The other option, as others have mentioned, is to use an asterism of some kind all the time, either asterisks or a fleuron or something. You will still have the same issue of extra space being generated/wasted at the top of a page if you use padding...
I think it is appropriate to be aware of the pluses and minuses of
both tools, and use the proper tool for the scenario presented. You don't need to push one tool over another.
Here are a couple of images to illustrate the point: