[davidfor]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

I generally don't use extra plugins as I'm more likely to mess things up. I don't mind adding the <br><br> lines between paragraphs, generally.

Everything mentioned here should work in the comments on the Kobo devices. If you are using paragraph tags, you will get spaces between the paragraphs. That is how it has always been.

What you might be seeing is that somewhere along the way, the comments started using any new lines between paragraphs as new lines. This meant that if there were new lines between paragraphs, the layout in calibre is different than on the device.

For example:

<div><p>First Line</p><p>Second Line</p><p>Third Line</p></div>

and:

<div>
<p>First Line</p>
<p>Second Line</p>
<p>Third Line</p></div>

In most places, these will be display in exactly the same way. The new lines between the paragraph tags are ignored. Exactly how it is displayed, will depend on the styles applied. The default seems to be 1em between the paragraphs.

In the synopsis on the Kobo devices, these will be different. The new lines in the second one will be used. And a new line in the middle of the paragraph will be interpreted as well. My understanding of the way HTML works is that this is wrong. But, the Kobo firmware has been doing this for a while.

(Note: You cannot actually produce the first one with the current version of calibre. The comments editor will automatically format it as the second version. You could produce it with version 3.x or earlier.)

If you want to prevent the gaps between lines, you need to us break tags like:

<div><p>First Line<br/>Second Line<br/>Third Line</p></div>

But, while checking this, I discovered something else. I had to retest the above as I wasn't seeing as much space between paragraphs as I was expecting. And when I looked in the books after they were sent to the device, the new lines were not there. And hence, I was only seeing the gap of about one line, rather than two lines. In my testing, I found that this was because of the metadata plugboard I use.

I have a metadata plugboard that adds the other details to the comments when the book is sent to the device. This includes the tags, when I read it, my rating and the page and word counts. If I remove the plugboard, then the second version of the comments is what I see in the book on the device. And the spaces between the paragraphs in the synopsis display it about twice what I would like. If I put the metadata plugboard back in, or simply use "{comments}" for the plugboard, the new lines are stripped and I see less space between the paragraphs. I'm pretty sure that @jackie_w is using a plugboard for the comments. That would explain the differences being seen.

@VirgoGirl: I suggest that you try the metadata plugboard and see if that helps. To do this:

1. Open the preferences and go to the "Metadata plugboards" page.
2. For "Add new plugboard", select "epub" for the format, and "KOBOTOUCH" for the device. If you are using the KoboTouchExtended driver, select that.
3. In the first field under "Source Template", enter "{comments}" (without the quotes).
4. In the "Destination field" on the same line, select "comments".
5. Press the "Save plugboard" button and then press "Apply" to save everything.

The next time you send a book to the device, the extra new lines will be stripped in the comments. Also, the driver will update the metadata on the device if you have it configured to. This uses the plugboard, so it should fix it for books on the device. Or at least you can see the differences quickly.