Sigil line break

[ebookscovers]

HI there. I have completed an epub which has validated perfectly ok. the process began from converting a Quarkxpress file to epub, editing in Calibre and fine tuning in Sigil. However in the complete book I have a spaced line break after a paragraph (4 instances through the epub). When I see the book without with or without code its perfect in Sigil. however in iBooks the space seems to be there.

I will just show one example. once i know this I can correct the others.

Sample ibooks view:
last line first page is 'Technique had been' After this there is an unwanted gap and it continues to 'Bullseye let it roll'

As you can see it looks fine in Sigil and the same code used throughout doesn't cause any issue whatsoever.

Help please.
David

[KevinH]

You appear to be using div tags not p tags. So my guess is ibooks has internal css to to try to prevent orphans and to split "pages" at div tags if possible.

What happens if you change just those two paragraphs to use the more typical p tag instead of div tags?

[DNSB]

I'd also recommend moving those inline styles to a stylesheet. And perhaps losing the font-family bits along the way.

[Turtle91]

I concur 100% !

There is no real reason to use <div> tags when defining a normal paragraph - just use a paragraph tag:

Change:
<div id="box3_539" class="para-normal-local4"><span class="char-normal-local2">yadda yadda yadda.</span></div>

<div id="box3_540" class="para-normal-local4"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', 
TimesNewRomanPSMT, Times, serif; font-size: 0.77419em; line-height:1.2;">yadda yadda yadda.</span></div>

To:
CSS: 
p {font-family: serif}

HTML:
<p id="box3_539">yadda yadda yadda</p>
<p id="box3_540">yadda yadda yadda</p>

You could even lose the id tags unless there is some very compelling reason that you need to identify each paragraph independently??

Having all those inline styling, and classes saying "this is a normal paragraph" (instead of just using a normal paragraph tag) really bloats up your code and makes it much more complex than it needs to be.

It is much easier to have your styling in a centralized location (like a style sheet) where you can make changes to a single location and have it apply to your entire book...instead of having to update every paragraph every time.

There are definitely good arguments saying you shouldn't define the font, font-size, line-height, paragraph indents, etc. and you should leave that up to the users/readers to select in their own app/device...but that is your choice.

A couple good regex search and replace can fix your entire book very quickly.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I concur 100% !

There is no real reason to use <div> tags when defining a normal paragraph - just use a paragraph tag:

Change:
<div id="box3_539" class="para-normal-local4"><span class="char-normal-local2">yadda yadda yadda.</span></div>

<div id="box3_540" class="para-normal-local4"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', 
TimesNewRomanPSMT, Times, serif; font-size: 0.77419em; line-height:1.2;">yadda yadda yadda.</span></div>

To:
CSS: 
p {font-family: serif}

HTML:
<p id="box3_539">yadda yadda yadda</p>
<p id="box3_540">yadda yadda yadda</p>

You could even lose the id tags unless there is some very compelling reason that you need to identify each paragraph independently??

Having all those inline styling, and classes saying "this is a normal paragraph" (instead of just using a normal paragraph tag) really bloats up your code and makes it much more complex than it needs to be.

It is much easier to have your styling in a centralized location (like a style sheet) where you can make changes to a single location and have it apply to your entire book...instead of having to update every paragraph every time.

There are definitely good arguments saying you shouldn't define the font, font-size, line-height, paragraph indents, etc. and you should leave that up to the users/readers to select in their own app/device...but that is your choice.

A couple good regex search and replace can fix your entire book very quickly.

Not to mention, I suspect STRONGLY that this would not be very accessible-friendly.

I wish I knew what online "guru" started this "div instead of paragraphs" stuff, I really do.

Hitch

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Not to mention, I suspect STRONGLY that this would not be very accessible-friendly.

I wish I knew what online "guru" started this "div instead of paragraphs" stuff, I really do.

Hitch

I'll hold your coat while you have a "quiet word" with them.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

I'll hold your coat while you have a "quiet word" with them.

Thanks!

Hitch