adding paragraph indentions

[soondai]

I started with a text file. Ends up readable, the paragraphs are seperated, but not indented. Is there any way to indent all the paragraphs in one fell swoop?

thanks in advance.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by soondai

I started with a text file. Ends up readable, the paragraphs are seperated, but not indented. Is there any way to indent all the paragraphs in one fell swoop?

thanks in advance.

Edit the stylesheet for the class that only covers the paragraphs.
Add

 text-indent: 3%;  (or 1.5em or 15pt)

I like % because it makes the indent proportional to the display width, all the others are absolute, with respect to width.

[soondai]

thanks!

[soondai]

ack!
follow up q:
where would it go in here? or do I need to add something for paragraphs?

@namespace h "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
.calibre {
display: block;
font-size: 1em;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 5pt;
margin-right: 5pt;
margin-top: 0;
page-break-before: always
}
.calibre1 {
display: block
}
.calibre2 {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 1em
}
.s {
display: block;
padding-left: 0;
padding-right: 0;
text-align: left
}

I am out of my depth here, but if I could make this one small alteration using coding I think I could do everything else I'd like thru the simpler bookview interface. I just have a few books in very primitive text form that I switched over to rtf and then to EPUB thru Calibre.

If there's a boilerplate stylesheet for epubs that started rtf that someone could point me to, that'd also be great.

[ghostyjack]

It depends on which is effecting the paragraph.

If you look in your text (in code view of course), you are looking for something like:

<p class="calibre2">

I just chose one of the ones in your CSS at random, but it could be any of the others (I suspect it will be calibre2 from what I can remember from my conversions using Calibre). Once you find it, you will know which one to alter.

[ghostyjack]

Looking at your CSS, might I suggest putting a ";" at the end of each parameter in your CSS as well. e.g.

.calibre2 {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 1em;
}

I've marked in read what I'm talking about. This will make it easier to insert more parameters into you CSS entries, also I believe it is the correct way of stating them as well.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ghostyjack

It depends on which is effecting the paragraph.

If you look in your text (in code view of course), you are looking for something like:

<p class="calibre2">

I just chose one of the ones in your CSS at random, but it could be any of the others (I suspect it will be calibre2 from what I can remember from my conversions using Calibre). Once you find it, you will know which one to alter.

The main paragraph one can have almost any number :/ , and not just limited to "calibre#"... It all depends on what you converted from.

You need to look at the Code View of your document and set as many as needed to the desired values. (the example shown was a very simple sheet. Some are huge and a mess. Others are large and elegantly complex)

I believe the final semi-colon is optional... But mid point ones ARE Required and the whole style class with the errorgets ignored

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by theducks

 text-indent: 3%;  (or 1.5em or 15pt)

I like % because it makes the indent proportional to the display width, all the others are absolute, with respect to width.

Not strictly true. An "em", being defined as the width of a lowercase "m", would vary with the size of your text. Increase text size, and the indent increases along with it.

I prefer 1.5em. While % works well for reasonable text sizes, it tends to break down at the extremes. At small text sizes, 3% takes looks a bit much, while for really large text sizes, it can be hard to visually make out any indent at all.

Try it here (w3schools.com).

--Nathanael

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

Not strictly true. An "em", being defined as the width of a lowercase "m", would vary with the size of your text. Increase text size, and the indent increases along with it.

I prefer 1.5em. While % works well for reasonable text sizes, it tends to break down at the extremes. At small text sizes, 3% takes looks a bit much, while for really large text sizes, it can be hard to visually make out any indent at all.

Try it here (w3schools.com).

--Nathanael

But I want it to vary by size of my screen.
My theory, is the wider the screen (line), the more pronounced the indent needs to be. On a small screen (5", 600x800), 2 chars seems to be enough. on a widescreen, I want about 4 chars worth of indent.

Ideally, I would like to have both, % and em at the same time.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by theducks

Ideally, I would like to have both, % and em at the same time.

It could be done when CSS3 is included in ePUB

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Jellby

It could be done when CSS3 is included in ePUB

Oooo...!


But there will probably be Ice in a certain place before my reader supports that

I can't (won't) replace my device just because a newer model came out .

[capidamonte]

Originally Posted by soondai

ack!

<snip>

I am out of my depth here, but if I could make this one small alteration using coding I think I could do everything else I'd like thru the simpler bookview interface. I just have a few books in very primitive text form that I switched over to rtf and then to EPUB thru Calibre.

If there's a boilerplate stylesheet for epubs that started rtf that someone could point me to, that'd also be great.

My suggestion would be (aside from learning HTML and CSS) to NOT use Calibre to make your ePubs, and to NOT convert TXT to RTF first.

Open the original text file in Sigil and do all your editing there. Sigil adds simple tags ( like <p> ) instead of the automated naming system that Calibre must use.

The double conversion is needlessly complicating things.

Sigil opens at least TXT and HTML files -- no need to use Word or any other editor (except a text editor, see my sig) to do these basics, especially if your goal is ePub.

[Hitch]

Actually, to add to what Cap said:

I'd further add that I've run into a moderately serious problem when converting epub->mobi in Calibre, which is that if you use EXTERNAL stylesheets in Sigil, when you convert your xhtml epub Sigil file in Calibre, if you have any styling, (for indented parras, for example), you lose all the formatting except on any pages you imported which had their own internal css sheet--at least, I think that's what's happening. I'm going back to a file I'm working on today and replacing all the ss calls to the external ss and see if this resolves the problem with the epub->mobi conversion issue.

I've abruptly discovered that a BUNCH of books I've done lately (and converted from epub->mobi) have no indented paragraphs, despite being styled that way with text:indent in the external css, and working fine in epubs. I figured I would start here.

(For those of you discussing CSS).

NEVER MIND!! note to self: do NOT name css styles beginning with numbers. Calibre HATES it.

Hitch

[TheCrazier]

OMG this is exactly what i was looking for...i was going around just adding spaces to indent ; it worked but it took forever.... thanks

so each "p class=calibre#" is a different group that follows those rules? thats great so i can use one group for the main body and another for quotes and another for inserts..sweet

[crutledge]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Actually, to add to what Cap said:

I'd further add that I've run into a moderately serious problem when converting epub->mobi in Calibre, which is that if you use EXTERNAL stylesheets in Sigil, when you convert your xhtml epub Sigil file in Calibre, if you have any styling, (for indented parras, for example), you lose all the formatting except on any pages you imported which had their own internal css sheet--at least, I think that's what's happening. I'm going back to a file I'm working on today and replacing all the ss calls to the external ss and see if this resolves the problem with the epub->mobi conversion issue.

I've abruptly discovered that a BUNCH of books I've done lately (and converted from epub->mobi) have no indented paragraphs, despite being styled that way with text:indent in the external css, and working fine in epubs. I figured I would start here.

(For those of you discussing CSS).

NEVER MIND!! note to self: do NOT name css styles beginning with numbers. Calibre HATES it.

Hitch

What you describe is downright scarey! I have had no problem converting Sigil ePub to MOBI using Calibre. I use an external CSS.

e.g.

p {
  margin: 0; 
  padding: 0 0 5px 0; 
  text-indent: 1.5em;
}

Please let us know what you find.

The only thing I really dont't like is the putrid blue/purple color of the links.

a {
color: #000000;
}

doesn't work.