Line break - noob question

[alanHd]

Hi,

Go gentle on me i am a total newbie when it comes to editing ebooks files.

I have converted a PDF with Mobi Pocket creater and i decided to take the plung with sigil and clean up the resulting files.

The problem i have is certain lines are joined and i would like to split them, what is happening is, in book view when i press enter it is giving me a paragraph break when i want a line break.

Is there an easy way in book view to insert a line break without changing to code view and manually inserting a line break.

[Toxaris]

Why would you want a linebreak instead of a paragraph break? If it is to keep the lines as is, that will not work due to the reflow character of an ePUB.

[alanHd]

When it inserts a paragraph break i get an extra blank line. i started on the contents menu and some lines are joined.

example page 20 example page 25
becomes

example page 20

example page 25
what i want is a line break so it is

example page 20
example page 25
does this make sense

[ShellShock]

There is no such thing as a line break. What you have is a paragraph with differing amounts of white space above (top-margin) or below (bottom-margin). So for a "line break" you need the first paragraph to have no bottom-margin, and the second paragraph to have no top-margin. The margins are normally set in the stylesheet, so you need to make sure your paragraphs have the right classes (styles) set in the stylesheet.

[alanHd]

i think i am confused over my terms,i thought "<br/>" was a line break

[theducks]

Originally Posted by alanHd

i think i am confused over my terms,i thought "<br/>" was a line break

<br /> <-- note the space
is a break in the current flow. it will maintain the current style attributes in the absence of its own class


Look at the code view to see if you are getting a new <p or there is a <br />

You may need to define a class to use with the BR to control margin-top/bottom and line-space that will be inherited from the containing <p

<br class="tight" />

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

There is no such thing as a line break. What you have is a paragraph with differing amounts of white space above (top-margin) or below (bottom-margin).

Originally Posted by alanHd

i think i am confused over my terms,i thought "<br/>" was a line break

I think ShellShock means that the "extra blank line" you are seeing is not really a blank line, but paragraph (top/bottom) margins. Set p{margin: 0} in the CSS and they should disappear (if the code is clean enough).

Originally Posted by theducks

<br /> <-- note the space

The space is not needed, at least not in XHTML, which ePub uses.

[Toxaris]

If you use <br />, your text will be messed up. Indeed set the margins in the stylesheet correct, and it works fine.
However, please be aware that in Sigil Code View there will be an empty line between paragraphs. This is only in Code View and has no impact on the book itself.

[alanHd]

ok i think i get it, thanks for taking the time to explain.

[Jellby]

One of the consequences of using <br/> is that first-line indent will no longer work. It has its uses, though. For instance, in short fragment of centered text, or in titles:

<h2>Chapter 1<br/>An Unexpected Party</h2>

<div class="center">
Alphonse Allais<br/>
FABRICANT D’ÉCRABOUILLITE
</div>

[mrmikel]

If you want just a break <br />, use shift-enter. But as noted above, if it is in middle of a paragraph which has been indented, it will go all the way to the left margin and be out of line with the first line.

For lists shorter than a line, you can do it three ways.

Define a class in css which you put on each line in your list, as suggested above, something like<p class="examplelist"> where the top and bottom margins are 0.

You can define a special class for the paragraph holding the whole list in which margin left is 0 and use breaks between items.

You can set the margins for all paragraphs as 0 then you will not get the behavior.

But the paragraphs will all be close to each other. Many consider this behavior desirable, and others not. Since you are doing it, you get to choose.

[teh603]

Just a thought, if you want a newline without starting a paragraph, the keystroke for typing it in a word processor is usually shift-return. Seems to be valid in Windows, MacOS, and all major Linux distros.

[Frenchdummy]

Hi,

Go gentle on me i am a total newbie when it comes to editing ebooks files.
Like the first poster on this thread ! In addition, I'm French.

I even don't know how to say what is my problem.

well, it's about the words break code to insert when needed.

It's called "césure" in French and looks like this

xxxxx xxxxx xx, il lui dit bonjour.[Right margin] WRONG
xxxxx xxxxx xx, il lui dit bon-[Right margin] WANT I WANT
jour.

But it's an optional code depending of the device used.

I did that into Word (for mac) a long time ago. But I'm asking if it works on the same way into Sigil.

[theducks]

The term is: Hyphenate, in this case (conditional) auto-hyphenate

support is also conditional by reading device. (Another way of saying, all devices don't support the style setting)

[DaleDe]

You can often insert a & shy; (remove the space after the &) which is called a soft hyphen. This will insert a break if needed based on the right margin.

Dale