Awful, just AWFUL formatting in ebooks

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I just saw the screen shot and there are a few issues with it. The first issue is that the section break marker is not centered between the two sections.

Agreed, that one actually is - amusingly the others are balanced.

Next is the first paragraph after the section break is indented. When it's not indented, that says, new section. When it's indented, if you happen to miss

Knew I forgot something, thanks for highlighting that.

And lastly, in the second paragraph, two of the lines are not properly justified making it easy to drop out of the story and focus on the formatting.

This is the limitation of the eReader's rendering engine, not the text itself. I have already been discussing about that in another thread. This is due in part from the hypenation engine working on a per-line rendering basis rather than a per-paragraph/block. An unfortunate limitation imposed likely by the limited amount of CPU grunt to render the page in a satisfactory time limit.

Paul

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Wait, let me get this straight. The only way they'll take an Ebook from you is if you give it to them in word format, and then *THEY* handle the formatting!? Even after I've spent all that time making a high quality epub file!? Oy, that's retarded.

That effectively summarises my feelings.

It's already a fun enough game to get formatting nice-enough, let alone throwing your work through a grinder and crossing your fingers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MrPLD

Paul

Why have line spaces that can ruin a good story? And what about the overly large indents?

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why have line spaces that can ruin a good story? And what about the overly large indents?

Now we're falling into personal stylistic nuances of which can be complicated by the display technology.

Keeping the line breaks and dropping the indents will suit one group and vice-versa. Certainly on print I prefer no break and small indents; though on other display devices I find it easier to read in different layouts.

In the future I hope we can get to the point where the style can be adjusted (within limits) by the end-reader as they see fit, in which case a whole new debate will rise up between publishers and readers.

Paul.

[MrPLD]

I think it's time I exited from my own thread here.

I doubt there's much we can go over which is new.

Many thanks to everyone for listening - I do appreciate the input I received and I'm glad to see also that I wasn't "the only one".

I'm going to just let this thread fall off the list (or perhaps a mod can discard it?).

Paul.