Problem with block indentation on conversion to mobi

[starrigger]

Hi all -- I've been preparing a story for upload, including to the Kindle store, and I ran across a problem I've not noticed before. I have a block of quoted text that's indented from both left and right. The indentation looks good in Word, in html, in epub (at least in ADE), but not in mobi.

The mobi version displays with no indentation on the right, so the thing looks lopsided. This is true in K4PC and in Kindle previewer, and in Mobi Reader.

I saw one website stating that Kindle does not support right indentation. That would seem weird, but is it true?

(Also, the epub shows the same behavior in the Calibre viewer. But it's okay in ADE.)

[theducks]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Hi all -- I've been preparing a story for upload, including to the Kindle store, and I ran across a problem I've not noticed before. I have a block of quoted text that's indented from both left and right. The indentation looks good in Word, in html, in epub (at least in ADE), but not in mobi.

The mobi version displays with no indentation on the right, so the thing looks lopsided. This is true in K4PC and in Kindle previewer, and in Mobi Reader.

I saw one website stating that Kindle does not support right indentation. That would seem weird, but is it true?

(Also, the epub shows the same behavior in the Calibre viewer. But it's okay in ADE.)

Yoe need to use 1 or more nested <blockquotes> to achieve this.
I believe Calibre conversion of EPUB->Mobi would take care of this

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by theducks

Yoe need to use 1 or more nested <blockquotes> to achieve this.
I believe Calibre conversion of EPUB->Mobi would take care of this

Do you mean create my mobi from the epub, rather than the html? Tried that, doesn't work. (I mean, it gives the same result.)

[kovidgoyal]

theducks is right in that the only way to achieve margins in mobi is with <blockquote>. But Kindle renderers do not render right margins on blockquotes. So you will get only left margins.

[starrigger]

No, I don't think that's the solution (unless I'm misunderstanding). I went back to the html and added blockquotes around the paragraph that was already marked as a blockquote CSS style. Same result. Added another set of blockquotes around it. Same result.

This website says that Kindle formatting doesn't support right margins...

http://kindleformatting.com/faq.php#faq8

How do I make a right margin on my blockquotes?

The Kindle does not allow right margins. Blockquotes will be indented from the left automatically, but there is no way to set an indentation from the right.

I was hoping they were wrong, but I'm starting to think they're right.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

theducks is right in that the only way to achieve margins in mobi is with <blockquote>. But Kindle renderers do not render right margins on blockquotes. So you will get only left margins.

Ah, cross-posted. Yes, I see that's right. Seems like an odd deficiency, but I guess I need to find another solution.

Thanks.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Ah, cross-posted. Yes, I see that's right. Seems like an odd deficiency, but I guess I need to find another solution.

Thanks.

Maybe a centered graphic would work for you (if you can find a font size that looks ok no matter what the person reading it does to the font size his reader displays).

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Maybe a centered graphic would work for you (if you can find a font size that looks ok no matter what the person reading it does to the font size his reader displays).

I suppose that might work for a few words, but I pretty much consider text-as-graphic to be avoided even more than misaligned text. Unless it's a fancy header or something.

I think I'll either live with the misalignment, or remove the indentation altogether and italicize the paragraph.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I suppose that might work for a few words, but I pretty much consider text-as-graphic to be avoided even more than misaligned text. Unless it's a fancy header or something.

I think I'll either live with the misalignment, or remove the indentation altogether and italicize the paragraph.

Understood. Perhaps a combination of a blockquote, italics and a smaller size to the font would set it off nicely? Good luck.

[GMcG]

Can't you use a table for the block quote?
Table width less than 100% and aligned center.
And margins on both sides of the table.

George

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by GMcG

Can't you use a table for the block quote?
Table width less than 100% and aligned center.
And margins on both sides of the table.

George

Kindle doesn't support tables, either. (Or so I've read.)

[dwig]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Kindle doesn't support tables, either. (Or so I've read.)

There is some support, but rendering varies significantly between different readers and apps. In general, they should be avoided. More importantly, Kindle publishing guidelines state that tables should never be used for formatting.

[GMcG]

Tables are not forbidden in general.
There is some information at the Mobipocket Developer Center at
http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/articl...ile=tables.htm
Quote:
"Table tags have to be used only when displaying tabular data and not like in Web page authoring for layout purposes. There is no exception to this rule."
If you consider the block quote as content of a cell, that means tabular data, and the table is not empty just for layout purposes, then I would say it is OK.
But:
Quote:
"Table parsing and display is very CPU intensive and is slow compared to any other HTML tag. Moreover, the Mobipocket reader can handle tables that are larger than the screen but the user experience becomes worse as the table size grows. You should therefore avoid large tables."
And:
"A table with a lot of text in one cell will not work well. If a single table cell does not fit into the screen, it will not be paginated and content will be lost."

So I would give it a try for just a block quote.

George