12-17-2012, 10:45 AM | #16 |
frumious Bandersnatch
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And if you use …, the spacing between that and the final period will be completely different from the spacing between the dots of the …... and that looks wrong to me
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12-17-2012, 12:53 PM | #17 |
Wizard
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i think a simple … make more sense for cases where the text just fizzles out...
that way it looks and feel like an incomplete sentence, which is what it's trying to be ? especially in conversation marks " and then we... ." looks awful, " and then we...". is even worse "and then we..." looks much better, for me anyway |
12-17-2012, 01:56 PM | #18 | |
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I love these kinds of friendly discussions - great way to learn
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/e.html Quote:
Guess it all depends on who you're trying to please (or is that whom) Paul Last edited by phossler; 12-17-2012 at 01:59 PM. |
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12-17-2012, 04:38 PM | #19 |
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I recently did a lot of testing trying to get uniform spaces between the ellipses and double/single quotes and trying various set widths. What I discovered is that my Sony reader will have a uniform space of its own choosing when I used between the periods of the ellipse no matter what width you try to set in a stylesheet. The ellipse is never stretched out to justify the text, and using makes it never fall on another line, it stays with the previous text, whether there's 3 or 4 periods for the ellipse at the end of a sentence.
When viewing the same epub through Sigil's or Calibre's viewers, the spacing will be uniform only if the text is not justified. If it's justified, then the PC viewers will stretch out the spacing between the periods as it needs, making it look pretty bad horrible. It ignores any character width that you set in the stylesheet. If I made an epub strictly for PC or tablet viewing, I'd probably switch to using the ellipse character only no matter how the original book had it. So I'm happy with using for the ellipse since I only read from my ereader. I'm assuming most ereaders follow the same rules as the Sony, but really don't know for sure, would be nice to be able to confirm that. |
12-17-2012, 07:27 PM | #20 | |
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Quote:
word-hellips-space whatever comes next. or word-hellips-NBSP-period (or other punctuation mark). (dashes added for readability--assume they are replaced with nothing) That way we don't have dangling horizontal ellipses, which I don't like, and if there's a fourth "dot" for the period, or comma, etc., we use a nbsp to keep it together. I find, generally, that this works best when readers try to justify the text, but, as we've all seen here, there are more opinions than, well...you know. And, obviously, if you're within the hyphenation zone on a device like a K2, that doesn't have hyphenation, you can get some stinking rivers of white. There's no perfect solution, to my way of thinking, and although I adore Jellby, I don't like using nbsp's plus periods to create the hellips. Just my $.02. Hitch |
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12-18-2012, 12:18 AM | #21 |
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in-house styling - impressive.
Is that actually written up & maintained as a style guide ( not expecting you to publish here if so) ,or is it just programmed into folks heads ? does it also do emdash / endash stuff or can the customer have either ? |
12-18-2012, 04:54 AM | #22 | ||
frumious Bandersnatch
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Quote:
Quote:
As it has been said before. Spaces or not is mainly a matter of preference, but for goodness' sake, be consistent. |
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12-18-2012, 08:27 AM | #23 | |
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I agree totally about being consistent in whatever method you choose. I've been meticulous about that throughout this old book. I can see a huge advantage to using the special ellipse character and not having to deal with the space issue; however, like I said, I wanted to keep it the way it was in the original book I scanned, which meant spaces between the dots. The neat little tricks we learn in these forums! hehe Just a general "big thanks" to all who consistently give advice to others here. |
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12-18-2012, 02:24 PM | #24 | |
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Seriously, actually, yes it is and yes we do. It requires updating, but it exists in the form of an ePUB and a master-mobi converted from that ePUB. The CSS is, obviously, right there in the ePUB, and each designer can see the results in the files, and test them on however many devices. The files "live" in a dropbox that the entire Crew shares. The file's organic--changes occur as we find new things that work better, or one of the retailers does something that throws a spanner into the works. (Yes, I'm talkin' to you, Apple!) We do have emdash and endash "stuff." Generally, except when the customer is very adamantine, it's the same as the hellips--join it to the last word in question, leave the "break" possibility after, so that you don't have dangling ems or ens. At least, that's my personal preference. I find seeing an em- or endash at the beginning of a line startling, in whatever media, print included. We try to be consistent. We are not always. We're human, people get very stressed doing this work, and get rushed, particularly this time of year...but we try. Hitch |
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12-27-2012, 11:05 PM | #25 |
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Further thoughts / questions about ellipses.
Sometimes they lead into the first sentence of a paragraph. Would you consider it necessary to use NBSP to join them to the first word? Since they are at the start of the paragraph, it's unlikely they would be orphaned. I've also seen, sometimes within the same paragraph, the ellipsis by itself with no other punctuation, the ellipsis preceded by punctuation, and the ellipsis followed by punctuation. What's your best-practice way to handle it with preceding punctuation? |
12-28-2012, 01:55 AM | #26 | |
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I think making decisions about what to do with some of the, um, imaginative uses of punctuation marks that we all see is one of the hardest decision-making tasks in ebook-making! ;-) Hitch |
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12-28-2012, 03:21 AM | #27 |
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Hitch, thank you for the feedback. and it's worth waaaaay more than $.02.
Ya, I should have included some examples ------ Some paragraphs from my current Mark Twain project: Quotation marks followed by ellipsis: “... Isabella is far too indulgent to me & even the Miss Crafords say that they wonder at her patience with me & it is indeed true for my temper is a bad one.” Ellipsis followed by punctuation, ellipsis surrounded by spaces: “I’ve forgot to say, but I’ve four lovers, the other one is Harry Watson, a very delightful boy... . James Keith hardly ever Spoke to me, he said Girl! make less noise... . Craky hall ... walked to that delightfull place with a delightful young man beloved by all his friends and espacialy by me his loveress but I must not talk any longer about him for Isa said it is not proper for to speak of gentalman but I will never forget him... . Punctuation followed by ellipsis: Dear Editors: I do it with pleasure, ... but I also do it with pain, because I am not in sympathy with this movement. ------- Some of these might be because it is 1904 book -- it seems punctuation rules were different then. The ellipsis following punctuation and the one surrounded by spaces are the weirdest to deal with, I think. Last edited by GrannyGrump; 12-28-2012 at 03:58 AM. Reason: typo |
12-28-2012, 03:33 AM | #28 |
frumious Bandersnatch
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If I were to use the "condensed" ellipsis style, I'd probably write:
“...Isabella is far delightful boy.... James Keith Craky hall... walked pleasure,... but I (no there, just normal spaces) |
12-28-2012, 03:57 AM | #29 |
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Whee! All The big guns are out tonight. Shouldn't at least one of you be sleeping now? It is 6 pm here. (I'm terrible with time zones).
Jellby, thank you for the samples. Although I do also prefer the "manually spaced" ellipsis for period fiction, I might use the single glyph on this project, just for simplicity. You've both given me something to go forward with, thank you so much. |
12-28-2012, 04:51 AM | #30 |
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