03-30-2015, 11:42 AM | #1 |
Colonel Mustard
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Poetry Verses Alignment Problem
Hey guys,
I’m facing a problem in a book of poetry and I’m afraid there is no perfect solution in ePub. It’s kinda hard to explain with my limited english, but there are many verses that are aligned with the end of the previous verse. See this blurred page (copyrighted stuff, sorry) from the PDF version for example : I drew the black lines to show that the beginning of a verse must be aligned with the end of the previous one. Is there a way to consistently replicate this kind of formatting? I’m afraid not, for many reasons (for example, users can switch fonts). The closest solution I thought of was to create a style for every strangely aligned verse and tweak the left margin for every one of them... which doesn’t seem like a very good solution, since there are so many. And it probably won’t even be consistent when users change fonts, etc.) The option I proposed to the publisher is to uniformize these strangely aligned verse to a common value (left margin). He doesn’t really like this option, but I don’t exactly see a better one. Am I missing something here? Any ideas? Thanks in advance, Michael |
03-30-2015, 11:52 AM | #2 |
Curmudgeon
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I can think of two approaches that might work to varying degrees, but you'd have to experiment to see.
1. Put both lines it in the same paragraph and shift the second one down with a baseline shift. Caveat: if it ends up wrapping to the next line, that will obviously look less than ideal. 2. Use a table whose width is set to the width of the browser screen, with two rows and two columns. Caveat: not all readers handle tables very well. |
03-30-2015, 11:56 AM | #3 | |
Colonel Mustard
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03-30-2015, 12:00 PM | #4 |
Grand Sorcerer
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One idea would be to make alternate lines align left and align right. This would not line up exactly on the previous line but the effect would be the same I believe from a user experience. You might have to try it over a large area to see the effect. In poetry it is the experience that counts.
You could also make the left/right margins stagger with the right justified section having a bigger left margin while the left justified would have a bigger right margin. This would have the effect of staggering even long lines or lines that overflowed one screen line. Dale Last edited by DaleDe; 03-30-2015 at 03:38 PM. |
03-30-2015, 01:57 PM | #5 |
frumious Bandersnatch
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You could use "visibility: hidden", but it may be unsupported by some readers, and it may not play nicely with text-to-speech systems.
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03-30-2015, 08:27 PM | #6 | |
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And yes, it's a lot of work. We've had such "save the drama for your mama" here about "visual poetry" that generally, unless I've had a very, very clear discussion with the author/poet and/or publisher, we decline the work. It's just hard to make it pay enough to cover the brain-damage, both from the initial work (did I mention, a bajillionty tables?) and the inevitable subsequent hysteria when a font size is changed, when the client receives the review file. Even charging "uber-complex" just never seems to cover the costs. FWIW. I'd second Dale's ideas, either shifting the content left/right, alternating, or using stagger, but no matter what you do, without tables, the overflow issue with come back and likely bite you in the tailbone. Hitch |
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03-31-2015, 06:40 AM | #7 |
mostly an observer
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As a rule, it's easier to change one's workflow (or expectations, in this case) than to get the world to change its.
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03-31-2015, 09:09 AM | #8 |
Wizard
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Hi Michael;
Maybe there is an easier way to get what you want. I works perfectly under ADE 3.0 so I think it should also work on RMSDK ereaders. The code I used was: 1. In the .xhtml file: Code:
<p class="fl">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p> <p class="sc">This is the second line</p> Code:
.fl { display: inline; margin-bottom: 0em; text-align: justify; } .sc { display: inline; position: relative; top: 1.2em; /*This position must be linked with the line-height you are using; take in count that */ } Below you can check the respective .epub. Regards Rubén UPDATE: If you want to consecutive stanzas with that format, then you need to enclose them in a <div> block with the property "display: block"; so you'd need to use the following styles: Spoiler:
and in the .xhtml file: Spoiler:
This is how it looks under ADE: Also I attach a new .epub. Last edited by RbnJrg; 03-31-2015 at 10:27 AM. |
04-01-2015, 10:45 AM | #9 |
Colonel Mustard
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Wow, thanks guys. You are awesome. I did manage to convince the publishers to just use the same indent for all strangely aligned verses, but I will try RbnJrg’s solution a bit. It is quite impressive actually, very clever solution.
A huge thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it. |
04-01-2015, 11:20 AM | #10 |
Wizard
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04-03-2015, 11:33 PM | #11 | |
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04-04-2015, 03:44 PM | #12 | |
Wizard
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As you can watch, the code I wrote works fine; maybe you are doing something wrong and of that way are getting different results. Below I attach the respective new .epub so you can check all. Last edited by RbnJrg; 04-04-2015 at 03:47 PM. |
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04-05-2015, 12:46 AM | #13 | |
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04-05-2015, 05:38 AM | #14 |
Wizard
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Again I ask you, where are you opening the .epub? Again I ask you, can you post a screenshot of your results? Please, could you answer my questions? Anybody can open the .epub I attached in my post on ADE 3.0 and to get the same results that I showed in my screenshot.
Last edited by RbnJrg; 04-05-2015 at 05:57 AM. |
04-05-2015, 07:03 AM | #15 | |
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I suspect that Jon is opening this (VIII) in ADE 2.0, or Sony Reader. Neither will display the results as you have them there. Nor will Nook for PC (and, presumably, Nook devices--I admit, I haven't loaded it there yet; my Nook has developed a wonkiness with whether or not my beacon is visible for using Dropbox with it, so I'm lazy about USB-ing it). FWIW. I haven't tested it on an iBooks reader on iPad, either; I'd tend to assume it would work there, but... P.S., Jon: you really ought to answer Ruben's questions, sweetie. Hitch Last edited by Hitch; 04-05-2015 at 07:04 AM. Reason: Note to Jon. |
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