The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

When scene dividers are missing. Hard to follow.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

When scene dividers are missing. Hard to follow.

I had a book recently (I can't remember which) where new chapters would start in the middle of the page. It really screwed up the ebook navigation features.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I had a book recently (I can't remember which) where new chapters would start in the middle of the page. It really screwed up the ebook navigation features.

Sounds like quite a few of Gutenberg's ePubs. Of course, after stuffing multiple chapters into a single file, the last chapter in the file split between two files so you get an unnecessary page break. My usual fix is to merge the files and then resplit on chapter boundaries.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Sounds like quite a few of Gutenberg's ePubs. Of course, after stuffing multiple chapters into a single file, the last chapter in the file split between two files so you get an unnecessary page break. My usual fix is to merge the files and then resplit on chapter boundaries.

Yeah, I've had to edit Gutenberg ePubs that way too.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Sounds like quite a few of Gutenberg's ePubs. Of course, after stuffing multiple chapters into a single file, the last chapter in the file split between two files so you get an unnecessary page break. My usual fix is to merge the files and then resplit on chapter boundaries.

I might have to do that with the unlicensed Red Moon and Black Mountain EPUB I found online. On that one, it was so frustrating that I eventually put the book down.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I had a book recently (I can't remember which) where new chapters would start in the middle of the page. It really screwed up the ebook navigation features.

That was common on older paperbacks.

End previous chapter
<blank lines> or a rule
Start of next chapter

[JSWolf]

When the only way you have of getting new Kindle eBooks (for the authors you read) is K4PC.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I had a book recently (I can't remember which) where new chapters would start in the middle of the page. It really screwed up the ebook navigation features.

My paperback copy of Watership Down does this.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I had a book recently (I can't remember which) where new chapters would start in the middle of the page. It really screwed up the ebook navigation features.

It sounds like they are applying formatting appropriate for printed books (to reduce the number of printed pages) to ebooks where the number of pages is not an issue (more pages doesn't equal more expense). When I format ebooks I start each chapter on a new page with the Chapter Heading at the beginning.

I wonder if a factor in this could be that EPUB ebooks don't have conventional pages like printed books. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that with EPUB each page is a certain number of lines and due to that a "page" could be two/three screens in length (that's been my experience with EPUB ebooks).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I wonder if a factor in this could be that EPUB ebooks don't have conventional pages like printed books.

No, it's just bad formatting. It's very easy to have each chapter start at a new page in EPUB - just by creating a new html file for each chapter.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For the average fiction book, an index would be about as useful as your vermiform appendix.

The ToC in the book of depressing songs you mentions does not list the songs as part of the chapter title which would reduce the need for an index?

The book has a table of contents which divides the book into general areas and then the songs that fall into that area. As an example, one section of the book lists the following:

• If I Sing About Drugs, People Will Take Me Seriously
• Captain Jack/Billy Joel - 93
• Let Her Cry/Hootie & The Blowfish - 97
• Sam Stone/John Prine - 101
  

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

When scene dividers are missing. Hard to follow.

Related: One thing I've started doing when it comes to Scene Dividers is to construct them using common characters (such as "-" and "*") and then centering it to be sure they can be reliably rendered on any ebook reader. I used to use a horizontal bar, but found that it wouldn't convert properly when I converted the ebook to EPUB (I ended up with just a blank line).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Related: One thing I've started doing when it comes to Scene Dividers is to construct them using common characters (such as "-" and "*") and then centering it to be sure they can be reliably rendered on any ebook reader. I used to use a horizontal bar, but found that it wouldn't convert properly when I converted the ebook to EPUB (I ended up with just a blank line).

I like blank scene dividers (with the height of 1.5em), without any images, bells or whistles. Of course, using just a blank line is a big no-no. The proper way is to use a special paragraph for scene dividing.

[JSWolf]

I use a 2px 20% wide line to mark a scene break. It looks quite good.

hr {
  margin-top: 0.9em;
  margin-right: 40%;
  margin-bottom: 0.9em;
  margin-left: 40%;
  border-top: 2px solid;
}
hr + p {
  text-indent: 0;
}

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I like blank scene dividers (with the height of 1.5em), without any images, bells or whistles. Of course, using just a blank line is a big no-no. The proper way is to use a special paragraph for scene dividing.

What I've been using is a series of dashes as a scene divider, with 12 points of space above and 12 points of space after. Like this:

------------------------

It's simple, effective, and will work with any typeface.