Blank lines & top margins

[travger]

I have achieved quite nice-looking ePub. But when I converted it to old mobi (with Calibre), all the 'margin-top: X em' were ignored.

Now, I was not very surprised, 'cause I am fairly sure that's normal behavior. BUT - before I changed top margin to 1em, it was something like 9 or 19em with the result that there was huge empty space before every chapter and in addition chapter heading and some first lines were missing (on my small screen, on PC they barely fit). So, 'margin-top: 19 em' wasn't ignored. Why?

So far the only way I know how to get empty line in the text is <br /> (or <div></div>, but I'm not yet comfortable with divs).
Is there any other method?

Top margin 35% works nicely in ePub, but mobi ignores it. What can I do to move dedication lower on the page and still have nice ePub too?

Same for 'margin-top: 3 em' - I'd rather not use <br /><br /><br />, but at the moment it's the only solution I am sure will work.

TIA!

[Jellby]

Could it be that you should write "1em" and not "1 em" (note no space between number and unit)?

[DiapDealer]

While it's true that MOBI doesn't use the margin-top property (or any css for that matter), I've found that calibre is usually very good at converting margin-top to MOBI's equivalent (basically) "height" property. I'd guess it's the space issue Jellby mentioned, since I know from experience that calibre can/will do what you want it to do.

[travger]

No, actually there's no space between 1 and em.

[DiapDealer]

Can I ask what you're viewing the resulting mobi to determine that it's not working?

I've just verified that my ePub with the dedication code:

<p class="dedication">to Jill</p>

and the following CSS

p.dedication {
    margin-bottom: 0;
    margin-left: 0;
    margin-right: 0;
    margin-top: 4em;
    text-indent: 0;
    text-align: center;
    }

definitely works as expected when converted with calibre to mobi (and viewed with Kindle Previewer or an actual Kindle device).

Don't use calibre's viewer to test whether or not it's working.

[travger]

.calibre14 {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 3em;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0}

has empty 1 line only thanks to inserted <br />.

.calibre22 {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 2em;
text-indent: 0}

is first paragraph and has no space separating it from the heading.

ps. I'm using Mobireader for PC and for Palm - so far they look alike. I'm really only interested in palm version anyway.

[DiapDealer]

Sorry, I can't test the Palm version, but MobiReader for PC is correctly displaying the very same code (mine) above after using calibre v0.9.0 to convert to MOBI, as well. So I'm a bit baffled. Are you absolutely certain the stylesheet is being linked to that particular html file in the original ePub?

[travger]

I just unpacked both mobis:

Mine has
<p height="0pt" width="1em" align="justify">
for every paragraph

while original has
<p height="9em" width="0pt">
for the first paragraph.

Of course I could doctor the html in mobi instead of ePub, but my goal is to delete mobis and convert the ePub if I want to re-read.. That means I have to learn what changes work or I'll have exactly same issues in the future.

@DiapDealer - what conversion settings did you use?

[DiapDealer]

I used whatever my default settings are -- which are going to be very, very close to whatever calibre's defaults were originally. Absolutely nothing is checked/changed in the "Look & Feel" section and absolutely no Heuristics enabled. Nothing is check-marked in the "MOBI Output" section and the MOBI file type is set to "old."

[travger]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Are you absolutely certain the stylesheet is being linked to that particular html file in the original ePub?

I have no gripes about ePub - it looks rather nice and I'm able to change it as I like. So I suppose it has to be linked to css. And 'that particular html file' is every file (all chapters begin right below chapter heading in mobi, while in ePub there is 2em space).

I have seen em scenebrakes ignored before and was sure that it's normal behavior, but now when you said otherwise, it seems like a fault in conversion settings.

[travger]

Yee-haw!

I had 'remove spacing between paragraphs' checked! Now at last I have got mobi to look like ePub was!

Does a little embarrassed victory dance

Thanks!!!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by travger

I have no gripes about ePub - it looks rather nice and I'm able to change it as I like. So I suppose it has to be linked to css. And 'that particular html file' is every file (all chapters begin right below chapter heading in mobi, while in ePub there is 2em space).

I wouldn't suppose anything at this point.
Make sure each html file as a line similar to

<link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

in the head section. Where the path matches the name and the location of your particular CSS file, of course.

I have seen em scenebrakes ignored before and was sure that it's normal behavior, but now when you said otherwise, it seems like a fault in conversion settings.

Definitely not "normal." I've never had to struggle at all to get calibre to honor the margin-top property of an ePub's CSS classes. Your indication that the unpacked mobi's paragraphs are all identical is a clear indication to me that either the ePub's CSS is not being applied anywhere ... or that you're overriding the ePub's CSS with a calibre conversion setting.

EDIT: Never mind, it appears you found the culprit.