Moon+Reader Pro punctuation handling

[mjcatt]

In written spanish dialog, em dash is used somewhat like quotes in english and there are some times where it is followed by a period, for example: —. or possibly —,
Here is a quick example:

—Se habrá perdido —respondió Billy—. Vamos.

In Moon+ Reader Pro, if the length of the line is just right the text sometimes wraps to a new line after the em dash and before the period, as follows:

—Se habrá perdido —respondió Billy—
. Vamos.

Obviously, this looks really strange and I have never seen it happen on my Kindle Voyage, the Calibre book reader or the Calibre server web browser reader. Also, as far as I can tell, there is no accepted HTML/CSS code (except possibly for one inconvenient depreciated <nobr> tag), but I'm no expert.

Does anyone know of a way the keep these punctuation characters together? Is there any setting buried somewhere in Moon+ Reader for this?

Thanks for your help.

[Tortuosit]

This is a big thing for me - I use AlreaderX for reading only because of this problem.

Moon+ here does things like:
"Hello, he said."
>
"Hello,he said
."

By any chance, do you use names replacement? I think only then it happens. I hope I am right. I tried a lot of font sizes and wasn't able to see the problem with replacement off. I reported my finding to the dev.

AlreaderX is a fine reader, really good reading part... but the library UI is... ugh... lacking. That's why I really want to use Moon+ again.

[elchamaco]

I use Moon and i've not seen that. Probably is some option as Tortuosit says.

[Tortuosit]

My suspect is the names.replament,here's mine:

»#->#„
«#->#“
›#->#‚
‹#->#‘

[Tortuosit]

Without using the replacement, I have never seen the problem again. Reported it to the dev. but unfortunately no reaction.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by mjcatt

In written spanish dialog, em dash is used somewhat like quotes in english and there are some times where it is followed by a period, for example: —. or possibly —,

[...]

Also, as far as I can tell, there is no accepted HTML/CSS code (except possibly for one inconvenient depreciated <nobr> tag), but I'm no expert.

Does anyone know of a way the keep these punctuation characters together?

You may want to try this:

1. Using the "Word Joiner" Character

Open up your EPUB, and:

Search: —.
Replace: —&#8288;.

Search: —,
Replace: —&#8288;,

That should "combine" the dash + period/comma into a single chunk, telling Moon+ not to line-break there.

2. If that doesn't work, then maybe a CSS solution.

(Although Moon+ is one of the bad readers that throws away all "publisher CSS". I recommend using a more standards-compliant reader.)

We discussed lots of different methods in 2019: "No break space and alignment".

This one is extremely hackish, so it's not recommended:

HTML:

<p>—Se habrá perdido —respondió <span class="nobreak">Billy—.</span> Vamos.</p>

CSS:

.nobreak {
  white-space: pre;
}

In English, that CSS tries to say:

"Hey, I already pre-did the linebreaks+spacing here for you. Keep Billy + EM DASH + PERIOD all together. Don't you mess with it!"

You may be able to more easily apply this to your book by using this regex:

Search: (\w+)—([,\.])
Replace: <span class="nobreak">\1—\2</span>

which looks for:

1. Any letters
2. EM DASH
3. comma OR period

then wraps the <span> around it.

But again, I don't recommend mangling up all your code for this. Instead, use a much better reader that actually follows the standards. (PocketBook is a very good reader on Android.)