How to remove blank line between paragraphs

[gogreen]

Please could someone tell me how to reomve the blank line between paragraphs in book view in Sigil. I hope this will just involve clicking a box rather than some complicated codeing issue .

Regards

[theducks]

Originally Posted by gogreen

Please could someone tell me how to reomve the blank line between paragraphs in book view in Sigil. I hope this will just involve clicking a box rather than some complicated codeing issue .

Regards

Not possible in the GUI (BV).

That is probably a Paragraph (top or botom) MARGIN issue.

It is only complicated because you won't try to understand the basics (there ARE really other complicated issues that require detective work to unravel style nesting)

Open the book, click the cursor (to set the insertion point) on a paragraph with this problem, above AND below.
Now switch to Code view. (don't click anything yet).
If you see a simple P tag, you are looking for a generic P style:

<p>words here.</p>

Then the style sheet could have (note the p has no dot in front)

p {
    border-bottom: 0;
    border-top: 0;
    display: block;
    margin-bottom: 0.5em;
    margin-top: 0.5em;
    padding-bottom: 0;
    padding-top: 0
    }

This style controls that paragraph, change the Red value to a simple 0

The same theory applies for:

<p class=calibre5">words here.</p>

Except this time you are looking for the style (note the leading dot) :

.calibre5 {
    border-bottom: 0;
    border-top: 0;
    display: block;
    margin-bottom: 0.5em;
    margin-top: 0.5em;
    padding-bottom: 0;
    padding-top: 0
}

The curly brackets are the boundaries of the style definition.

CSS is simple once you realize that you can control the entire book from one place with a few changes, instead of painfully editing each page or paragraph.

[mrmikel]

It is necessary to look at the code because there may be more than one cause for the extra space. Instead of using CSS as shown above, someone may have inserted <br/> at the end of each paragraph. There is no way any program can cope with the several ways to insert spaces between paragraphs without messing something else up.

Someday when everyone does everything in a standard way, you may get your wish. However, by then, someone else will come along, like Apple, and start doing stuff in a non-standard way again. Sigh.

[HarryT]

You might find it easier to use Calibre. Do an "ePub to ePub" conversion, and check the "Remove spacing between paragraphs" check box. It won't work in all cases, but it will sort out the problem in the majority of circumstances.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You might find it easier to use Calibre. Do an "ePub to ePub" conversion, and check the "Remove spacing between paragraphs" check box. It won't work in all cases, but it will sort out the problem in the majority of circumstances.

And you might find you've just made a mess and also lost the space for the section breaks. It's not worth the risk to do an ePub>ePub conversion. It's better to learn what it is that should be fixed/changed to get the desired results.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And you might find you've just made a mess and also lost the space for the section breaks. It's not worth the risk to do an ePub>ePub conversion. It's better to learn what it is that should be fixed/changed to get the desired results.

I've done it with lots of books, Jon, and it's never messed up the section breaks. Give it a go - it does work.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've done it with lots of books, Jon, and it's never messed up the section breaks. Give it a go - it does work.

Yes, it does tend to take out the section breaks in most books. I've found myself cleaning up after this a lot...calibre adds spaces by default for some reason (I don't really understand why this is on by default).

See my old thread on this same problem:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=106305

Convert in Calibre with this under extra CSS to get the result you want:

p {margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em}

see "paragraph spacing" here:

http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conv...html#look-feel

For more info. There's a bit more about adding indents in the CSS they recommend on the calibre page.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've done it with lots of books, Jon, and it's never messed up the section breaks. Give it a go - it does work.

I've done it as well and it doesn't always mess up section breaks. But sometimes it does and sometimes it reduces the section break space to that of too small.

[gogreen]

I found { margin: 0; padding: 0; } works just fine. The main problem is knowing where to add the codes in sigil. Now got all isues sorted. For what its worth I have also found running Epub to Epub with Calibre also sorts alot of problems to do with margins e.g., the cover picture white border etc.

Regards

[danskmacabre]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You might find it easier to use Calibre. Do an "ePub to ePub" conversion, and check the "Remove spacing between paragraphs" check box. It won't work in all cases, but it will sort out the problem in the majority of circumstances.

I've been working on an Ebook and noticed Calibre now has a very nice "Look and feel" option to change lots of things to do with formatting.
You pointed me in the right direction with this post, thanks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gogreen

I found { margin: 0; padding: 0; } works just fine. The main problem is knowing where to add the codes in sigil. Now got all isues sorted. For what its worth I have also found running Epub to Epub with Calibre also sorts alot of problems to do with margins e.g., the cover picture white border etc.

Regards

You don't need padding 0 if you don't use padding. Its just extra code that does nothing. Also, ePub > ePub can cause havoc with your ePub some of the time. So it's not worth doing just to be on the safe side.

[gogreen]

Well the recommendation to use { margin: 0; padding: 0; } comes directly from sigil on their frequently asked questions list. OK if padding is not necessary and causes no harm I can live with it. Regarding your second point, I would expect most people with the sense to write a book to have the sense to make copies before they attempt anything. All I can say for some peaople you are proberly right and for others not. However I found it a good experience that sorted out all my remaining issues. Essentially when running the sigil converted book directly in Aldiko on my smart phone, all I could use was the standard settings with a less than perfect layout and poor book cover presentation. After the conversion using epub to epub with calibre everything now looks and works perfect, including the advanced formatting settings and book cover. It also looks and works perfect with Kindle after doing an epub to mobi conversion you undoubtedly agree with.

[JSWolf]

I've seen some ePub > Mobi conversions that look better then a lot of publisher Mobi.

[Greg P]

Here is the simple way. Note that I would agree that you must learn some code to be able to fix various issues.

Look at your xhtml, you should see something like:

<p>One paragraph.</p>

<p>Another paragraph</p>

Change this to

<p>One paragraph.
<br />Another paragraph</p>

This is less complicated than fiddling with the CSS. If you need to do a number of these, then use Find/Replace.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Greg P

Here is the simple way. Note that I would agree that you must learn some code to be able to fix various issues.

Look at your xhtml, you should see something like:

<p>One paragraph.</p>

<p>Another paragraph</p>

Change this to

<p>One paragraph.
<br />Another paragraph</p>

This is less complicated than fiddling with the CSS. If you need to do a number of these, then use Find/Replace.

Sorry, but that's a HORRIBLE solution. PLEASE don't do it that way.