blank lines between paragraphs

[Joques]

Yep, intent + 0.5em space. It is a balm for my soul

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Joques

Yep, intent + 0.5em space. It is a balm for my soul

.5em is .5em too much space.

[PurpleStar]

I hate the spaces between paragraphs. Especially if it's a conversation like this.

"Hello how are you."

"I'm fine how are you."

"Good."

Ugh...it's annoying. I find I read a lot slower when a book is like that. Not to mention it's a waste of space on an already small screen. All hail indents!

[franklekens]

Thanks for the tips. Pretty depressing that the Kobo doesn't handle this better (and that they chose to make the extended stats unavailable for sideloaded books; plus the fact that for most sideloaded books the cover is no longer displayed correctly).

As to people's preference for spacing between paragraphs, I don't get that either. Is that something they hate about paper books too then? I mainly read fiction. It may be different for some text books or manuals, but no spacing between paragraphs has pretty much been the norm, and no doubt my preference is based simply on being used to that -- but my preference is strong. It's something I've always hated about html: that spaces between paragraphs are pretty much the default, and you have to put in extra effort if you want your html pages to look more like printed text (with indented paragraphs that don't have spaces between them).
A text where all the paragraphs have spaces between them looks a little too much like a children's book to me.
For another thing, having spaces between all paragraphs obliterates the *actual* white lines a writer chose to put in his text.
Not to mention reading dialogues...

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Indent + spacing is the way I set mine up. Does KoReader preserve this type of spacing, Ken? I know Cool Reader does not.

KoReader lets you turn the embedded style "on" or "off". It also lets you "set render style" which gives you a list of .css to choose from, as well as "clear all external styles" and "Auto". The actual .css files are in a folder and you can add your own or copy and modify an existing one. These are, of course, applied on top of what the book has, with the latest normally taking precedence (unless the earlier is defined as having a higher precedence).

There are also defaults you can set for the reader that include line spacing and margins. Paragraphs have to be defined in the coding of the book file, or by an applied .css file.

Luck;
Ken

Might help.
This too.

[Ripplinger]

I prefer no spacing because that's the way paper books are so that's what I'm used to. I have never seen any paper book have spacing between paragraphs, not once.

Spacing between paragraphs is required on forums because none of them are set up to auto-indent. I've seen a few public domain ebooks like that and I hate reading them, I have to edit them to no space between paragraphs and indented.

I really wonder how anyone got used to spacing between paragraphs unless they have only been brought up on ebooks and not paper books at all?

[murg]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

It looks, to me, like there is a space/blank line between the paragraphs of all your posts, and they are readable. None of them have indents, not even JSWolf's.

Luck;
Ken

Are you saying that JSWolf vomits out his posts?

[thp1017]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I really wonder how anyone got used to spacing between paragraphs unless they have only been brought up on ebooks and not paper books at all?

Its interesting how that works - I've been a big reader since I was a kid, read paper books for years, yet one of the first things I did when I started reading ebooks was get rid of all of the indents and switch to spacing between paragraphs. The text is too dense for me, otherwise, and I like that the start of every line is in exactly the same spot, I find it less distracting that way. Then again, I do set the line spacing for paragraphs at 0.9em, to more closely mimic paper books - the extra white space between lines within paragraphs drives me nuts

But this is the great thing about ebooks - with a little bit of time, I can have each book displayed exactly how I like, as can everyone else.

[icallaci]

It's interesting to me to see all the different styles people prefer when reading on a screen vs reading on paper. For me, it's 0.1em between paragraphs, plus 1em indent.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I prefer no spacing because that's the way paper books are so that's what I'm used to. I have never seen any paper book have spacing between paragraphs, not once.

Spacing between paragraphs is required on forums because none of them are set up to auto-indent. I've seen a few public domain ebooks like that and I hate reading them, I have to edit them to no space between paragraphs and indented.

I'm with you on the indent and no spacing and I'm sure it is related to past experience. But...

I very often start reading the kepub version of books I have bought from Kobo. If the formatting bugs me, then I fix it in the epub and read that. While doing this, I realised that for short paragraphs, the spacing aids comprehension. I think that for a paragraph of about four or five lines, I could see the whole thing in one go and absorb it. Once the paragraph got longer, it didn't help. For single lines of dialog, it doesn't seem to help either.

I'm sticking with indent and no spacing, but, I'm not in as much of a hurry to reformat books that use spacing now.

I really wonder how anyone got used to spacing between paragraphs unless they have only been brought up on ebooks and not paper books at all?

I think blame it on the web. I don't think early browsers support indenting, or at least not easily. And I think people now consider it the style for the web.

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I prefer no spacing because that's the way paper books are so that's what I'm used to. I have never seen any paper book have spacing between paragraphs, not once.

There's a simple enough reason for that: it would increase the amount of paper required for printing, sometimes by a significant amount. This is not a concern for ereaders.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by icallaci

It's interesting to me to see all the different styles people prefer when reading on a screen vs reading on paper. For me, it's 0.1em between paragraphs, plus 1em indent.

I've never tried a .1em paragraph space. I'll give it a try and see how readable it is.

For an indent, I like 1.2em. That's not too small or too big. I've seen many an eBook use an indent of 5%. Mostly Mobi.

[GeoffR]

I prefer zero paragraph spacing and 1.0 - 1.5em indent. I don't mind a one line space between paragraphs and zero indent, as long as the scene breaks are done in a style that isn't obscured by the paragraph spacing. Many publishers use a 1em margin to indicate a scene break, but since margins overlap it is then impossible to distinguish a scene break from a paragraph break.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I prefer zero paragraph spacing and 1.0 - 1.5em indent. I don't mind a one line space between paragraphs and zero indent, as long as the scene breaks are done in a style that isn't obscured by the paragraph spacing. Many publishers use a 1em margin to indicate a scene break, but since margins overlap it is then impossible to distinguish a scene break from a paragraph break.

I almost always make scene breaks 2em to differentiate them from blockquotes (where I use a 1em top and 1em bottom space). It's getting to the point where I want all my ebooks formatted the same way, which is something I never thought about in paper books. I think it has something to do with the uniformity of the ereader versus the variety of printed books. My ereader never changes its physical dimensions, its cover, the color of the "paper" (screen), the color of the text, its weight or anything else, whereas printed books have a variety of designs, sizes, covers, paper textures, etc. So I'm guessing that when I read on my ereader, I expect to have the same basic experience I had last time I used it, but in a printed book, I expect a different experience based on physical differences. Weird.

[leftright]

Surely the integrity of the authors style and intent should be retained irrespective of the medium used to read.

Like music, does one preserve the integrity of the artists intent or does one remix the content when "duplicating" the music?.