linespace for standing cap

[AlanHK]

I use a standing cap at the chapter beginning:

<p class="first"><span class="stand">T</span><span class="small">HE GLACIER WOUND AND TWISTED</span> between upthrust walls of naked stone.

p{margin:0;text-align:justify;}
.small{font-size:0.77778em;}
.stand{font-size:2.5em;font-style:italic;font-weight:bold;line-height: 1.2rem;}
.first{text-indent:0;margin-top:2em;}


Convert to AZW, on Kindle, it adds a space proportional to the cap size below the first line: see screen.
On ePub was the same, until I added "line-height: 1.2rem;". That fixed the linespacing in ePub, but was ignored in Kindle.

Is there a way to fix linespacing that works in Kindle?

[slowsmile]

I've just tested this code which seems to successfully get rid of that unwanted space:

<p class="first"><span class="stand">T</span><span class="small">HE GLACIER WOUND AND TWISTED</span> between upthrust walls of naked stone.</p>

p{margin:0;text-align:justify;}
.first{text-indent:0;margin-top:2em;}
.stand{font-style:italic;font-weight:bold;line-height:0;font-size:2.5em;padding:0;}
.small{font-size:0.7777em;}

For some reason, the line-height:0 in the stand class seems to remove the unwanted excess lower space. Since line-height:0 is not allowed, the epub will always automatically reset that line-height:0 value back to it's default line-height setting - which is normally 1.2 or 120%. Hence the unwanted space magically disappears. That's just a guess on my part by the way. But this fix seems to do the job of successfully getting rid of that unwanted space below when tested on both Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle Previewer. See attachments below.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by slowsmile

I've just tested this code which seems to successfully get rid of that unwanted space

Thanks, but didn't work for me, using Previewer 2.92 and sideloading the resulting file to a PW3. Same extra spacing.

However, in the Previewer, it did work.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

Thanks, but didn't work for me, using Previewer 2.92 and sideloading the resulting file to a PW3. Same extra spacing.

However, in the Previewer, it did work.

Yup, took the words right out of my mouth. Looks good on KP3.x, but on a real device, you still have the space.

You know, it's doing what it ought. It's creating space for the descenders, that's all. I know it's frustrating, but...

Hitch

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You know, it's doing what it ought. It's creating space for the descenders,that's all. I know it's frustrating, but...

Kindle seems to ignore reduced linespacing styles in general.

You can get a dropcap to work fairly well using float and negative margins.
Any way to use something like that for standing caps?

[JSWolf]

It's a bug (IMHO) in the Kindle rendering software. Amazon doesn't care that they have margins too wide and a line height too big. And for most people,this is not something they can fix or even know they can fix. The L/R margin is fairly easy to fix, but the line-height fix is something that's not easy to fix. It requires editing your chosen font's metrics.

[jhowell]

There is a thread from 2014, KF8 and raised cap, where this issue was discussed. Several solutions were proposed but all had drawbacks.

I wouldn't worry about it as long as your book supports Enhanced Typesetting when published. The KFX renderer does a better job in this case. It only adds extra space between lines if the enlarged letter actually has a descender.