Calibre screwing up centered-text b/c of forced tabs

[lurker316]

Short version: Calibre can screw up text that is centered. This problem results from the issues with paragraph spacing and tabs -- they may seem unrelated, but, as you will see, they are connected.

Long version:

1.) I am converting books from .rtf to .mobi.

2.) Calibre will sometimes (but not always) add a space between paragraphs (the original documents do not have spaces between paragraphs).

3.) I don't want a space between my paragraphs. So when that happens, I go into the "Look and Feel" section, check the box to "remove spacing between paragraphs", and reconvert.

4.) That successfully removes the space between the paragraphs. But when you check this option Calibre will sometimes (but not always) over-ride the exiting tabs in the original and inserts it's own tabs.

5.) Calibre over-riding existing tabs and inserting its own tabs screws up text that is centered. That's because Calibre simply looks for the code to indicate a paragraph break and adds a tab after it. That's not a problem if the text after the paragraph mark is the start of a paragraph -- a tab should go there. But if the text that follows a paragraph mark is a title, heading or some other text that is centered, Calibre will add a tab in front of it as well. As a result, the text will be off-center -- it's shifted to the right.

6.) If I change the settings in Calibre so that the indent is "0.0" that will make sure headings are properly centered; however, it also erases the tabs at the start of paragraphs as well. So then there's no differentiation between paragraphs. (Since Calibre is over-riding the existing tabs, this has the effect of erasing both my tabs and Calibres tabs so there are none at all.)

I've found one work-around that usually (but not always) helps: I go into the code of the original .rtf document and change the paragraph marks to "manual line breaks." Calibre usually (but not always) ignores manual line breaks when it's adding its own tabs. So if you have a manual line break in front of a title, rather than a regular paragraph break, it might stay centered and not be shifted to the right.

Bottom line: I'd like a book where the paragraphs are set off by indents, not a line space, and where the headings are properly centered.

A number of possible solutions come to mind. Here's one:

When a user checks "remove spaces between parapgraphs" Calibre should not assume that there are not already tabs in the document, over-ride them, and add its own. When removing line spaces, Calibre's default should be leave tabs as is. If a user wants Calibre to add tabs, they should have to check a second box to affirmatively tell it to over-ride existing tabs and add its own.