Forced line breaks and full justify

[dougfetch2]

I've got this project that involves a poem with specific formatting. The lines need forced line breaks but also full justification. I searched a bunch on google and found various tricks that all fail to pan out when tried in the ePub.

Such as

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...rows-in-a-poem
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...text-using-css

The best solution did the breaks and the full justify (the second link) however when a long paragraph of text went from one page to the next the reader cut the lines off weird (top few pixels of a line at the and of the page and the rest of the pixels on the next page) -- I think due to the line-height confusing the reader (iBooks).

Any tricks for accomplishing forced line breaks and full justification?
- Doug

[JSWolf]

I don't think you can do it.

[Turtle91]

Welcome to MR dougfetch2!

Formatting poetry properly is one of the more difficult, if not impossible, challenges in a reflowable format such as ePub. There should be easy css properties to do what you want, but apparently the demand isn't high enough for the IDPF (the ePub standards people) to require them.

There are multiple threads on here that discuss formatting poetry, but the basic answer is for the author to accept that some of the more esoteric shapes/designs cannot be done in reflowable ePub. If it is essential to have a specific shape, then sometimes inserting an image of the poem is the easiest option. The other option (not for the novice or faint of heart) is to do a fixed format ePub.

For your specific question of line breaks and justified alignment: I can only recommend <br /> and text-align:justify and perhaps setting a <div> with a specific width (and perhaps a monospace/fixed-width font). The page-break-inside, orphans, and widows settings MIGHT help prevent breaking over a page, but it sounds like iBooks has a bug - what a shock...

CSS
div.poem   {width:410px; margin:2em; page-break-inside:avoid}
div.poem p {font-size:.8em; text-indent:0; text-align:justify; orphans:0; widows:0}

<div class="poem">
     <p>
     Bacon ipsum dolor amet andouille<br />
     meatloaf rump meatball, shank ribeye<br />
     jowl turkey swine. Drumstick tri-tip<br />
     brisket, cupim tongue andouille chuck<br />
     spare ribs. Bresaola cow drumstick,<br />
     tail boudin ground round sausage<br />
     kielbasa prosciutto turkey andouille<br />
     jowl spare ribs. Short ribs brisket.
     </p>
</div>

The div width could be set to a value that just covers the longest line???

Sorry I don't have more help for you - hopefully one of our poetry formatting gurus has some better advice!

Cheers

[dougfetch2]

Thanks for the thoughts. I tried the suggestion and the iBook won't full justify it. Evil iBooks.

[JSWolf]

It can't be done.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by dougfetch2

Thanks for the thoughts. I tried the suggestion and the iBook won't full justify it. Evil iBooks.

Actually, iBooks is pretty much the best ePub 3 renderer around. Blame the standard, not iBooks.

Poetry is one of the very few things I'd suggest investigating the possibility of using PDF for. A nice PDF with pages properly sized for eInk devices can be very good for this kind of thing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Actually, iBooks is pretty much the best ePub 3 renderer around. Blame the standard, not iBooks.

Poetry is one of the very few things I'd suggest investigating the possibility of using PDF for. A nice PDF with pages properly sized for eInk devices can be very good for this kind of thing.

So how do you size a PDF that works well for a 5", 6", 6.8", 7.8", 8", 9.7", & 13" screens?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So how do you size a PDF that works well for a 5", 6", 6.8", 7.8", 8", 9.7", & 13" screens?

Since the lines are fixed length, they either will be readable on a 5" screen, or they won't.

Once a minimum readable size is found, size the PDF page for that. On larger devices, zoom to fit if it's not automatic. For smaller devices, try portrait.

[Notjohn]

For my sins, I was once sent the PDF of a book I need for a book review. It was laid out two pages of book on a PDF page. To have the type large enough to read on my 7-inch Fire tablet, I had to do a lot of moving the pages around. It wasn't fun, but it was doable, and I got the job done.

I don't think a single book-sized page would pose much of a problem. At worst, I could read in landscape mode, which would require such one thumb-sweep to read a page.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Since the lines are fixed length, they either will be readable on a 5" screen, or they won't.

Once a minimum readable size is found, size the PDF page for that. On larger devices, zoom to fit if it's not automatic. For smaller devices, try portrait.

I think you mean try landscape.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So how do you size a PDF that works well for a 5", 6", 6.8", 7.8", 8", 9.7", & 13" screens?

You could cover the bases pretty well by producing two versions: one optimized for a 6" screen and the other for a 9.7" screen. Larger devices would simply display the page a little bigger.

I'm not claiming that it's a perfect solution, but it may perhaps be the best available. ePub just isn't up to the job of formatting poetry. If you have any better ideas, please do put them forward.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I think you mean try landscape.

Dale

Yep. Sorry.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HarryT

ePub just isn't up to the job of formatting poetry.

Just curious. Does epub ignore the PRE tag?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Just curious. Does epub ignore the PRE tag?

No, it should work, but isn't it really only useful with a monospaced font? The place I've seen it used most often is with monospaced code samples in books.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it should work, but isn't it really only useful with a monospaced font? The place I've seen it used most often is with monospaced code samples in books.

I forgot that aspect of it. I guess all the solutions to the epub poetry problem are a compromise.

I live in a 7 bit ASCII monospace font world, so I would see that as the least compromise.

Maybe some embedded font trickery combined with use of PRE would do the job.