How to keep blank underscore within a statement

[PHigby]

I'm working on a language learning textbook. In one of the exercises, there are underscore markers where the student needs to provide the missing word. The author has (blank underscore) ________ as his formatting, but when I export to flowable epub out of Indesign it's gone and doesn't show.

Any suggestions how to retain the formatting?

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by PHigby

I'm working on a language learning textbook. In one of the exercises, there are underscore markers where the student needs to provide the missing word. The author has (blank underscore) ________ as his formatting, but when I export to flowable epub out of Indesign it's gone and doesn't show.

Any suggestions how to retain the formatting?

I don't know if I understand you well but if you want something like "________" in your epub, that is easy to get with the css property "text-decoration: underline;". For example:

1. In your css stylesheet:

.underscore {
    text-decoration: underline;
}

2. In your .xhtml file:

<p>This is an example <span  class="underscore">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p>

Another way to get the same result is by using the property "display: inline-block;". For example:

1. In your css stylesheet:

.underscore {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 8em; /* here you can set the length of the underscore */
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}

2. In your .xhtml file:

<p>This is an example <span  class="underscore"></span> very easy</p>

Maybe this solution is more elegant but the the blank underscore will have the same length in all cases and with the previous method, you can control that by using so many & nbsp; as the length of the word of your choice.

I hope this help you.

Regards
Rubén

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

Maybe this solution is more elegant but the the blank underscore will have the same length in all cases and with the previous method, you can control that by using so many & nbsp; as the length of the word of your choice.

But one could still use your far more elegant method by setting different classes of underscore span:

.underscore3 {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 3em; 
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}
.underscore4 {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 4em; 
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}

etc.

[HarryT]

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but why not just use underscore characters? ie ________ ? It's an ASCII character and should never be "stripped out" by any software.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but why not just use underscore characters? ie ________ ? It's an ASCII character and should never be "stripped out" by any software.

Depending on the font, you may get tiny gaps between the individual characters, which doesn't look particularly nice.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Depending on the font, you may get tiny gaps between the individual characters, which doesn't look particularly nice.

Sometimes, though, the simple solutions really are the best. In situations where you want to indicate that this is a place where the user should "fill in the blanks", small gaps between letters are exactly what you do want to indicate the letters.

Still, the OP now has a range of options and can use whichever they prefer.

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

But one could still use your far more elegant method by setting different classes of underscore span:

.underscore3 {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 3em; 
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}
.underscore4 {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 4em; 
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}

etc.

Ok, you're right But in that case, would be a bit more efficient to use the following code:

.underscore {
    display: inline-block;
    border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}

.width3 {
    width: 3em; 
}

.width4 {
    width: 4em; 
}

etc.

And to apply them in the .xhtml file by using for example:

<p>This is an example <span  class="underscore width4"></span> very easy</p>

Regards
Rubén

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

<p>This is an example <span  class="underscore width4"></span> very easy</p>

That would make for a more streamlined CSS sheet, but a more complex class name. I thought I read somewhere on MR that SOME apps/readers may have problems with the compound class name??? My reader of choice (Marvin) displays them correctly so I do occasionally use this technique. YMMV

[dwig]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sometimes, though, the simple solutions really are the best. In situations where you want to indicate that this is a place where the user should "fill in the blanks", small gaps between letters are exactly what you do want to indicate the letters.

Still, the OP now has a range of options and can use whichever they prefer.

True, but I wonder if the OP's issue has to deal with InDesign getting fancy and replacing simple underscores with some special on-the-fly graphic underline entity, as MS Word does, and then failing to decompose it successfully in its ePub export. The OP may well need to create the Id file with some replacement text (e.g. "#_#_#_") that will successfully export. They can then do a search and replace in an ePub editor (e.g. Sigil or calibre Editor) to replace any "#_" with a simple underscore or if the Id blanks are uniform in length replace with some fancier styled <span>.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Depending on the font, you may get tiny gaps between the individual characters, which doesn't look particularly nice.

I would also add, because I am dealing with something along these lines now, if the end result here will be a MOBI file, you can get VERY weird lengths due to the justification algorithm taking liberties with the length/width of the nbsps. AND the algo can also create the appearance of space BETWEEN the spaces that effect (yes, I mean effect, not affect, thank you) the underscores. Not a great result.

FWIW.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

For lines where you need the underscores, use a monospace font.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For lines where you need the underscores, use a monospace font.

YES, that ^ too. I meant to say that, but brain-farted it.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

And any text on that line needs to be monospace.