{"id":12447,"date":"2016-06-29T21:49:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T20:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krabat.menneske.dk\/kkblog\/?p=12447"},"modified":"2017-11-08T02:27:49","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T01:27:49","slug":"solved-auto-breaking-lines-in-epub-poetry-collections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krabat.menneske.dk\/kkblog\/2016\/06\/29\/solved-auto-breaking-lines-in-epub-poetry-collections\/","title":{"rendered":"SOLVED… Auto-Breaking lines in ePub poetry collections! Well, sorta…"},"content":{"rendered":"

No code or CSS in epub and mobi can give you full control of auto-breaking lines and a poem’s continuity and pauses. <\/span><\/p>\n

Use this simple formatting to reclaim both<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 on small screens.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

– –<\/p>\n

OH, I FORGOT!<\/strong>
\nGoing through the contract for my new collection of poetry-as-ebook, ROSSO.NIENTE., I realised\u00a0I was\u00a0still in need <\/em>of\u00a0a way to ensure control of line breaks on various ebook platforms.<\/p>\n

Thinking about it miraculously<\/em>\u00a0a Columbus egg manifested \u2013\u00a0a viable solution to the\u00a0problem, which had bugged me since 2010 & prevented me from publishing my poetry in epub and mobi!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BREATH<\/strong>
\nFor 30+ years line-breaks for me has meant Breath, Breathing. Same\u00a0for punctuation. And\u00a0tabulations. And empty lines. All of these pauses make<\/em> the music of the text. They are the Music of Pauses<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

When lines of poetry in modern ebooks come up against\u00a0the right margin (or the left, when reading right to left), industry standard format code encapsulating and controlling the text will auto-break these lines and deposit surplus words as a new line.<\/p>\n

Imagine a sheet of music without fractional notes or time signature \u2013\u00a0all sounds would have optional or the same length and there would be no beat to the melody. Songs like that might be termed “musical info-pieces” or “DIY songs”.<\/p>\n

The same with poetry. Without a way to regulate and control intended pauses (‘continuity’) there is no possibility of a music intentionally<\/em> being embedded in the text. At best the text would just become a stuttering of poetic images. DIY poetry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

STANDARDS…<\/strong>
\nBefore the latest epub industry standard EPUB3 was given over to the world, there was a long period in which everyone connected to the industry could contribute by stating their\u00a0wishes \u2013\u00a0which, if implemented, would ultimately determine the look and functionality of ebook-text.<\/p>\n

\"a-madrigal-2\"In this period I was trying to make coders realize there was a problem with presenting poetry. ePub had spawned out of html on relatively large computer screens, but once such a text format hits a mobile phone or even a 9″ tablet screen, poetry looking alright<\/em> on a bigger screen will be auto-destroyed by automatically breaking lines \u2013\u00a0simultaneously stealing the copyright of authors by auto-converting text into an EPUB-code made\u00a0simile<\/em>.<\/p>\n

2010 EPUB3 coders mocked me by presenting me with their visual perception of\u00a0poetry \u2013\u00a0what\u00a0they had been taught in high school: short-lined\u00a0verses by Shakespeare. Well, but ALL\u00a0poetry is like that!<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, right!\u00a0And this<\/em> was going to be the industry standard by which all of the world would be publishing digital literature for mass marked sale!?\u00a0I began struggling\u00a0to be heard, but no one cared. The marked for prose was too important.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

INDENTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"ScreenAs I was thinking about how to let my new publisher understand that publishing\u00a0an ebook of possibly<\/em> randomized line-breakings was out of the question, and that a\u00a0solution to the problem had<\/em> to be found and agreed upon by both parties, I suddenly remembered the ebook-enthusiastic programmer of Calibre<\/strong><\/a>, David Goyal.<\/p>\n

Back in 2011 he wrote a hack to accommodate poetry, which would indent an auto-broken line enough to give an expression of line coherence (maybe the equivalent of 3 spaces) – but even if that takes the edge off of poems with auto-broken lines, it still doesn’t work for people considering tabulations viable in a vocabulary of pauses. One would need to indicate that such an auto-indentation was different from intended tabulations. With a color, maybe…<\/p>\n

(Known EPUB authors Liz Castro<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0[EPUB3] and Joshua Tallent<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0[mobi\/KF8] both try to code their way out of the problem, but neither\u00a0really see or care about the use of indentations as relevant parts of a poem \u2013 as do neither of two other EPUB coders, I recently spoke with. Though, compared to the coders of 2010 they at least understand that writers can have specific needs, even<\/em> if xml+css cannot help.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

COLOR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Use of color was a fresh idea.\u00a0Colors would work within the framework of the EPUB3 limitations\u00a0without requiring hacks or special CSS; it actually could be done manually and poetry collections are rarely very large…<\/p>\n

Dark colours, greys and black would work on all ebook-readers. But maybe there was an easy way to CSS\u00a0a color preceding\u00a0Goyal’s auto-indentation after auto line-break…<\/p>\n

Color!<\/em> There was the answer to my pet-peeve! The answer to the question that has been bugging me, ever since coders decided that poetry was not text<\/em> fit for mass consumption in industry standard code. “Too few people read poetry anyway, so why bother catering to them?”<\/p>\n

Well, maybe because poets are the pioneers of language?!\u00a0\"Screen<\/p>\n

Read it\u00a0aloud by colour coherence, and you will hear it works. But the main<\/em> thing is, with this<\/em> there IS a way to survive auto-broken lines in poetry!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

GO WITH THE FLOW
\n<\/strong>The solution is to maintain\u00a0a reader’s awareness on which lines belong together (coherence), even if a narrow viewing screen causes the ebook code to auto-break lines in the poem:<\/p>\n