POETRY FORMATTING TEST
by Corcovado Press
This is a test of formatting poetry for e-book publication. The poem below challenges the e-publication process in two ways: (1) The lines are indented by various amounts, and (2) many of the vowels carry diacritical marks. In order to see an accurate display of this document as it appeared when it was composed in MSWord, download the RTF version or the PDF version. Other versions do not display the entire document accurately.
For
further discussion of these problems, see the blog
www.farewellrio.wordpress.com,
and in particular the following posting:
http://farewellrio.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/on-formatting-poems-for-e-readers-part-i-the-nature-of-the-problem/
The
aim of the test is to find out how well the Smashwords technology
handles these formatting challenges. It took several trials to
remove hidden formatting codes from this document (as recommended in
the Smashwords Style Guide) and obtain a good result. Hidden codes
were identified and removed using the Reveal Codes feature of Word
Perfect. The em dash also caused problems in the RTF version because
it seems to have induced a hidden font change. It had to be coded
with care in Word Perfect. Then the Word Perfect document was
imported into MSWord. Prior to this purification, several versions
were inaccurately reproduced.
Sample
(1) The MSWord source for the following version of the poem Pied
Beauty treats each line as a separate paragraph, and sets the
paragraph indent parameter for each line as appropriate to 0.0",
0.15", 0.3" or, in the case of the last line, 2.2".
Pied Beauty
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory
be to god for dappled things C
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced C fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All
things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd, (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
Práise hím
Smashwords
displays the indents accurately in the PDF, RTF, EPUB. LRF, HTML and
JavaScript versions prepared from the Sample (1) source. In the MOBI
version, the lines are indented, but not accurately -- the third line
of each stanza is indented the same amount as the second line. All
indents are lost in the text versions. All of these versions except
the PDB version preserved the diacritical marks. The PDB version
showed odd codes in place of diacritical marks. Blank lines are also
inserted between each pair of lines of the poem in the LRF and PDB
versions.
Sample (2) The MSWord source for this next version of the first stanza also treats each line as a separate paragraph, with all the paragraph indent parameters set to 0. The second and third lines were indented by adding leading spaces. In the MSWord source document, this version looks the same as Sample (1), but the underlying coding is different.
Glory
be to God for dappled things C
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Only the PDF and RTF versions accurately display the indents. They are completely lost in the HTML, JavaScript, EPUB, PDB, LRF and TEXT versions, and in the MOBI version the third line is indented the same amount as the second. The PDB version inserted gratuitous blank lines.
Sample
(3) The MSWord source for this third version of the first stanza
treats each line as a separate paragraph, with all the paragraph
indent parameters set to 0. The second and third lines were indented
by inserting tab characters. Once again, this version looks in
MSWord just like Sample (1) and Sample (2), but the underlying coding
is different.
Glory
be to God for dappled things C
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
The
HTML, JavaScript, PDF and RTF, EPUB, LRF and MOBI versions accurately
display the indents. The indents are completely lost in the PDB and
TEXT versions. The LRF and PDB versions inserted blank lines between
each pair of lines of the poem.
CONCLUSIONS:
Smashwords
accurately represents diacritical marks in all versions except PDB,
where they are mangled. It accurately displays indents in the PDF,
HTML, RTF, EPUB, LRF and JavaScript versions, provided that the
MSWord source encodes the indents by setting the paragraph indent
parameter, as recommended in the Smashwords Style Guide. Even with
this coding method, the MOBI version does not display the indents
accurately, the TEXT version loses them altogether and the PDB
version shows no indents and introduces gratuitous blank lines. The
LRF version also introduces gratuitous blank lines. The MOBI version
displayed indents correctly only when they were represented by tab
characters.
When indents are coded using initial spaces, they are displayed accurately only in the PDF and RTF versions. When they are coded as tab characters, they are displayed accurately only in the HTML, JavaScript, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, LRF and RTF versions.
In order to display indented lines of poetry accurately in e-reader documents prepared by Smashwords, it is recommended that, in the MSWord source document, each line be represented as a separate paragraph, using the paragraph indent parameter to encode its indentation. Take great care to unnecessary hidden formatting characters. The Word Perfect Reveal Codes feature is a useful tool for this purpose. Even when this recommendation is followed, some indents are not displayed accurately in the MOBI version, and they are lost completely in the TEXT and PDB versions.