2 em-dash & 3 em dash

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What are 2 and 3 em dashes used for?

Well, I'm no authority but here's a useful link discussing some of it.

https://danieljtortora.com/blog/3-em-dashes

I'd no idea such things existed until my recent re-edits of some favorite novels, where I encountered them, having initially assumed they were serial em-dashes. Both 2 em-dash and 3 em-dash are preferred to a string of em-dashes, since the latter could be broken by a line break and display weirdly. This same author displays a marked penchant for the em-dash, so that he would on occasion use the uncommon 2 & 3 em-dash is perhaps not surprising.

[DNSB]

For what it maybe worth, the author uses whatever glyphs they prefer and I will attempt to use them though that has required using an embedded subsetted font on more than one occasion.

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For what it maybe worth, ithe author uses whatever glyphs they prefer and I will attempt to use them though that has required using an embedded subsetted font on more than one occasion.

No idea what those are. I only hope my implementation displays correctly on my eReader...

[DNSB]

Basically I chose a font that had the desired characters and subset the font to remove other glyphs to save space and then embed that font in the epub.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For what it maybe worth, ithe author uses whatever glyphs they prefer and I will attempt to use them though that has required using an embedded subsetted font on more than one occasion.

I knew someone that loved the ?! or is it !? "interrobang" character.

“Is it really needed?” I exclaimed.

Then there was the one that wanted a different size and style of font for each character's dialog. That's actually a really old idea that keeps resurfacing,

Regular readers also know what I think of small caps and drop caps or images with text flowing around them.

KISS.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Basically I chose a font that had the desired characters and subset the font to remove other glyphs to save space and then embed that font in the epub.

And hope the user picks Publisher font and isn't using a stupid Android app.

Still, even "ordinary" text on non-Western languages is challenging due to the Western and often US bias of SW development/implementations. The 2007 Kindle release was dreadfully poor and the support was a solved problem 10+ years earlier, yet they persisted with mobi for years. At least some models later got upgrades to azw3.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I knew someone that loved the ?! or is it !? "interrobang" character.

“Is it really needed?” I exclaimed.

Then there was the one that wanted a different size and style of font for each character's dialog. That's actually a really old idea that keeps resurfacing,

Regular readers also know what I think of small caps and drop caps or images with text flowing around them.

KISS.

(We are back to my 'Just because you can...' )
How many dead tree publishers did that nonsense on anything longer than a page or so?
(By nonsense, I am thinking a full cast, not just 2: *Mind speech* to main
character)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by theducks

(We are back to my 'Just because you can...' )
How many dead tree publishers did that nonsense on anything longer than a page or so?
(By nonsense, I am thinking a full cast, not just 2: *Mind speech* to main
character)

Yes, it was speech/dialogue by every character.
I mentioned before the paper edition of Magpie Murders that was about half typeset in typewriter style monospace. There was a tenuous reason for it. It just made me feel sympathy for Publisher's editors and slush pile readers of more than 30 years ago.
It made it unreadable. So I bought the ebook thinking at least I could fix it. Oddly the ebook edition I got didn't have that pretentious stupidity and I didn't need to edit the CSS.

[Quoth]

Off topic. I can type both kinds of interrobang.
Compose ? ! gives ⸘
Compose ! ? gives ‽

But why should I?

[DNSB]

Would 'Because you can' be an acceptable reason?

For the authors I've dealt with, most of the odd characters are part of an alien character's name. One author even followed in J. R. R. Tolkien's footsteps and invented a language and a font to write their character names. For them, as long as iBooks was happy with the result, they were satisfied. That most Android apps rendered the names as blank blocks or other unknown glyph character didn't seem to be a concern.

A customer whose major virtue was that they paid on time.

[Quoth]

How do people read the books out loud?

People did that to other adults before TV (well more so before radio and records 30 years earlier) and still read to kids.

Audio books are very popular, not just with joggers and commuters.

I accept that Irish names in traditional spellings are tricky for people outside Ireland, but professional audio books will have them correct and you can actually look them up.

This can be true also with some Welsh and Scottish names in English texts. Of course some names and places in England will baffle Americans eventually as they have no correspondance between spelling and real pronunciation.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Would 'Because you can' be an acceptable reason?

You know my answer!

Originally Posted by DNSB

A customer whose major virtue was that they paid on time.

As I got more experienced doing computer consultancy and database systems I learned to refuse some customers.

Of course if what you are asked can be done, and it's not illegal, immoral or fattening, getting paid is good.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quoth

As I got more experienced doing computer consultancy and database systems I learned to refuse some customers.

I've done that on multiple occasions when I felt the customer had totally unreasonable beliefs about what is possible within their willingness to pay. Some dealing with computers, some dealing with ebook production.

One such request was to embed a list of every word and what page they were used on in a reflowable epub.

Another was a small office that wanted help installing a hardware firewall which was doable. The issue was that they expected me to supply gratis on-going technical support with no payment and had issues believing that I would want to bill them for that support. Isn't that included in the price of the firewall appliance?

Originally Posted by Quoth

Of course if what you are asked can be done, and it's not illegal, immoral or fattening, getting paid is good.

Indeed. Sadly, filthy lucre seems to be a potent motivator for me.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Indeed. Sadly, filthy lucre seems to be a potent motivator for me.

Proportional to the size of unpaid bills. Very motivating if unpayable bills.

We need to have shelter, heat, clothes and food. Money is more practical than barter as soon as you have one village. You can't be paying for the new bowls with a goat.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by RMOP

Why, indeed? Because the author of the books I've converted to ePub format uses them, and it would look very much off if I didn't follow suite. He uses the em dash very frequently, the 2-em dash infrequently, and the 3-em dash only a very few times and in only one book. He uses each type of em dash for different purposes, and while his style is a bit eccentric, so is his content, and I enjoy being as consistent w it as possible.

You could try using serial em-dashes inside of a "nowrap" span. That seems to work pretty well in ADE, can't guarantee it works everywhere and under any reading system.

It's what I do when I come up against this very question for ebooks I'm making for myself. And I found the code right here on MobileRead, courtesy of RbnJrg:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...78&postcount=5

Whole thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=291090

.nowrap {
    text-indent: 0;
    display: inline-block;
}

Just a thought. It's not a perfect world when it comes to ebooks.