letter-spacing and centring

[AlanHK]

I often use three asterisks to make a break between paragraphs.

At first, just

.stars {text-align:center;margin:1em 0;}
<div class="stars">***</div>

Then spaced then out with nbsps.

Then I thought to use letter-spacing:

.break0 {text-align:center; margin:1.5em 0;font-size:1.25em;letter-spacing:2em;}
<div class="break0">***</div>

But I noticed that it wasn't centred, either in Sigil preview or on Kindle after conversion.
The highlighted line in the screencap is noticeably left of page centre. (Text and page have zero margins.)
Selecting it includes a space on the right, which is not a separate character in the code. Normally, spaces at the end of a line are ignored for centring anyway.

So it seems that letter-spacing in CSS isn't really "space between letters", it's "space after letters". Or maybe they deem the EOL a letter.

I'm sure this is all perfectly correct behaviour, but it isn't what I wanted, so to nudge it back to the centre, I added padding:
.break {text-align:center; margin:1.5em 0;font-size:1.25em;letter-spacing:2em;padding-left:2em;}
That's the top line in the screencap.



Offering this work-around in case anyone else is caught out.

[Jellby]

That's probably renderer-dependent. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...last-character (and https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#le...acing-property).

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Jellby

That's probably renderer-dependent. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...last-character (and https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#le...acing-property).

And this from 2011: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...element-in-css
A lot of weird workarounds there. Negative margins, indents, rtl text.

Anyway, it seems a very general effect and unlikely to be "fixed" if it has been tolerated for so long.

So take your choice of hacks to fix it.

[Karellen]

Also letter-spacing: is ignored in Libra2 and probably other models.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Also letter-spacing: is ignored in Libra2 and probably other models.

I know letter spacing is ignored in RMSDK. Is it really ignored in KePub?

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is it really ignored in KePub?

I only use epub. No idea in KePub.
I'll try to remember that distinction in future.

[Turtle91]

I think letter-spacing adds that padding after each letter (not just between letters as is commonly understood) and that would be left or right of the letter based on the reading direction (rtl/ltr) of the language. The only time that is really noticeable is in this particular scenario where you are trying to center something.

When trying to control the spacing in a divider I've found that using word-spacing is more predictable than letter-spacing. You just need to add a space between each character to delineate the 'word'.
<div>*_*_*</div> ( _ means space )


However....
I would recommend using the horizontal rule <hr/> for chapter dividers, not <div>s. The accessibility standard requires the hr so that reading systems can tell when there is a break. It is really easy to style the hr... Yes I know that sounds weird but it is very simple to style the tag to show images and characters not just line height/width/thickness.

Here are a couple examples of using an image as well as characters and using word spacing for comparison:

CSS:
div {text-align:center; word-spacing:1.5em}

hr {border:none; margin:1em 0; text-align:center; word-spacing:1.5em}

/* using an image fleuron*/
hr.ChDiv1 {
  height:2em;
  background: transparent url("../Images/img_ChDiv.svg") no-repeat center;
  background-size: auto 100%;  
}
/* using symbols*/
hr.ChDiv2::after {content:'◆◆◆◆◆'}

hr.ChDiv3::after {content:'* * *'}

hr.ChDiv4::after {content:'♥♥♥'}

HTML:
  <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p>

  <hr class="ChDiv1"/>

  <p>Suspendisse fermentum nec mauris sit amet laoreet.</p>

  <hr class="ChDiv2"/>

  <p>Phasellus nec lorem dignissim, sodales lorem ac, luctus nulla.</p>

  <hr class="ChDiv3"/>

  <p>Donec viverra ut sem at ornare. Fusce neque augue, dignissim.</p>

  <hr class="ChDiv4"/>

  <p>Sed vehicula massa id vulputate mollis.</p>

  <div>♥ ♥ ♥</div>

edit: added colors to make it pretty

[JSWolf]

I use a 40% 2px wide line for my section breaks.

hr {
  margin-top: 0.9em;
  margin-right: 40%;
  margin-bottom: 0.9em;
  margin-left: 40%;
  border-top: 2px solid;
}