I’d like to be able to use text boxes in Donham theme. Whether I select “no indent,” “block quote,” bullet point, or numbered lists, I still get indenting on my PDF for print at the beginning of every paragraph or list item.
I’d also like to use bullet point but on the PDF it indents 7 or 8 spaces (unlike the 3 or 4 on the visual editor). This combined with unwanted indenting makes the textboxes not fit for book publication for me.
I imported from Google Docs converted to a Word file. I am creating the PDF on a Samsung Chromebook. Do these pieces matter?
I messed with the text editor some, but I don’t know what I’m doing there.
Should I try a similar but different theme? Text editing wizardry? Other suggestions?
Thanks for your consideration.
Hi @mattarcherdc – we support a theme option called ‘paragraph separation’: https://guide.pressbooks.com/chapter/appearance/#globalOptions that lets you choose whether paragraphs are indented or displayed on new lines without indentation. You can apply it to webbooks, ebook, and pdf exports separately. You should be able to find and toggle this setting under ‘appearance’->‘theme options’->‘web options’ / ‘pdf options’ / ‘ebook options’. You’ll need to reproduce your exports after toggling the setting, but hopefully this will get you on the right track.
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately if I toggle that option it will apply to the entire document. I’m just looking to make the change within the text boxes.
I have found that within the text box if I change <p to <li I get lighter bullet points that are not indented. That’s better but not ideal. Is there code for black bullet without indent?
For the actual paragraphs that are in the text box the code says no indent but it still indents on the PDF. Is there a way to change that?
Are these changes likely to cause problems with my e-book format while fixing my PDF for print?
Hi Matt,
It sounds like what you’re trying to do will require some custom CSS. Custom CSS support isn’t something I can provide here in the open source forum, but I can give you a few starting points/tips. First, I’d recommend taking a look at https://guide.pressbooks.com/chapter/customizing-your-exports-with-custom-styles/ and https://guide.pressbooks.com/chapter/bad-markup-bad-formatting/ chapters from our guide. Second, you’ll need to apply any custom CSS rules you want separately to each export format you’re hoping to affect (i.e. ebook/PDF) using the custom styles tool. In the custom CSS tool, you should see three separate stylesheets – one for the webbook, one for the ebook (MOBI/EPUB) exports, and one for the PDF. Finally, there are a lot of things you can change with list styles using CSS. This might be a good reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/Styling_text/Styling_lists
Hi Steel,
Thanks for your help. The first link and the video it contains enabled me to fix the problem.
I can’t imagine why within a textbox anyone would want a bullet point list that didn’t line up, was excessively indented, and had an H1 header that was indented as well. It seems the programing should be corrected. On the bright side, I can add coder to my resume.
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Hi @mattarcherdc you’re probably right about the formatting being undesirable. If you have a book link with before/after for us to look at, we’ll be able to add it to our bug backlog and see whether it might be something we could fix more broadly for all users. Feel free to share via private message as well if you’d rather not post publicly. Thanks!
Hi Steel,
I would send screen shots of the PDF before and after and my custom style, but for the whole book I would wait until I publish. If you want those shots, let me know where to send them. Maybe this page lets me send those? Thanks again.
Hi Matt,
You should be able to drag/drop screenshots here into the forum or use the upload tool. Before after/shots of a single occurrence should be all we need, though if you’d be willing to share the contents of diagnostics page as well, that’d also be very helpful. You can get to that from the footer of the admin menu or by entering https://YOURBOOK.URL/wp-admin/options.php?page=pressbooks_diagnostics and replacing YOURBOOK.URL with the actual address of your book.
Can anyone provide advice on what HTML to add to the Custom CSS area? I’m having the same issue as the original poster.
I’ve selected No Indent from the Formatting dropdown for text in bulleted lists inside a textbox.
Looks fine in the editor and in a browser under Preview. Once I export the Print PDF, the bullets are indented and it looks terrible. Very hard to read.
I’ve spent hours on this issue and have tried a few times to play with padding and margins in the Your Web Styles window of the Custom CSS area. Nothing works and I don’t really know what I’m doing.
This is the very last issue to resolve for our book before it’s finished. Thanks for your help!