1.4 Non-breaking Spaces

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 1, Step 4

  • Subject(s):

    InDesign to EPUB

  • Resource Type(s):

    Step-by-Step

  • Audience:

    Technical

Suggested Prerequisite

Before reading this, you might want to read:

Non-breaking Spaces

Non-breaking spaces are the only item that will pull through into an EPUB from InDesign. As such they can be an important tool in your development tool chest. Use these to glue the last two words of a paragraph together to avoid widows. 

Or, you can use them to  manage line breaks in headers. In this example, we want the last word of this made-up title not to be stranded alone on the last line. To avoid using a forced line break, I’ve put a non-breaking space in between the last two words in the title. This is a typesetting hack that I encourage you all to share with others in your workflow.  

Screenshot of a chapter title layout from InDesign reading, “Chapter 1 / Peter Breaks Through to Nirvana”. There is a blue caret between the last two words representing a non-breaking space.

Perhaps you want to keep a month and date together — a non-breaking space would do the trick. 

Small screenshot of a snippet of text from InDesign with the invisibles turned on showing a non-breaking space represented by a blue caret between the month and number in “June 15”.

In general, it is a best practice to avoid extensive use of forced line breaks — not a hard paragraph return but what is achieved in InDesign by typing a shift-return. These will also be preserved in the ebook and have the potential to wreak havoc on content. The forced line break in the following screenshot will result in a <br /> tag in the middle of the paragraph which will be there no matter the reading environment.

Next Steps

1

Module 1, Step 5

1.5 Semantics

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 1, Step 5

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
2

Module 1, Step 6

1.6 Images in InDesign

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 1, Step 6

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
3

Module 1, Step 7

1.7 Basic Metadata

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 1, Step 7

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
4

Module 2, Step 1

2.1 Advanced InDesign-to-EPUB

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 2, Step 1

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
5

Module 2, Step 2

2.2 Cleaning up Styles

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 2, Step 2

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
6

Module 2, Step 3

2.3 Index Hyperlinking

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 2, Step 3

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical

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