11. Remove Extra Paragraphs and Extra Page Breaks

This is No 11 in a series of Help Docs for CJ's Easy As Pie "The Pie" Kindle and eBook Self-Publishing Package, which starts here:

"The Pie" Kindle & eBook Self-PublishingPackage Install And Get Started

After you run AutoCorrect, you may still have extra paragraph returns and/or extra page breaks, and even Section Breaks in your file.

To check your own file for these extra (and problem-causing) formatting marks, turn on “Show Formatting Marks” with:

CTRL-SHIFT-8

(Repeat CTRL-SHIFT-8 to toggle Show Formatting On and Off.)

You will probably see a lot of extra paragraph returns, the symbol for which is [¶].

That’s what publishers call a “pilcrow”.

Here is a “pilcrow” enclosed within square brackets [¶].

Can you see a pilcrow on your Taskbar? That’s a switch to show or hide all these formatting marks.

For our Kindle format file, we want just one paragraph return at the end of every paragraph.

Space between paragraphs should be added by Styles, not with the ENTER key.

Almost anyone who learned on an old-fashioned typewriter, will, until they learn to use Styles, use what Microsoft Word calls "direct formatting".

That is... they will use manual page breaks, extra tabs and spaces, and extra paragraph returns, until they get their pages to look right on the computer screen.

That may be fine a printed page, but digital doesn't work the same way, so we have to take all those extras out.

Although AutoCorrect could do it automatically, there is some decision-making involved here, so it's safer to use "Find and Replace" so we can keep an eye on what's being deleted.

The reason we wait to find extras until after we run AutoCorrect is that they are easier to find then.

Remember, you don't need the extra paragraph returns to create space between paragraphs because your Styles insert spacing where needed.

You don't need manual page breaks because your Chapter Headings have a "page break before".

That will cause each new Chapter to start on a new page, which is the norm for most books.

If you want a "page break before" any image... just use the Style named "Image Page Break Before".

If you want a page break where there is neither an image or a Chapter Heading, you can do that too.

Just go to any paragraph that doesn't already have a Page Break Before, (but you need one there), right-click on the paragraph, choose Paragraph, then check the option "Page Break Before".

Ok, now that we've established that we don't need those extra paragraph returns and page breaks, let's remove the extras with Find and Replace.

Call the Find and Replace box with CTRL-H.

When we want to search for a paragraph return or a page break, we don't type out those words... instead we use "Special Characters" to stand for the format we want.

The “Special Character” that allows us to search for a paragraph return is:

^p… that’s a caret (shifted 6 key) followed by a lower-case letter p [^p]

And... that MUST be a lower-case letter p.

So, to get rid of extra paragraph returns, we do this:

Find All ^p^p and Replace with ^p

Then just repeat until the program returns "none" or "0" (zero)

The Special Character for Manual Page Break is ^m.

Find Page Breaks with ^m, and replace with nothing (just tap Replace All).

It's also a good idea to look for "Section Breaks". They aren't needed in a Kindle file, and can cause problems. So, either delete them or replace them with Page Breaks, if needed.

The special code for "Section Break" is ^b.

To remove Section Breaks, do this:

Find ^b (Section Break) and Replace with ^m (Page Break) or nothing (just tap Replace All).

  

Go to the lead article for more:

"The Pie" Kindle & eBook Self-PublishingPackage Install And Get Started"