Published: Fri, 03 May 2024
In this article, I'd like to take a moment to highlight a new formatting feature of the RCV. Over the past ten years (yes, this has been in the works for quite a while) I have been trying to figure out the best way to display lines of poetry in the Scripture text. Well, I finally figured it out.
Now, you may be wondering why it took me so long. The answer is a mixture of having other priorities and not being satisfied with any of my other attempts. If I make a change like this to the RCV text, I want to make sure that I am completely satisfied with the results. Speaking of those results, the poetry formatting will look different across each version of the text. Each different version type (i.e., website, PDF, ePub) has different capabilities in how I can shape the text and how the results are rendered. The best results by far are on the website, with the PDF version right behind that. The ePub version may still need some adjusting, as it displays the line breaks a little differently because of the potential for narrower viewports than with the other versions and because of a formatting limitation with AsciiDoctor syntax. But overall, I am quite satisfied with the results across these formats.
You may or may not have noticed that I seem to be forgetting a version of the RCV, namely, the print version. That's because, unfortunately, it will not be receiving this formatting update. I just don't have enough working space available to add these adjustments. Adding the line breaks would greatly expand many of the books, and I would exceed the page limit set by the publisher. Lamentations alone, if it expands by about ten lines or so, would cause a cascade of page numbering adjustments, which would then cause me to have to realign my page numbers and table of contents and then redesign the cover to expand to the new spine width. It's just unfortunate how fragile the print version is due to printing limitations.
Now that I have completed this task, I guess it's time for me to find out what the next big thing is for the RCV. I hope that you will find the results of this update satisfactory. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts, and as always, thank you for your readership.