Cannot get rid of first line indent for mobi

[aristotle]

I have uploaded a book that has no autovetter issues. It has no formatting issues apart from one.

The book contains mainly text with a dozen or so short poems. Each poem has been formatted with line breaks in accordance with the style manual (shift+enter). The text of the rest of the book has an indented first line, but the poetry has block paragraphs.

On first conversion, everything looked fine in all formats except mobi and rtf. With those formats the first line of each poem was indented (although it should not have been).

So I returned to the style manual and found that Kindle format will automatically add an indent to a block paragraph. Mark's workaround is to add a first line indent of 0.01 to trick the kindle reader not to indent the first line.

I edited each poem accordingly. The results are surprising. The rtf now displays correctly. Opening the mobi file in calibre displays correctly. However, if I open the mobi file in the Kindle for PC program, the indents are still there.

Has anyone else had this problem or know of a solution? It looks sloppy and unprofessional at the moment.

[Ted]

I wouldn't worry about the mobi version on Smashwords as the majority of Kindle users don't know how to access mobi files from anywhere but Amazon.

Read the Amazon KDP formatting guide, then upload a your work modified for Kindle to KDP.

[aristotle]

Thanks Ted, I have taken your advice and uploaded directly to Amazon. ;D

[teratkins]

I had a similar problem and resolved it by setting up a different style in Word for each type of text that I wanted.

I think the problem is that for some types of conversions, the information is taken from the style applied to text and any amendments made to the text over and above that are ignored.

Does that make any sense at all?

Basically, I've created a 'no indent' style in Word, with the 0.01pt spacing, and apply that to any paragraph where I don't want the indent.

I had something odd going on with the copyright too, but again I'd modified the text. Once I defined a style and applied this to the text, all worked well.

[kate]

My problem is with categories. Not only are they not showing all three withing the two general that are allowed, but they don't record them. So now I have a mystery and young adult area but no romance or halloween category. Direct me, pls. Isn't there a guideline somewhere. Not on Style Guide or SW Faqs, though.

[kate]

Categories cont'd. Can I go in and add categories? I don't see where on my personal SW settings site. help! (Or should I leave well enough alone?

[aristotle]

Go to your Dashboard/Settings and change your categories. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom an click 'Save'.

If that doesn't work then you need to need to click on the very top section Commnets/Questions/Customer Support.

BTW, it's best to start a new thread if you have a different problem to the original poster.

[jamesw]

Sept 6, 2012 7:07:28 GMT -8 teratkins said:

Basically, I've created a 'no indent' style in Word, with the 0.01pt spacing, and apply that to any paragraph where I don't want the indent.

As this is an old thread, it may be too late for me to jump in - though I have recently started one of my own because I have the exact-same problem, albeit with a novel.

Just in case you're still looking in teratkins, did you have to upload the same re-jigged file for ALL the formats? I'm guessing it's not possible to do it just for mobi/kindle.

It is a nuisance - though I take Ted's point. My book was on Kindle Amazon first, and is still available there so hopefully that's where people will go if they want the Kindle version.