Cannot Solve Paragraph Auto Vetting Error

[kk]

Hi all,
I'm trying to upload a new book with block paragraphs.
I cannot for the life of me find what could be causing the ongoing autovet error "Paragraph separation error, mixing first line indent with paragraph return on blank line"
Every line is right as far as I can see. No indents of any kind anywhere at all, no returns on blank lines. I've done everything the guide says to, applied the nuclear fix and gone through every line of the book looking for anything that could be upsetting things.

Most often the conversion stops at epub and then brings up the error message. But twice it has gone all the way through the list to "complete!" before again telling me there's a paragraph error.

This will be the 6th book I've published here, all using the same block style and I've never encountered this ongoing problem before.

Am I missing something blindingly obvious? Might there be some other tiny factor that can confuse things?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Ted]

Sept 3, 2013 19:37:04 GMT -8 kk said:

..."Paragraph separation error, mixing first line indent with paragraph return on blank line"
...

Download the ePub version of your work and see if there is extra space between any paragraphs. Remove those extra spaces from your MSWord doc and upload revised version of your book. Also, after new version uploaded to Smashwords and available to public you should download the epub version again and test it using the online epub validator.

[kk]

Thanks Ted.
The epub shows the line spaces that I have defined as trailing after spaces for block paragraphs just as the style guide instructs (7b-b). There aren't any paragraph returns on blank lines and no indents of any kind.

[melanie]

I've been having a similar issue. I updated my manuscript and an extra gap shows up in between two paragraphs every time I upload it and download the mobi and epub formats. I looked at the MS codes and there is nothing that shows up where the gap appears. I've gone Nuclear on my manuscript several times to no avail. Every time I upload a new version, the same gap is there. What's odd is that the gap appears in an area that I didn't even change.

Any clue (or tips) as to how to get rid of this error? There are no extra gaps anywhere else in my ebook, just this one place!

[jaydax]

You may have extra styles in your Word document which are causing this. In Word 2007+ Display the styles by clicking the tiny icon bottom right of the styles section of the ribbon. Then set the options at the bottom of the list to show only those styles in use. See any which you don't think you are using? If so right click and either choose 'select all [X] instances' to show where they are or if you have no occurrences then delete the style.

[kk]

Thanks for the tip, Jaydax.
You may very well be onto something there...
I'll give it a crack and see how it goes.

[pjulier]

I'm having the exact same problem. All spacing is good and all paragraph styles are the same. My message tells me to remove the paragraph returns on the blank lines if I'm doing first line indent. If I remove the paragraph return I won't have a separate paragraph-so I'm confused.

Pete

[Ria Stone]

Sept 3, 2013 19:37:04 GMT -8 kk said:

Hi all,
I'm trying to upload a new book with block paragraphs.
I cannot for the life of me find what could be causing the ongoing autovet error "Paragraph separation error, mixing first line indent with paragraph return on blank line"
Every line is right as far as I can see. No indents of any kind anywhere at all, no returns on blank lines. I've done everything the guide says to, applied the nuclear fix and gone through every line of the book looking for anything that could be upsetting things.

Most often the conversion stops at epub and then brings up the error message. But twice it has gone all the way through the list to "complete!" before again telling me there's a paragraph error.

This will be the 6th book I've published here, all using the same block style and I've never encountered this ongoing problem before.

Am I missing something blindingly obvious? Might there be some other tiny factor that can confuse things?

Thanks in advance for any help!

KK -- hi -- not sure I can help but here is what I did --

In Word, I used the show "invisibles."

I checked each line ending for:

-- was there a space between the . and the P marker, if so I removed the extra space.
-- was the P marker a soft P marker or a hard P? They look different -- soft P looks like a backwards P. A hard P looks like a downward arrow. Unless you are attempting a page break, replace the hard P with a soft P.
-- double check the style of the P, if the style varies from the body text (unless it is a title) then it may carry extra advance spacing.
---I also go back over places where there are style changes i.e. from chapter title to body text and reexamine to see if the title style includes a paragraph setting that may override the body style paragraph setting.
-- ideally, you are shooting for a "clean" document without extraneous characters or varying styles in line endings or paragraph spacing.

Also, something I have not been able to fix -- is that Word sometimes appears to pick a "normal" format definition that does not match the normal style as seen in the styles drawer.

[Julie Harris]

"Also, something I have not been able to fix -- is that Word sometimes appears to pick a "normal" format definition that does not match the normal style as seen in the styles drawer."

Never work on the end paragraph mark. Always make sure you have at least 6 return/enters that are blank, between the paragraph you are currently creating and the 'end' of the document. Make sure your text is in Normal style, (and adjust normal to a first line indent).

Keep watch on your styles window. This window is the key. It tells you which style is in use at all times. Run your cursor up and down the page using arrow keys, keep an eye on the styles window. Sometimes 'body text' (or something like it) shows up. If you've used enter/return after being in body text style, then body text has been repeated with each return/enter. Change to Normal.

So if you can teach yourself to start your basic text inputting using Normal and put in six or so blank return/enters between the cursor and the end mark, and I promise you, there will not be any mismatch of styles.

And if you're copying/pasting in from another document NEVER paste. Always paste special, unformatted text into a Normal paragraph.

Pasting straight (ctrl+v) or as rtf is how the gremlins are let loose.

Now that everyone is confused, I shall begone.