Hi! Sometimes it can be hard to read a fic where the author puts two spaces in between paragraphs, as opposed to a single space/line break (not sure what to call it!) Is it possible to add any code to my site skin that would make paragraphs have the standard single-line space? Thanks so much!
Another anon asked, “In the site skins poll there was an option that included forcing spaces between paragraphs, how would I go about doing that?”
Most of the items in that poll are explained in this work I posted on AO3 called Useful CSS for Readers.
You can specify the spacing between paragraphs to your liking with this CSS
workskin p {
margin: 10px;
padding: 10px
}Just adjust those numbers to the size that works for you.
Note: this might not work on additional blank lines, depending on the HTML being used by the author.
As always, people who know more CSS than I do, please feel free to offer up better code 😆
Wait. This would mean you could read fics in which the author uses 2 paragraphs as space with only 1 paragraph?
it will depend on their html. This CSS modifies the padding on the HTML for paragraphs, p.
If the author has an extra paragraph tag in between paragraphs, I think you’d still end up with extra space - but I haven’t actually tested it out.About the extra paragraph, it is not a site skin but I’ve encountered this website:
Hide Empty Paragraphs |Random Fangirling
The author made a bunch of Bookmarklets and Userscripts, it is quite helpful if you don’t want any empty paragraphs. And Bookmarklet also works on mobile so it’s great!
The extra paragraph happens when you upload something to AO3 via the rich text rather than the HTML screen, and the rich text of your document contains formatting or characters that AO3’s code doesn’t parse correctly. I’ve seen this happen pretty regularly when pasting from Gdocs, for example.
As the author, you can try the preview function to get an idea of how AO3 is gonna parse what you pasted in. You can also switch to the HTML editor to see what’s going on in the background. Don’t be disheartened by the code you’ll see; mostly it’ll be your text, just wrapped in paragraph tags: a <p> at the beginning (that is the tag that starts a paragraph) and a </p> at the end (that’s the end of the paragraph).
If you see an empty paragraph, like so:
<p> </p>
or like so:
<p> </p>
you can delete those. The “ ” is a HTML character called “non-breaking space”, which is just what it sounds like: a space (like between words), but one that doesn’t separate two words in a line break, should the line break fall there. It’s also a HTML place holder to put in an empty paragraph, because HTML doesn’t like empty paragraphs. The reader won’t see it, because it’s “just a space”, and the browser will parse the HTML correctly: as an empty paragraph - and that’s just the thing you do not want, right? So, delete that shit.
This also works with already-published fics when you click on “edit chapter” - AO3 shows you that HTML then, and you can manually delete all your empty paragraphs.
adding to the troubleshooting for any ao3 writers out here: sometimes if you’re using html to add italics/bold text/homestuck formatting, if you have an open carat somewhere in your work, going in to edit and then exiting again can add more spaces. Double check your formatting before you post and keep a backup each time you make edits!