Change line spacing in Notes?

mjhill02 · November 26, 2019

The default setting for Notes tab in Zotero creates a space between a previous and next sentence when one does a carriage return between sentences. Is there any way to format Notes so that the line spacing after a carriage return doesn't add an extra space. (In MS Word, this would be adjusted by selecting format -> paragraph -> spacing before/after (set at 0 point) and setting the line space to single.

In other words, rather than the default Notes format:
xxxx
(space between sentences)
xxxx

I would like Zotero Notes to take the format:

xxxx
xxxx
(no space between sentences)

Is there a way to adjust this paragraph level space in Zotero?

Thanks!!!
Matthew

dstillman · November 26, 2019

You refer to it in a different ways, but it's best thought of as paragraph spacing, which is separate from line spacing (for either wrapped lines or manual line breaks (Shift-Enter) within a paragraph) and totally unrelated to "sentences".

If you just want a line break within a paragraph, use Shift-Enter. If you really want to decrease the paragraph spacing, you can open the Config Editor in the Advanced pane of the preferences, search for extensions.zotero.note.css, and put in something like p { margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; } (or 0, if you really don't want paragraphs to be spaced out more than regular lines, but I wouldn't recommend that). Then restart Zotero.

And just to note, this is purely a display setting that has no effect on output to anywhere else. Semantically, they're just paragraphs.

mjhill02 · November 27, 2019

Thanks for the help Dan! I did go with the 0 values and that seems to work well:
p { margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; }

Is there a risk that this will create instability in the operation of Zotero? The Shift-Enter command works well for creating line breaks, but I prefer to get the line break with the Enter/Return key, and to use Enter/Return twice to get a paragraph break, similar to an MS Word document.

If there is no problem with that setting, I will probably go this route. Thanks again!

bwiernik · November 27, 2019

There is no problem with the setting. You can use that safely.

dstillman · November 27, 2019

I prefer to get the line break with the Enter/Return key, and to use Enter/Return twice to get a paragraph break, similar to an MS Word document.

@mjhill02: You should understand, though, that that's not what you're getting, either here or in Word. Semantically, there are line breaks and paragraphs, and those correspond to Shift-Enter and Enter in both the note editor and in Word. So if you do export these anywhere in the future, or generate a report, etc., you'll have empty paragraphs between your paragraphs of text if you press Return twice. Line spacing and paragraph spacing are separate things, and the code I gave you controls the latter.