Hard and soft returns

mac
I updated Zotero on my PC and the note format changed. A return now registers as a space between paragraphs rather than the next line, i.e. a hard return rather than a soft return. I need to restore the return to a soft return.
  • adamsmith
    Return = paragraph break
    shift+return = soft return/linebreak

    is standard behavior in software, isn't it?
  • mac
    I don't do software, so I don't know. I want to hit return once and just go to the next line with no space between the paragraphs, etc. Then hit return twice to get a gap between the lines/paragraphs. This is how it works for me in all my word processors, e.g. Word, Scrivener, etc.

    I had my Zotero set up to do this through a code given by you guys years ago. But the update seems to have changed it...
  • adamsmith
    OK, you used very specific technical terms, so I assumed you wanted the very specific things they represent. It sounds like what you actually want is to not have spaces between paragraphs (which is what you get in Word when you hit return), not to use soft returns.
    @dstillman would have to say if that's still customizable.
  • mac
    Yes, that is correct. I do not want spaces between paragraphs when I hit return. I do hope it is customizable as all my notes over these 10+ years have been taken in this way, but I am now looking at giant gaps between paragraphs.
  • mac
    Any update on whether this can be customizable?
  • adamsmith
    This isn't the type of thing that gets addressed in a day. Someone will post here when there's an update
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited March 24, 2022
    @mac
    But, what do mean by "giant gaps"?

    1. A line-feed means absolutely no space between lines of text.[shift-return]
    2. A paragraph break means a single space between lines of text. [return]

    3. Are you seeing more than one line (gap) between lines of text?


    4. The first two lines = no space (soft-return, line feed)
    5. Between the second and third lines=paragraph break
    6. Between the 3rd line and 4th lines=more than a paragraph break.

  • mac
    When I hit the return key I want a single line break, i.e. no space--your point 4. But what I get now is paragraph break, i.e. your point 5.

    Years ago I configured Zotero to do this as outlined recently here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/81895/paragraph-formatting-in-notes#latest
    However, with the update everything has reverted and all my original notes where I once had line feeds now have more than a paragraph break. Thus, I would like to restore my original format, as it was before the recent update.
  • dstillman
    To be clear, you've always gotten a paragraph break, and your previous notes haven't been changed. You just modified the styling to show it without paragraph spacing. That's not currently possible in the new editor.
  • mac
    Right, thanks. So I understand that moving forward I should use shift-return to get the single line break I want rather than the full paragraph spacing. Is there a fix for all the notes I had that were previously configured?
  • dstillman
    moving forward I should use shift-return
    I mean, you really shouldn't — you're thinking of this solely in terms of visual appearance, but a line break and a new paragraph have different semantic meanings.

    We'll think about adding a way to customize paragraph spacing in the new editor.
  • mac
    I see, so it is more accurate to say that I want to customize the paragraph spacing to 0 rather than the amount greater than 0 (now at .5em?), to which it is now set. Is that correct?

    If so, then a very strong yes, I would very very much like this option. Thank you!
  • colemart
    I have the same problem as mac. For those of us using the notes feature to read, appearance and spacing are very important features. Therefore, adding a way to customize paragraph spacing (spacing appearance) in the new editor would be very helpful.

    If possible, please add this feature. The new notes editor seems to have taken a step back in functionality and accessibility.
  • MaryBV
    I agree with colemart and others. I don't care about semantic meanings of line break and new paragraph. I care about how my notes look. The formatting, appearance, and spacing of my notes are very important to their usability and mean very specific things to me. To destroy that is to destroy a key benefit of zotero for many of us.
  • dstillman
    @MaryBV: You're misunderstanding this thread and seemingly misremembering what Zotero always did. Like many writing tools, Zotero has always created paragraphs when pressing Return and line breaks when pressing Shift-Return — Zotero 5 and earlier did exactly that. (Even Word does this, to be clear — it just makes paragraph spacing equivalent to line spacing by default.)

    The poster above had simply used a hidden setting years ago to adjust the paragraph spacing, and that wasn't yet supported in Zotero 6 back in March. We restored support for extensions.zotero.note.css back in April.
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