Blank lines between poetry and prose

Question

In the description of \b in usfm.sty it says
\Description Poetry text stanza break (e.g. stanza break) (basic)
In the USFM User Reference however it now says

• Use for stanza breaks in poetry, or between poetry and prose. [my emphasis]

I believe this is a change from what it said a few month ago but am not sure. I have been regularly removing blank lines between poetry and prose that translators have put in and requiring text stylists to put the spaces in using a style sheet.

What do you all feel is best practice in this regard?

CrazyRocky
Biblica Translation Technology Manager

Answer 1

There may be people on this list that can help with this. However, if your main questions is “What markup is best from the point of view of the publishing process” then I think the sending an email to the following list would have more people with expertise in this area:

<[Email Removed].org>.

Blessings,
anon451647

Answer 2

Note that it says
Use for stanza breaks in poetry, or between poetry and prose.

This has read the same as of 2.2 version of manual. I don’t have any in between versions.

A regular expression could be written to add a \b between any levels of \q and \p.\m type markers. This can be added to changes.txt. In my opinion it is fine to leave them in. If the typesetter is not going to use them he can remove them via changes.txt before they get into the InDesign files.

However, \b between stanzas of poetry cannot be handled as such. I would leave those in the USFM text.

You might want to review an overuse of \b that occurs between non-poetry markups.

anon467281
GPS Dallas