Is it safe to put brackets immediately before a verse number?

Question

It is important to standardize the use of white space in our projects for correct display and typesetting. My understanding is that verse numbers should always start on a new line in the SFM with the result that there is always a space before them.

\s1 Wayyoowwan Torba
\p

\v 13 \wj “Yaa barsiistota seeraatii fi . . .

There seem to be two excepts to that rule: It is possible to remove that space in certain instances, specifically following an opening  bracket [ or parenthesis (

\p [\v 14 \wj “Yaa barsiistota seeraatii fi Fariisota fakkeessitoota nana, isiniif wayyoo!

However,  for most characters a space is automatically inserted after the character in Paratext except in unformatted view. In this example a U+231E: BOTTOM LEFT CORNER is used like a  square bracket [. It can be place immediately before \v unformatted view . . .

प्रवेश करने देते हो. ⌞\v 14 धिक्कार है तुम पर

but  a space is displayed in other views and a new line will be inserted in the SFM if  the Advanced>Standardize whitespace method is run.

प्रवेश करने देते हो. ⌞
\v 14 धिक्कार है तुम पर पाखंडी, फ़रीसियो,

In this example from an Arabic script language a U+231F: BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER is used since U+231E is not mirroring:

⌟ \v 16 ئەوەی گوێی هەیە بۆ بیستن با گوێ بگرێت.⌞»

In both cases a newline/space is inserted before the \v where one should not be added.

• What is the standard for when a newline/space is added before \v? In other words, what characters may be placed immediately before a \v?
• Is there a way to add characters to the list of characters that may precede \v without an intervening space?

Answer 1

Hi Kent.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you need, but If you have spaces or line breaks in the Unformatted view that you don't want to have, you can use Regex to replace [line breaks][spaces]\v with a [space]\v or [nothing]\v. This way you will only have line breaks for paragraph markers.

Other thoughts:

• You are correct that the amount of spaces or line breaks in the plain view may be different from other views. In the Standard, Preview or Formatted view, Paratext will arrange the markers so that they display correctly according to the chosen view. But the unformatted view is the most "real" way to see the text.
• \v may occur before a long list of markers, including \p, \q or \m.
• Paragraph markers (such as \p, \q or \m) require a "required" space immediately after, this space is the way to confirm what the full name of the marker is.
  For example, in usfm we have the markers "\p" and "\po". If you had the "\p other" you will see that the space is indispensable to know that it is a marker "\p" and not a "\po".
• You can have \v before a space, or put it next to any character of the language (...in home,\v 2 then...). But remember that this will only be noticeable in the Unformatted view.
• \v can go after a paragraph marker, but it requires a space between them (\p \v). If you type \p\v, Paratext will add the space even if you are in the Unformatted view.

Saludos,

Pepe.

Comments

Thanks for your reply. The question I have is not about spaces after a marker but about the Advanced>Standardize whitespace method , which does not put \v on a new line after  [ or (. 

I need to write a procedure for standardizing our projects so that publication processes do not put spaces where they are not supposed to be such as between an opening punctuation character and a verse number. I need to understand and trust the Standardize whitespace  method if I am going to include it in standard operating procedures. Someone decided that  \v will always go in a new line except after [ and (. Who decided that and is that the implementation of a formal standard or an ad hoc decision?  What about other punctuation characters that may need to be immediately before a verse number like ⌞ ? Can they also be supported? I am not asking for any changes, just for information.