Chapter spacing when there is no heading to begin chapter

Question

Hi,
What is the best way to manage space between chapters when a chapter doesn’t have a section heading at the top. By default, ptxprint seems to jam the new chapter up against the previous one. We’d like to add some space. The text is 1 Cor 11.
In case you can’t see the attached, in our case it was managed by inserting a \b after the \c11 marker and before the \p v1 markers.

Can this be managed on the ptxprint side without inserting paratext markers.
Thanks Wilfred Ball

Answer 1

Welcome to the PTXprint community, @wilfred_ball!

1CO 11 in an interesting example, as 11:1 belongs with the previous chapter. If you really do need a blank line at the end of ch 10, and before ch 11 starts, you need to move the \b to come before the \c 11 and you can always ask PTXprint to switch the order for you with a changes.txt rule:

# Only in 1CO, move the \b blank to come before \c 11 
at 1CO "(\\c 11)([\s\r\n]+)(\\b)" > "\3\2\1"

This can be accessed using the Advanced tab (only accessible when the “Full View” is active).

image525×623 30.6 KB

The result should end up looking like this:

BTW, different Bibles do different things here… compare GNB with NLT below:

GNB does this:

16758158602981540×1123 130 KB

NLT does this:

16758158602471910×1345 219 KB

Make sure that you are also aware of the no-break paragraph \nb when you do need to keep the paragraph flowing across a chapter break. PTXprint supports that too.

Answer 2

I’ve just noticed that the NLT print-out is a little unexpected to me, and delaying the chapter number until the next paragraph is not something possible with ptxprint as far as I’m aware.
I don’t think I have an English-language version of 1 Cor available, but here’s what you get from PTXprint if you have the similar markup for John 8:

\v 52 So they said, “Are you also a Galilean? Read the scripture properly. It says that no prophet will come from Galilee” they mocked.
\v 53 After that happened, they all went home.
\c 8
\nb
\v 1 But Jesus went up to the Mount of Olive Trees.
\s A woman caught doing adultery
\p
\v 2 Very early in the morning on the next day, he returned to the \w temple\w*. Then many people gathered around him. So Jesus sat in order to teach them.

(The screenshot actually shows the text with an added \vp 8:1\vp*, which as shown, simply changes the printed verse number, it doesn’t cause the chapter number to be moved.)