Changes.txt: How to add non-breaking space or manual line break in a \s section heading

Question

I want to break a section heading differently, so as not to split a phrase: 

Change       to     

I can achieve this by entering a tilde directly into the USFM GEN text: 'i~Sodom'. But I don't want to change the text of this project. For verse text this pattern works in changes.txt (LO screenshot so the non-breaking space appears grey):

But I can't get the non-breaking space into my section heading into PTXprint via changes.txt. I have tried all nine permutations below of NBSP marker and verse#. What am I missing?

Related question: How to enter a UTF code into changes.txt, as in my GEN 23:2 example?

Answer 1

Yes, there are several ways of doing what you are asking for. First decide whether you want to create a rule that KEEPS elements together (and could therefore be a more generic rule to apply everywhere), or one that forces words to SPLIT APART (tends to be very location specific).

In line 6 (currently commented out with a #) I have shown how you would keep 2 words together using the ~ tilde in order to force them onto the same line.

In your case the simplest rule would look like this:

at GEN 19:0 'i Sodom' > 'i~Sodom'

In line 8 I have shown a rule that encourages the line to break at a certain point using the // instead of a space. Again, this would look like this:

at GEN 19:0 'tou i' > 'tou//i'

Notice that because we're being so specific with the location GEN 19:0 (= the part of chapter 19 which comes BEFORE verse 1) we can use just part of the word (mamantou); and although I usually like the use of (capture) (groups) and "\1//\2" using numbered group replacements, it ends up as more work - hence the simple rule that I suggest above.

Interestingly, sometimes // won't split the line due to calculated penalties etc. and you might need to use a forced Line Separator instead, as seen on line 9. And even more curious is that the regular Line Feed (\u000A) didn't work at all - but I have no idea why. Perhaps someone else can explain that.

There is one other complication - if you are trying to use ~ tilde but it isn't working, have a look at the TeXpert Hacks to see if this setting is enabled (which should help):

Comments

Many thanks, Mark. Very helpful!

My first question was whether the verse 0 reference was valid. You answered that one right away, and I've got it working in this instance now.

I had already tried // here and in a couple of other trials, but it hasn't worked in this PTXprint project, as you suggested. Perhaps because of 2-column format with long words?

Your comment about group replacements: I found my basic rule useful as a template for several specific paragraph endings, but I don't know the language well enough to simply replace '[space]i[space]' > '[space]i[nbsp]' everywhere. So the \1\u00A0\2 string has been a timesaver.

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The issue with // is that it is a discretionary, not forced break. This is wonderful most of the time, it means that users can mark good places to break a heading if the code needs to break and it won't if there's space for the full line. It *does*, however, obey the 'maximum ragged space' for the paragraph style. If its not doing what you want it to do, then try increasing that.

U+000A is not obeyed, as it's explicitly defined as being indistinguishable from a space in USFM documentation. That way people don't get unexpected paragraphs in the middle of their text, before each verse, etc.