How should indentation at multiple levels be represented in USFM?

Question

A translation project is transfering data into Paratext and they would like to preserve the current indentation in the verses.
There are at least 15 levels of indentation in the project.
Here's an example of how it might look:

1 A Psalm of David.
    The LORD is my shepherd,
                      I shall lack nothing. 
                 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
                    he leads me to the waters of rest. 
                         3 He gives my soul new strength;
                    he leads me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. 
                        4 Even when I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,
                            I will fear no evil,
                                for you are with me;
                                    your staff and your rod,
                                        they shall comfort me.

Is there a built-in standard method for marking indentations like this?
Would using the custom.sty style sheet be necessary?

Answer 1

Looking at what you've written, I'd write it up like this:

\m \v 1 A Psalm of David.
\p The LORD is my shepherd,
\q2 I shall lack nothing. 
\q1 \v 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
\q2 he leads me to the waters of rest. 
\q3 \v 3 He gives my soul new strength;
\q2 he leads me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. 
\q3 \v 4 Even when I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,
\q4 I will fear no evil,
\zq5 for you are with me;
\zq6 your staff and your rod,
\zq7 they shall comfort me.

You would probably have to use custom.sty to redefine some of the features of \q1-\q4, since they wouldn't look as you'd expect. And you'd need to also define new markers \zq5-\zq??? there. Of course, you'll also want to verify that whoever is going to typeset your Bible will agree and follow your new markers (see the rest of this reply).

But, I'd also push back extremely strongly on "There are at least 15 levels of indentation in the project." Why? Have you considered how this will actually look in print?

1) A lot of funders for the actual printing of books have strict rules on how Bibles should be laid out because they want to be economical. Thus their rules tend to promote saving as many pages as possible. This means small fonts, short indents, and as little white space as possible.

2) Even if money isn't an issue, I think what you're proposing above would look quite ugly in print and I'm willing to presume and to say that I'm speaking for most typesetters when I say that. That sort of waterfall with lots of blank space below it doesn't look nice and I'm not convinced it would aid in understanding.

Comments

Thank you for this answer. I'll have to ask the translators more about the indentation. It is perfectly possible that I haven't quite understood and that there are 15 'levels' but they might not be represented by indentation.

It is for a new open licenced translation and perhaps it will primarily used on desktops. The NT doesn't show much in the way of indentation. So maybe these won't be shown the way I had assumed.  

I can't imagine 15 levels of indentation working on a phone.  I understood that it was something to do with the levels of phrases in the Hebrew Old Testament.

The team had come up with using this maker in the custom.sty sheet:

\Marker zei
\Endmarker zei*
\Name zei...zei* - Number for exegetical indent
\Description A number indicating the exegetical indentation value
\TextType Other
\StyleType Character
\FontSize 9
\Color 16711935

Which I imagine might be improved by adding "\TextProperties Nonpublishable" if the number doesn't need to be displayed but is used in some other way.

I saw the mi marker in the usfm.sty sheet and thought that would be one that could be replaced in the custom.sty
Here's the marker definition from usfm.sty

\Marker mi
\Name mi - Paragraph - Indented - No First Line Indent
\Description Paragraph text, indented, with no first line indent; often used for discourse
\OccursUnder c
\Rank 4
\TextType VerseText
\TextProperties paragraph publishable vernacular
\StyleType Paragraph
\FontSize 12
\LeftMargin .25
\RightMargin .25


So one thought I had was of adding markers mi0, mi1 through mi15 with a much smaller indent.

\Marker mi0
\Name mi0 - Paragraph - Indented - No First Line Indent - zeroth level
...
\LeftMargin 0.0

\Marker mi1
\Name mi1 - Paragraph - Indented - No First Line Indent - first level
...
\LeftMargin 0.1


Many thanks! I'll discuss with the translators in more detail.