[Bob Stewart]

I write in Microsoft Word and in the past have used normal page breaks (between chapters, etc) for ePub and KDP and then changed them to "section break->new page" for Createspace.

With my new book I thought I would just use "section break->new page" from the start but googled the topic and some links came up to discussions where people said there were problems using these in KDP. For example....

Is that still the case, or is it OK to just use "section break->new page" universally?

Thanks!

 

[SBJones]

The only time I have used Section Breaks is when formatting for the printed pdf version.  It's how you get the page numbers to work correctly.  Seeing how ebooks are just one long HTML web page, section and page breaks should be treated as the same in that regard, but that doesn't mean that the different types of e-reader and e-reader apps will behave the same.  If people have reported issues with Section Breaks, then I would avoid them.  One thing I have learned in the years of doing this is to keep it as simple as possible.

 

[M.B. Ryther]

I format ebooks on the side over at Fiverr. One of the first things I do when I receive a source manuscript is remove the section breaks. All they do is cause innumerable headaches. Stick to page breaks when formatting an ebook.

 

[Bob Stewart]

Melanie,

I just tested a short story replacing all the page breaks with "sections break->next page" and uploaded it at Amazon, I previewed it there and then downloaded a copy to test in the Kindle previewer app, and it seemed to come out fine.

What was the problem you encountered?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Dee J. Stone]

I always use page breaks for the Kindle version. When I started formatting my first book for print, I learned that I needed to use section breaks so the headers and footers would work. I still use page breaks for my Kindle version so that I don't screw the formatting up. I know it might be a pain to redo them for the print version, but I feel more comfortable this way.

Hope that helps!

 

[Bob Stewart]

Dee,

Thank you for responding.

I'd like to ask a follow up question. Does your page break occur within the last paragraph, or after it?

In other words, when you look at your document in Word with the "Show ¶", does the page with the break look like:

Or like this...

If I do it the second way, the there seems to be a paragraph of a single space added and this can sometimes cause a blank page in the ereader. If I do it the first way, sometimes that whole last paragraph disappears.

How do you deal with this?

Thanks again!

 

[Dee J. Stone]

I do it the second way (the first way bothers me for some reason), but I don't think it makes a difference. I never have spaces in my e-reader, but I really only test it out on the Kindle for android, since I don't own a Kindle, but everything looks fine when I preview it on KDP. I never heard complaints, so I'm assuming everything looks okay.

 

[Bob Stewart]

Dee,

OK, thanks for the help! 

 

[75845]

For print books I prefer sections because I want to have different running heads for each chapter. My chapters are named and I want readers to be able to glance to the top of the page and know what one they are in. Using Word that requires section breaks. In epub/mobi I have page breaks triggered by the Heading 1 style.

 

[G. Henkel]

Section breaks are essential for print layouts because they allow you to apply special formatting tasks directly to them.
When it comes to eBooks it makes absolutely no difference if you're using a section break or a page break because if you properly format the book, instead of simply exporting it, you will include your page breaks through specific style settings which, once again, make no differentiation between page breaks and sections breaks.

I you want to find out a little more about ebook formatting, feel free to check out my tutorial "Take Pride in your eBook Formatting", which has long since gone on to become the de-facto standard for countless self-publishing authors and publishers, because of its ability to create eBooks that are incredible compatible across all platforms in the market.

 

[Speaker-To-Animals]

If you're working in Word and then converting, the best way to get a page break is to take your chapter head style and set it to put a page break before it. Then you don't even need to worry about manual breaks.

As everyone has said, section breaks are for changing page numbering or header/footer. If you're not doing that, you don't need them.