Help! Newbie working with tabs and spaces for freeverse poetry

Help
1

Hi everyone. I have an odd one. I’m a newbie, but I know enough that Markdown is not friendly to unconventional tabs and spaces. I’m using Atom code editor, and I’m hoping to build a page in Jekyll that has poems in free verse with strange spacing like the example below. Some possibilities I’m thinking of:

** Is there some way I can enforce a system whereby certain symbols are equal to “three spaces” or “5 spaces”? I’d rather not gum up the space with a bunch of non breaking spaces; and   etc.

** is there some way I could embed maybe a scrollable image of, say, a 2000 line poem? This seems maybe more likely, but maybe not sufficiently “responsive”…?

Thank you!

Screen Shot 2022-09-13 at 3.46.19 PM
Screen Shot 2022-09-13 at 3.46.19 PM608×1418 60.2 KB

2

have you tried doing it inside a code block? with 3 back tics at the top and bottom?

       markdown with spaces
                     the sun shines in the morning
  atom, so old school
3

Thanks for your reply! I don’t think code blocks will work, as I will want the text to be styled with a Serif font.

lol—What’s the new school program I should be using instead of Atom?

4

you should be able to style the code block how ever you want - it is nothing special really. On here it has the background color and a different font and some keyword styles but all of that can be changed as needed.

Visual Studio Code is what most people use - Atom was created by GH but then MS bought GH and Atom sort of died I think. But whatever works, I’m sure it is fine as a code editor as long as you can keep it working (I think they are pulling the plug on it in a few months?).

1 Like
5

the reason it works in a code block is cause those are wrapped in a pre tag which allows spaces and what not:

the easiest way to work with markdown and end up with a pre tag is to use the code block.

6

In unicode there are glyphs for “no-brake space” and “six per-em-space” etc., would these help?

7

This is all great help. Thank you all so much! I think I’m on a better path now.

8

One problem with using code blocks is that the text will be marked as <code>, which could cause problems with styling, syntax-highlighting, search engines, etc.

Since Markdown is a super-set of HTML, you could just use pre-formatted HTML. Most browser render <pre> with a monospace font, but that can be overridden. For example:

<pre style="font-family: inherit;">
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: 
All mimsy were the borogoves, 
      And the mome raths outgrabe. 
</pre>