#horizontal rules

I think I have a new (non-)favourite for “Most annoying ASCII horizontal rule ever when using TTS”. I thought super-long lines of **** or ~~~~ was annoying (which respectively get read out as ‘asterisk asterisk asterisk asterisk’ or ‘tilde tilde tilde tilde’ (for as many of them as there are in the line) but then today I hit a fic with really long strings of 0~0~0~0 which is even worse as that gets read out repeatedly as ‘Zero Approximately’ for each and every 0~

For the love of all that is holy and unholy, save your TTS-using reader’s ears and use either ACTUAL horizontal rules (<hr> in HTML, [rule] in BBCode) or something that will usually get ignored, like several hyphens or underscores in a row (the latter of which, when it does end up being pronounced instead of skipped, is usually read as a singular ‘blank’... assuming no spaces between the underscores).

If you feel you just have to use ASCII, at least keep it short.

So you hate that ugly default horizontal rule and you’re tired of using asterisks for your text breaks. No problem. There are a variety of symbols, characters, and Unicode-friendly glyphs to spice things up, but let’s say you want to use your own custom image (like the examples above) as a text break in your stories. Here’s how you can do that:

1. Find or make your divider image. I’d recommend keeping it under 500 pixels wide so it looks good on many devices.

2. Upload your image to a reliable image host site. Copy the URL once it’s done and make note of its height and width.

3. On your AO3 dashboard, go to the Skins section, click on My Work Skins, and then Create Work Skin.

4. Give your skin a name like "Fancy Divider" and paste this code into the CSS box:

#workskin hr {  height: 24px;   width: 200px;  background: url(http://yourdomain/yourdivider.png);  background-repeat: no-repeat;  background-position: center;  margin-top: 12px;  margin-bottom: 12px;  border: 0; }

Make sure you use the corresponding height and width values for your divider. You can also adjust the margin values if you want more space between your divider and your text.

Click Submit.

5. Navigate to the story you want your divider to appear in and click Edit. In the Associations block of the Edit Story section, select your "Fancy Divider” skin from the Select Work Skin drop down menu.  

Now, scroll down to Work Text and view your story in HTML mode. Wherever you want your divider to appear, insert this code:

<hr>

6. Click Save and enjoy your totally sophisticated-looking (or not) story!

Tip: Remember (because I too sometimes forget) to have your “Fancy Divider” Work Skin selected (as well as using the corresponding HTML code) for every story you want your custom divider to appear in.

Horizontal Time...

The new abscess is demanding that I get off my arse and lie down. Recently, I have been re-reading a bunch of Evelyn Waugh... Currently on this title. I must have gone through my first Waugh binge-reading back in the early 1990s... In another book, I found a bookmark from the Harvard Book Store with a 1992 calendar printed on it.

Before there was binge-watching, I used to regularly undertake binge-reading. I would read one book by an author. If I liked it, then the binge began. There were so many used book stores in Boston/Cambridge at the time... It was easy to fill one's appetite.

Wow... Just realised that my second binge-reading of Waugh is taking place over 20 years since the first... OK, maybe I am old! But I am enjoying the tales all over again... They are new to me after so many years! And a failing memory!