Re: how to export to HTML keeping the whitespaces

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

jenia.ivlev@gmail.com (jenia.ivlev) writes:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> jenia.ivlev@gmail.com (jenia.ivlev) writes:
>>
>>> Hello:
>>>
>>> I want to export to HTML and keep the white spaces.
>>> Normally, I have to do skip a line (two newline characters) or use 
>>> #+begin_verse... #+end_verse. 
>>> Which is not optimal. The two new lines take up too much space, and the
>>> begin/end verse don't export in the same to way to HTML as it does to
>>> text. 
>>> To HTML it keep the indentation corresponding to its location in the
>>> tree, and to text it has a constant indentation (indentation it gives to
>>> verse i think). 
>>> So what is the proper way to do this? How do I instruct org-export to
>>> keep the whitespaces?
>>>
>>> Thanks very much in advnace for your time and kind help.
>>
>> Take a look at the docstring for the org-export-preserve-breaks
>> variable. That ought to do it, and you can set it per-file in the export
>> options.
>>
>> Eric
>
>
> Thanks. 
> I set (org-export-preserve-breaks t) in .emacs file and it does preserve
> the breaks, but not the white spaces: it doesnt indent depending on the
> nesting in the org-tree, and it doesnt indent if I press
> <space>. The text is shown to the left mode of the
> screen. 
>
> Is there a way to change that?

I don't think so, no. That's a fundamental property of the way HTML (and
Latex) behave: they collapse all whitespace to single spaces, and single
paragraph breaks. As far as I know, the only way to get what you want is
a verbatim block, ie a <pre> tag in HTML, and as you discovered that
comes with other unwanted display properties.

It's possible you could build something up with non-breaking spaces, but
that sounds awful.

Eric