[sword-devel] USFM end marker clarification

[Kahunapule Michael Johnson]

On 08/13/2012 08:09 PM, David Haslam wrote:
> The relevant paragraph is,
>
> "In USFM, character level markup can be nested (embedded) within a paragraph
> element, or another character element, but (depending on the way in which
> the markers are written) does not necessarily cancel out the previous
> marker's attributes. Paratext (a UBS translation editor) is not capable of
> rendering all of the display variations that would be implied due to
> nesting."

You have uncovered an inconsistency in USFM, actually, both with itself historically, and between the way "character" styles are handled within notes and in other text. In other text, character styles must have an end marker. In notes (footnotes, end notes, and cross reference notes), ending a text style by starting another is allowed (and the normal operation of Paratext).

At one time I built USFM-handling code that supported nesting of styles, and had to remove that feature to be compatible with Paratext. I guess that now it would be legitimate to add that feature back in.