Aha! I didn't know that ^p would represent the carriage return (though now that I think about it, I should have known there would be *something*). YES! Now I can fix them. Thank you SO much, Bethy! (The fics do need that space replacement, I found, so I'll remember that for the future.)
I do have Calibre--I use it for quick conversions when I just need something readable and searchable and I don't care about it having a great TOC. It will create a TOC automatically if the file is formatted just right--I'm not quite sure how to do that, though, and it's a bit touchy about it.
As for the TOC, Sigil creates them very easily. The only thing I have to do is mark headings on the text. It'll even do multi-layer depth to a TOC. For instance, I could have a Part I and Part II, and under each of those have separate chapters, so would be able to choose which part, then which chapter. I also like the polished and finished aspect of epubs better.
And yes, Bethy, that's EXACTLY the problem--you illustrated it perfectly. My screen is small enough that I had major issues with it. I suspect that my fast reading pace exacerbated it beyond what would frustrate most people. I timed myself on Long Strange Trip once, actually, and it took me only about 4 1/2 hours to read the whole thing. At that sort of pace, the constant flicking of the page turn is not only annoying, it gets tiring on the fingers AND drains the battery quickly. Fixing the carriage return problem will do a lot to help.
(And converting to epub will give me a nice TOC and a better viewing font.
)
