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Please put spaces between paragraphs and don't make paragraphs longer than 5 to 7 lines because reading on a screen is hard.
If you're using MS Word or other word processor, there are options that fake a space between paragraphs while viewing the file in the word precessor. Those are not visible when converted to HTML. You need actual blank lines.
The easy way to provide blank lines between paragraphs in MS Word is to search and replace ^p with ^p^p. Then you can search and replace ^p^p^p with ^p^p* * *^p^p to restore and make visible any section breaks that may have disappeared.
It's really not hard and it makes things much more legible. I do it all the time with my postings.
Hugs,
Erin
Comments
MS Word docs
I just got used to compensating for Drupal as I write an MS Document. I looked and there is a work around for converting but the explanation is more than 50 words so too much of a bother for me. Someone else who is sharper than me, could probably make sense of it. Here is the link. Let the fun begin. https://www.drupal.org/node/318415
Gwen
Not installed
That's a module we do not have installed at BCTS. Not relevant.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Blank lines
Another way is to put < BR> between the paragraphs if you don't want your text file stand alone human readable. When posted to BCTS, the < BR> will turn in to blank lines. And more for multiple blank lines.
-Becky
hissssss
evil bad code. :p
you need to use < br/ > with the / for it to be good code.
the "official" standard html requires all tags to be closed, and the line break tag is self closed with the < br/ >
the < br > is the open tag, but the nature of line break means it doesn't open / close it just duplicates, so they made it < br/ >
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
Is BCTS different?
When coding straight html, the "line break" tag just skips to the start of the next line without creating a blank line. It takes two of 'em to get a blank line between. Think of <br/> as slapping the carriage return lever on your old typewriter. To get a blank line you need to slap it twice!
Does BCTS anticipate this quirk and render differently?
Not for comments, as I put in one line break ahead of this sentence!
The paragraph tag, <p>, usually produces a blank line before continuing display, as it did for this sentence. Proper html coding expects the paragraph to be closed </p>, although every browser I've tried supplies missing paragraph close tags at appropriate times.
Just keying "Enter" twice produces the spacing before this sentence. Much easier than using html tags!
(note: Text format set at "Filtered HTML w/line breaks")
Sara
Between the wrinkles, the orthopedic shoes, and nine decades of gravity, it is really hard to be alluring. My icon, you ask? It is the last picture I allowed to escape the camera ... back before most BC authors were born.
BCTS line breaks
Drupal puts one linebreak at the end of a paragraph. If you include a blank line, whether or not it has a linebreak on it, it will create a blank line.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Yes!!!
Yes! Punching the 'enter" key twice is much easier! :)
Sara
Between the wrinkles, the orthopedic shoes, and nine decades of gravity, it is really hard to be alluring. My icon, you ask? It is the last picture I allowed to escape the camera ... back before most BC authors were born.
Being a Computer Dum-Dum
I use the much simpler method of cut & paste from Word, then start at the top, or for a change from the bottom and keep hitting return every time I need to add a space.
Just as easy while doing this to high-lite words that need to be in italics or Bolder.
Ok, so this may be the idiots way of doing things, but it is not rocket science if I can do it.
Sophie
The Simpler Ways Are Sometimes The Best
The beauty of this method is that you're giving the document an extra edit/proofread as you post it. I've lost count of the number of errors I've spotted during this process.
My system
Love, Andrea Lena
I just double space between
I just double space between paragraphs, and I am using MS Word for my stories now. I usually don't go beyond 7 lines in a paragraph, unless the character is speaking. Then the paragraph may get longer. But that is when the character speaks. A paragraph is a single train of thought. When that train of thought has ended (5 to 7 lines later), then you start a new paragraph. I posted my recent posts of The Girls Most Likely To ... - Chapter 53 and Leigh Anne - Chapter 13, using MS Word.
With confidence and forbearance, we will gave the strength to move forward.
Love & hugs,
Barbara Lynn Terry
"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."
With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward.
Barbara Lynn Terry
"If I have to be this girl ion me, Then I have the right to be."
I find the opposite
MS-word documents when cut/pasted into this site have extra spaces between paragraphs.
That means I have to go through the whole post removing this extra white space.
IMHO, in more recent versions of Word Microsoft have made some changes to the line spacing functionality. Text that don't have any spaces between lines suddenly gets double spaces when pasted into a document. Word 2003 does not do this so it has to be a problem with Office 2013 and Office 2016 (Mac).
This is an interesting problem and does not have an easy solution apart from importing a document that is all HTML encoded.
Samantha
docx vs doc
that is where the changes that impact ms word in html happen.
the xml wrapper for ms' proprietary binary format of .doc
though you see far more than odd line spacing issues with word copied and pasted, since few turn off the "smart quotes" in word and it generates unrecognized html entities in the submitted information. ( office 2k3 and earlier specially bad at this ) you can see it in a lot of stories posted 2011 and earlier. those odd characters in a number of stories are from formatting oddities of word.
as far as the html generated by word, that is just horrid code ~shudder~ the only generated html that is worse is that from adobe dreamweaver. ( drupal templates for look and feel are dreamweaver generated, all the nested divs instead of nested tables, and the 2 MB of .js per page view are signatures of the poor code from dreamweaver. Adobe dreamweaver devs have no idea how to position content without the table style layout of nesting tables so it's switch to xhtml and soon html5 is still using the nested tables, just calling them divs. )
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
A word about word?
Depending on what version of Office you have there's a single click option to get rid of that horrible spacing effect?
I know it's been a feature since 2003 because I remember using it and being told off for it in school but it's been a while so I can't remember how to do it for anything but Word 2013, there's a 'no spacing' option right next to the standard layout on the 'styles' option under the 'home' tab on that one.
It also helps cut down on mistakes if you turn off auto-correct in the newer versions of word too, the amount of times I re-read things after posting to find it had substituted a word for another one without telling me before I worked that one out is kind of embarrassing :)
I need to go back over the first 3 chapters in my magic series and put the spaces in properly, I'm not really sure why I didn't lay them out like I normally write at the time but I only noticed it recently (so sorry to anyone reading those at some point) lol