Softaculous


Topic : paragraph spacing and carriage return


Posted By: Neurostructural on October 19, 2020, 12:30 pm
What is the trick to getting paragraph spacing and carriage returns to work reliably on text?

I set up a blog post with all the spacing correct for paragraphs and before or after an image.

But after I publish it seems to randomly change these. Some of the spacing disappears. some doesn't. It fairly infuriating and turns a 30 minute blog post into a two hour epic to get it to format correctly.

Thanks for any help..


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Using sitepad to build and self-manage my own business website. Certainly not a Pro.

Posted By: MicroDrie on October 20, 2020, 7:40 am | Post: 1
You write:
Quote
Certainly not a Pro.
. So without a example what goes wrong it hard to give you an advice.However generally speaking, it is importanted how you create a text because your typed text ends as the underlayed HTML text. Let me give you some suggestions to look for:
  1. The first thing is how do you write your text. You could type your blog text in a textprocessor program like Word and use a copy paste command to put your text in a blog article. What happend then is that Word has all kinds of hidden format codes. In such case paste the text first in a dump text program like Notepad to lose those lay-out formatting and make it plain text.
  2. For each new line, the "normal" Carrige Return Line Feed (or simple CRLF) in your text processor must be converted to the underlaying <br/>. functional code. If that conversion goes somewhere wrong,  all text will be displayed on one line.
  3. With the use of a space it is also important to realise that sometimes a string with several space characters in a strings will be ignored or at the end of a line, will be split over two lines. So if you want to dispay an indent with 5 "spaces", you need to use 5 "Non-Breaking Space" code &nbsp; in the underlaying HTML code.
If you use the "Rich Text" widget you can switch between "the end result" and the "HTML mode to construct" your "Rich Text" widget text.
Don hessitate to ask for more help in which case you need to give me an example what goes wrong.

Posted By: Neurostructural on October 20, 2020, 11:53 am | Post: 2
Thanks for the reply. (yes... not a pro at all).

It was written in word. Then copy and paste it into notepad. Then put it into the 'rich text' widget.

The website is being edited using Firefox browser.
I'm using the old sitepad editor.
(because website was built by chopping up one of the older templates using the old site pad editor).


An example of the random problem was putting images in the blog post and trying get a consistent spacing to the text before and after the inserted image.
I set it up to look correct in the editor. Then after I publishing it and checking it, the paragraph spacing has disappeared, or maybe increased.

Then when I went to edit it the final time the text also actually changed size for that particular paragraph.

The only fix was to cut the whole paragraph out of the blog, paste it into notepad again. Then take out all the carriage returns, so it was one big paragraph. Then post it back into the blog and do the paragraph spacing in sitepad.

It almost seems like notepad was still hanging onto some of the format info???
Which was strange.

I'm in the process of fixing the blog in question, as it still has odd spacing and looks unprofessional. You can view it here:
https://foundationchiropractor.com.au/blog/new-mona-vale-chiropractor.html


Note: I've also had some of the text change color whilst editing. Again just random sections of it.

Thanks again for your time and the info.


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Using sitepad to build and self-manage my own business website. Certainly not a Pro.

Posted By: Neurostructural on October 20, 2020, 12:40 pm | Post: 3
Went in again and did the trick of removing all carriage returns in notepad. Then made the carriage returns in sitepad. Then adding images.

The text did it's random size change trick again, but repeating the process a third time and it seems to want to cooperate.

I do have another question please. Is there a way to make the images responsive on a phone? you can olny see part of the image on a phone or small screen. so the blog images make no sense and it compromises the look of the website.
Thank you again.


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Using sitepad to build and self-manage my own business website. Certainly not a Pro.

Posted By: MicroDrie on October 20, 2020, 11:05 pm | Post: 4
Ok let us dive into your page code. A quick look at the HTML page code for the given link will show a style definition in the center of your footer. Now the new editor gives me the option to add extra code in the header or footer.

Based on the fact that if you add such code when creating a page, it is very unusual to add that code will be in the middle of an entry line.
Plus, the top of the page is the normal location of an HTML style element. I see everything so uses the name mso (Microsoft Office?).

There is also an HTML comment block with OfficeDocumentSettings. I assume you are using an original HTML or XML (or DOCX) document. Microsoft Word should not be used to build an HTML page because Microsoft has its own way of constructing an HTML page.
Based on the previous points, I think the best you can do is:
First, delete any HTML comment code in the footer of your template that will be introduced in a paste action.
Quote
<!-- if gte mso 9><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><!endif--><!-- if gte mso 9><xml>
<w:WordDocument>

:squi: Shorting the code  :P

QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/><w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/><w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><!endif--><!-- if gte mso 10>

Second, you have two options:
  1. Write your text in the stupid Notepad editor. You can check for typos by pasting it into the Word text program, see what's wrong and correct it in the stupid Notepad text, and copy and paste only "plain vannila" notepad text into your sitepad editor. This approach prevents unnecessary HTML code from Microsoft.
  2. A second approach is to install the free WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet (WYSIWYG) Bluegriffon HTML editor. There you can enter your text in your own style. Then you have the option to copy ansd-paste or the "plain vanilla" text or to copy and paste the HTML code of your entered text.
The third point is that you are talking about the space around your images. There is a Style block which is displayed as a comment block:
Quote
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
</style>

<!endif-->
My guess is that this is also unwanted Microsoft formatting code.

At last, now it brings me to your "spaces around your image" problem. If you remove all those program disorder code the possibility arise that everthing looks normal. At that moment you can define the CSS padding and margin spaces around each immage like you wish.

I hope my advice will save you a lot of work on your next attempt.

Posted By: Neurostructural on October 21, 2020, 12:50 am | Post: 5
Thank you for your time MicroDrie.

Yes, I went back in a re-did the whole thing in notepad as my previous post mentions. Using the option 1 you mentioned above.
The third issue wasn't the space around the images it was more that the don't responsively resize for viewing on smaller screens (phones etc).

Sorry for the basic questions. I was 'sold' on sitepad being a drag and drop type builder for websites (used to use wordpress for the same type of purpose). My understanding of code is very basic, border on nil...
Nothing I do on the website involves any sort of code, its all just using the dashboard tools etc.

...Are you saying that the standard footer that appears on every page needs to be edited by removing the text and re-installing it after re-writing it in notepad?

Again sorry for basic questions. Thank you for your time.


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Using sitepad to build and self-manage my own business website. Certainly not a Pro.

Posted By: MicroDrie on October 21, 2020, 5:54 am | Post: 6
I am happy that I can help someone. The point is, you can start simple with Sitepad, but along the way you also have the option to add additional functionality via HTML and CSS code if you need it.

It is therefore unfortunate (and unclear to the beginner) why the layout of your web page is so strange. That doesn't do justice to the Sitepad program. It has been a long time ago for me that I ran into the problem that Microsof defined a layout almost per line. Great if you are yours with Microsof Choice, a disaster and counterproductive as you have found, if you want something different.

I think you would do well to clear the footnote from the HTML comments and the CSS markup code included therein. A browser (and there are an awful lot of them) can only get lost. I don't know the old editor functionality. I am not sure what exactly happens if you choose a different theme in the new editor.

Posted By: Neurostructural on October 23, 2020, 4:05 am | Post: 7
Again thanks for your time.

But I don't have the technical knowledge to understand what you are saying
Nor do I even know how to find what you are talking about.

I've never 'edited' the website beyond the visual drag and drop functions in the standard dashboard.

It may be necessary for me to build another website. Either using the new sitepad templates and editor...  Or maybe i'll go back to wordpress,. It seems to just work and has plug ins that make it easy to do things and set up the site properly for SEO.

Lets leave it there so I'm not wasting your time.
Thank you again.


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Using sitepad to build and self-manage my own business website. Certainly not a Pro.

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