Hello All,
It is Wednesday a.k.a ……(no not LOST day) …the day for a blogging tip from yours truly.
Tip of the Week: Formatting
Does your post look funny? Has the font gone crazy? None of your formatting showing? What are all those weird characters in my post? Fret no more, answers are here!
1.) My Blog is in a Word Document: Inputting a blog from word is pretty much just copy/paste. But HOLD ON, dont just click in the Body area and hit PASTE. Directly pasting from Word will do some crazy things to your post (sometimes it might even look like an alien language). There is a quick easy step in the middle that will clear all those issues away.
Right there on your toolbar is a ‘Paste from Word’ button. Paste your blog in there (don’t worry your links and bolding etc will be intact) and select ‘Ignore Font Face Definitions’ and ‘Remove Styles Definition’. This will give you a nice clean and easy to read post
2.) How To Add Bullets: Instead of having to and adding a * and pressing enter each time, you can use the cool bullets tool:
Just select all the text you want bulleted and click on that little button and voila!
3.) I added Numbers but they don’t show up?: Our numbers tool seems to be out on vacation, so even though your numbers show up in the formatting box they disappear in the post. Until it comes back, the best solution is 1.) 2.) etc etc..like how I’m doing it right now. (Sorry!)
4.) How do I input a Link? This is an easy one but still for those wondering.
Select the text you want linked and press that fun button with the earth symbol
5.) How can I edit the HTML? If you want to add some jazzy effects to your blog and know HTML
Just click on the ‘Source’ button and you can edit the html there. I’ll do a quick easy html tips blog later.
6.) How do I add a You Tube Video? Your wish is my command
Click on the media button and copy/paste the youtube video’s link there. You don’t need to copy the embed code or anything, the plain old URL will do
7.) How do I add Images? I already answered that one my friends. Read Add Photos To Your Blog
8.) None of my Formatting is showing up? Does none of your hard work show up in the actual post? Wait before you shed a tear over all the lost work, goto ‘Input Format’ right underneath the Body section and above the ‘Preview’ & ’Submit’ buttons. Make sure the Input Format is ‘FULL HTML’. If it is ‘Comment’ then none of your formatting will show up.
Since we are on the topic of making posts look great, here’s some additional blogging tips:
- Headlines:
Good: Initial Caps (for example: Ten Tips To Go Green)
Bad: ALL CAPS or no caps (for example: ten tips to go green or TEN TIPS TO GO GREEN) - Categories: This is vital for findability. After your posts are gone from the homepage/latest posts page, the category pages and subcategory pages are the place to find them.
Good: Select 1 Category + 1 Subcategory. Make it a habit to select the parent category (Health, Balance etc)
Bad: Selecting 20 million categories or only a subcategory. If you post is about a recipe, do NOT select every subcategory in the health category. - Tagging: This is also vital for findability…but I’ve already done a blogging tip about it so won’t say more.
Read my blog about Tagging
If you have any more formatting questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer them there or do another post.
That’s it for now…happy formatting
xoxo, Eden
Hi Eden,
Thank you for your post, it really helped me with having my formatting show up! I did not know about the Full HTML format.
One question: I noticed that my posts don't show anything but the tags when they show up in the thread of the website. How can I have a line or two of the original post show?
Thank you for your help,
Karin Manske
Life Coach for Women
Hello, Eden,
Thanks for this post. Great Help! If I have some questions when I play with this, I'll get back to you. (Love your natural humour)
Smiles,
Starshine
Thank you!
Love
Rajesh
http://rajeshmsharma.blogspot.com
Thanks friends for reading
About your question Karin, this happens when the text is not the absolute first thing. The preview part only captures the first paragraph or so. So in this blog of yours (http://www.intent.com/blog/2009/03/25/7-tips-positive-conversations) the image is the first thing which is why the text doesnt show up…where as here (http://www.intent.com/blog/2009/03/26/power-yielding-getting-your-way-giving) it begins with the text and thats why it shows. Also in the html, the best option is text or <div>text</div> and the text will show up…if there is extra stuff like   etc etc which are all just empty spaces nothing shows up. I hope this makes sense?
Hello Eden,
I'm grateful for your efforts in demonstrating how to maximize our presentations in blogs. However, what you've described about "formatting showing up" doesn't seem to be relevant today. While my input seems quite right, including the added image, none of it is showing, and the "'Input Format' right underneath the Body section and above the 'Preview' & 'Submit' buttons" just does not exist anymore.
Your "updated" clarifications, please.