Help for new bloggers

How to post on a blog from someone who has a shadow of a very small clue.

As the BMG’s (the butterscotch martini girls) are learning to blog, one of the problems we’ve encountered is a misaligned page. I don’t know the technical term for it. It’s when a new post falls below the boxes because it won’t fit. All you see is blank space unless you scroll down to find the actual post.

This happened to me continually when I first began to post. My daughter Tiffany would tell me what to do to fix it…I would try…grow frustrated…whine…bitch…and then she’d do it for me. It’s happened a few times when other BMG’s post, and I’d go to her to fix it.

Yesterday, one of the BMG’s posted and it happened again. Now, I’m going to really learn how to fix this. I already had an idea, and personally did way better because I didn’t want to bug Tiff. I want to be able to explain this to someone else who encounters the problem. And the BMG who had the problem came to me for the answer. I had a clue, but not an answer!

First of all, the only time this has ever happened is when I paste my post. And I almost always pasted in the past. I still do. I’d learned tricks to avoid the dreaded misalignment which would take me running to Tiffany.

Right now, as I’m typing, I’m doing it first on a word doc and not directly onto the blog. However, now I begin by typing the format first. I guess that’s a minor form of coding. I type the code I use, and then proceed to type my post. The code keeps my words in the correct font and the proper length to fit the space on the BMG blog. If I typed the code I use right now, it would disappear once I posted it to the blog.

Between each paragraph, I type the code for space. It’s the word space with <> before and after. If I don’t do that…everything runs together when I paste.

What I haven’t learned to do, is keep my spaces from disappearing when I go back to edit once I’ve corrected a mistake I find. And I always find one. BMG, Tina is the cleanest writer I’ve ever met. She writes darn near perfect from the get go. I, on the other hand, am a disaster. I leave words out, I misspell, and I generally can create a mess. Even after I’ve edited…there will still be errors. When I go back into the post after it’s been published, the code I wrote for my spaces disappears. If anyone out there has fix…please let me know.

Back to pasting…don’t do it unless you know exactly what’s getting transferred to your blog post. Are there invisible boxes? Is there invisible code? Remember, I said I type code and then when I paste my post…the code disappears. If someone comes along and snags my words…they will also be snagging my invisible code.

Back to the misaligned text…there’s another fix. After you login, go to USERS, which brings up the Personal Profile page. At the bottom is a box under “Personal Options”. If you UNcheck the box, it makes plain text. This will take away any code you’ve inadvertently included when you pasted.

This is for the BMG’s blog. When I pointed out going to USERS brought up the Personal Profile, this isn’t the case with every blog. What you are looking for is the WY-SIG or RICH TEXT EDITOR.

I know any techies out there will be laughing their butts off at my attempt to explain this. Oh well. I’m not going to let it stop me from trying.

Brit Blaise

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