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Help/Technical question - Indenting Paragraphs on the forum

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:28 am
by David S.
I was originally going to PM this question to one of the moderators, but I thought I'd post it so as not to put the burden on one person specifically. If anyone knows the answer, please feel free to reply.

I was trying to set some lines in a post, like lyrics or a quote, "indented", that is, where they don't go all the way to the far left margin, for a few consecutive lines. In my web-based e-mail account where I store drafts, I just merely hit the space bar at the bottom of the keybad the amount of spaces I want to move the first character in a line over to the right, and it works fine.

In typing programs, the tab button can also be used to accomplish this.

However, I just noticed that on the forums here, no matter how many times I hit the space bar at the bottom of the keypad, even though when I type it LOOKS like it is letting me start a line more to the center, when I hit "Preview" or "submit", the text is all the way to the left on that line, ignoring the fact that I actually used the bar to start the line more towards the right.

I tried the tab button, but that doesn't seem to work here or in my web-based e-mail, only in a typing program.

Please bear with me if there is an obvious solution that I am overlooking, as I am not a computer or technical expert. I was unable to indent using the spacebar on this forum, in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

So I fooled around with a lot of the buttons on the posting form. I tried the "center" button but that didn't line up the left side of each line directly underneath each other like I wanted. It centered EACH line relative to the center of the screen, and skipped lines, like this:

This is what the center button looks like when

you are trying to indent uniformly and

not all the lines have the same

number of characters


I tried the "list" button:
  • I tried the list button, but unfortunately, that too seemed
  • To sometimes skip lines, although not always,
  • And I am not sure why it does this -
  • But in any case, it only indents the lines
  • A slight bit
If you look at what I actually typed using "List" (such as looking at it through "reply with quote"), I started each line exactly below another one, WITHOUT skipping lines, yet sometimes it skips lines, which I don't want!

The only "solution" I could find to the overall problem for now was to use characters colored white, like periods, to trick the system into thinking the line had characters in it all the way to the left, and then go back to the regular color at the spot where I wanted the line to start, but the dots ARE visible, especially on every other post in a thread which has a darker background:

..........Here I am using ten white dots
..........To make line 1, 2, 3, and 4 start indented,
..........Directly below each other like I intended
..........Without skipping lines


If anyone knows of a better solution to this, please let me know!

Thanks,
David

Re: Help/Technical question - Indenting Paragraphs on the fo

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 3:16 pm
by Elladorine
I'm afraid that indenting is not built into the forum software and is designed to minimize character spaces. I guess the white periods might be your best bet, or the list option (which automatically adds a blank line every time you hit enter).

Sorry I couldn't be of more help!