Formatting text or not?

[rayfellers]

Lines in my article text runs off the page and don't wrap. Is this a formatting problem? What causes this?

Thanks for any help.

[IMStrong]

Are you pasting from MS Word or something like it?

[andy]

I had a problem with the text and I just started using Micorsoft Notepad. This is a text only editor. I also have been doing my writing in MS Word and then saving it as a text file when I do the save. This seems to give me a view that looks like what I typed. If you use Notepad you need to turn the word wrap off or it messes up your line spacing when you post.
I learned the hard way to not compose in the posting section. I was almost done with a long post and my session timed out. I lost eveything including my mind.
Good luck and have fun.
Andy

[rayfellers]

Thanks for the tips. I can't get the editing to respect my line spacing. It does OK with using spaces instead of tabs, but overall, it would be really nice if we could use common html such as <brk>.

There seems to be some good plugins, but very little in the way of documented use of basic functions.

[rayfellers]

Thanks for the tips. I can't get the editing to respect my line spacing. It does OK with using spaces instead of tabs, but overall, it would be really nice if we could use common html such as <brk>.

There seems to be some good plugins, but very little in the way of documented use of basic functions.
Update: I'm using notepad without any CR. My sentences and/or paragraphs are one long entry. However, I am using return to generate breaks between paragraphs. Copy and paste from notepad does not give the paragraphs breaks in the final document. It seems the editor in WPD strips these out or just doesn't see them.

[ebenezer]

whoa fish,
that's cool.

i think it's pretty bad practice to use the <br> tag

[ishabluebell]

I too am having the problem of the text lines being too long. It's because I'm using a theme with only two columns - none of the three-column themes are suitable for my blog, but the theme I'm using is perfect (except for the wide column).

I'm having to use shift return at the ends of lines, which isn't greatest.

If anyone knows how I can artificially make my text column narrower I'd be glad to know how to do that!

Thanks.

Isha

[ishabluebell]

Ebenezer, why is it bad practice to use the <br> tag?

Please eddicate this WP beginner.

[ebenezer]

well, it's better to use css styles
or <p>
or <ul>
or <li>

because it's much cleaner and easier to control.
and when your website is being interpreted by a bunch of different browsers, it's more universal. the <br> tag is meant to put just a single line break in the flow of the text.

[ishabluebell]

That's really helpful to know. Thank you Ebenezer.

:)