Good morning everyone!
I love WordPress. I really do; in fact, I love it so much that when I started my second blog, The Football Novice, I didn’t consider using any other software, but immediately went to its sister site, WordPress.org.
However, every once in a while, usually after I insert a picture, it gets temperamental. Not a full-grown fit, mind you, just pouting, doing things like not letting me post two pictures in a row without a line of text in between , or changing the font of my post without warning, then reverting to the original font after one paragraph.
I have discovered through trial and error that the best way to try to fix those little irritating changes is to switch over to the HTML tab and see if anything looks unusual. Well, actually, since all of the HTML code looks unusual to me, I look to see if anything looks more out-of-place than the rest of the HTML code listed there. So last week, when my font changed for one paragraph after inserting a picture, and nothing I could do on my regular screen (the tab marked “visual” where my writing usually lives) worked, I bravely ventured forth into the world of code.
There are a couple of basics to HTML code that I have figured out on my own. Any HTML code will be written inside the greater and less than signs. (“<>”). Sometimes, inside the bracket there will be some kind of letters, or the “/” symbol and some kind of letters. This is turning something on or off. The one I recognize the most easily is <ul>, which turns underlining on, and </ul>, which turns underlining off.
The culprit last week appeared to be a code called <div>. Not having a clue what that meant, I did what any reasonable person would do, and googled it. The first site I found said the following:
The command encloses, defines and contains an HTML document division. In the Netscape browser it functions essentially the same as the <P> (paragraph) command. In the Internet Explorer browser it is designed to be used in conjunction with Style Sheets.
Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Needless to say, that didn’t help me a lot. However, I did find a web site that took pity on less technologically advanced folks (I am a wife, mother, dog owner, lawyer, writer and lots of other things, but NOT a software engineer!), and explained things in a much simpler manner.
If you need it, go to http://om4.com.au/client/html-for-bloggers/. OM4, according to its web page, is an Australian web site design and development company for small business. Basically <div> on WordPress tells your blog page that you are changing to a different type of page/formatting. Now that, I understood! OM4 explains many other commands in that article as well.
After getting rid of some <div> codes, my text was finally correct, and I could breathe easier, and publish my post.
Of course, there was always the option of posting it with the unintentional font change, which would have saved me a great deal of time, but the perfectionist in me just couldn’t handle it!
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Tales from the Mom-Side 