Sunday, July 17, 2005

[Blogger] [HTML] I hit enter once, blogger acts like I hit it twice

Help. After typing about five paragraphs of a post just now, Blogger suddenly started adding an extra blank line every time I hit the enter key to start a new paragraph. Usually I end a paragraph and I have to hit the enter key twice to get a blank line (that I want to be there) between each paragraph. Now I hit enter once and it skips two lines, making my post look stupid. I didn't go in and change anything (at least not on purpose--maybe I hit some weird key?)
Here's the link to the problem post in case looking at it helps you (scroll down a little ways to where the numbered lines start. After each numbered line, I didn't put that blank line in there): http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/07/ten-tips-for-better-bread.html
And one more thing. When I put in a link (like to a book title), it's putting a space in between the last letter of the link and the next thing I type. For example, I ended a sentence with a book title link and there is a space between the last letter of it and the period. That definitely makes me look like an idiot. Any ideas?
I had a similar "double space" problem happen when I typed up a recipe that had lots of short lines. It looks like I made it double-spaced, but I didn't. And then the paragraphs of instructions look double spaced but aren't. I don't know how to fix that one either. Here's the link to it (the recipe is at the bottom): http://www.foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/06/chocolate-chip-sheep-chocolate-chip.html
I'm really new to (and bad at) all this mysterious HTML stuff. Any help greatly appreciated! Thanks!
P.S. Okay, this is really weird. On this post (my first time here), I hit the enter key three times after each paragraph and still couldn't get a blank line between them?!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

creo que tu página esta re buena pero no te lo puedo asegurar ya que no se ingles estoy aprendiendo pero todavia no se leer tanto...
mi nombre es maya tengo 8 años y si emtiemde mis palabras argentinas por favor visite mi pagina www.fantasialoca.blogspot.com y respondame mi comentario haciendole uno a mi pagina y no solo respondiendome este comentario si no tambien comentandome que te parece mi blogger...
saludos.

NS said...

I am no expert on HTML either, but I believe that your line spacing problem is due to the fact that you are enclosing various things (such as the numbered headings, and even entire paragraphs) inside div tags -- which are defined earlier in your code as having a bottom margin of .75em. In other words, everything that you put inside a pair of div tags will cause the item below it to start .75em down the page - even without you inserting a br tag. (The div tags are set up this way in the Blogger template, I believe, so that the headings of your posts -- which the Blogger engine automatically puts into a pair of div tags -- will be offset from the first sentences of your posts.)

The source of the problem you are having with an extra space between a link and the next character is not entirely clear to me, but I suspect that it has something to do with all of the extra stuff you have after the {/a} tag (where the {} are replaced with <>). All you need to create a link is {a href="URL"}text{/a} (again with the {} replaced with <>); all of the extra stuff you have after that -- including img tags, etc. -- is not necessary. And because no image is actually being pulled in successfully at those locations, this may be why the browser is simply leaving a blank space in its place.

Farmgirl Susan said...

NS,
Thanks so much for taking the time to write all that. I am going to print it out, read it about 75 times, and hopefully understand what you're talking about. Believe me, compared to me, you ARE an expert! : )

So can I go in and just take out those div tags? I tried removing a few things, but it didn't seem to make a difference. And any idea why it would start kicking in after several paragraphs? Again, THANKS!

Maya,
Thank you, too, for responding, but unfortunately I need a translator to understand what you said. : )

I was wondering about those links. They are through amazon and there is a ton of extra stuff in them--the "image" part definitely had me wondering. Will do some playing around with them and see what happens.

ChiefFamilyOfficer said...

With the caveat that I am new to html myself and could be WAY off, here's what I think. Compose your post in the "Edit HTML" mode if you're not doing so already.

With no clear understanding of why, when I get that line spacing problem, it's b/c I get paragraph tags - {p} and {/p} (using <> instead of {})- inserted into my posts, usually when I've cut and pasted.

If you delete the paragraph tags, you should be able to get the line breaks you want.

Sorry I can't help with the problem of the extra space. Also, my Spanish is terrible, but I think Maya basically introduced herself, says she's 8 years old, and asked you to visit her blog. (Somebody tell me if I'm wrong!) :)

Farmgirl Susan said...

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This is great!

Owen said...

One more comment - in Blogger in the settings tab, go to the formatting sub tab. On that page is a stting to convert line breaks. Whichever you have it set to (yes or no) try the other one. It might help with the enter key thing.

Farmgirl Susan said...

Thanks Owen. I'll try that next. The removing the {p} things didn't work.

Also, Andrew's suggestion for the space after the links (take out the last/)--sadly that didn't work either. Those links are long and strange, but they're the ones Amazon "created" for me for the associates program. I figured I needed the whole thing, even though I don't have any image popping up. I did take out just that last /, as I said, but that didn't change anything.

As far as the extra spaces when hitting enter key, I'm actually thinking about creating a fresh post with the same info and seeing what happens (but re-typing, not cutting and pasting from the old post).