How can I indent the first line of a paragraph when posting a new story?

Hi Bryan. Welcome to ABC!

I've tried indenting by inserting spaces, but it doesn't seem to work. You can make it clear when a new paragraph starts, though, by just inserting a space - hitting 'return' twice.

...like that! If you cut and paste from Word, as I do, it can be a chore going through to insert spaces between paragraphs - but if you do that when you're typing it in the first place, the spaces will stay. If you then want to insert a 'double-space' - as in when you wish it to be clear that it's a distinct part of the story - it's probably best to just enter a '~' or a row of asterisks...

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Someone else may know about indenting, if that's what you really want to do. You can always 'preview' your story prior to posting to check what it will look like. You can then edit it... or edit it after posting, whichever.

Look forward to reading your story.

I have discovered that straightforward html "forced, non-breaking spaces" code works - I just added the html sequence & n b s p ; (without spaces - I added spaces as it would otherwise come out here as an empty space), and it is an ampersand (&) followed immediately (without those gaps) by nbsp (non-breaking space) and immediately afterwards by a semi-colon. I added this five times in a line at the beginning of each paragraph (using Replace in Word) and got a decent indent of five empty spaces before each paragraph in the story.

Thanks again for the help, Stan!

Bryan

It can't be done. All HTML tags, apart from a few that are explicity allowed, are filtered out. Leading spaces are filtered too, as are surplus line breaks. You submit to the system or die!

A single blank line between each paragraph is far easier to read online than a solid block of text with a few indentations.

I use far more paragraph breaks for work to be read online than I would for work to be read from print. Once you get used to it and see how easy it is to read, you'll be converted.

After trying to read other people's work for a while you'll find yourself fuming at people who post solid blocks of text.

Thanks FTSE100, I'll see how it goes. Old habits die hard, I suppose :-) Non-breaking space html works, from what I see...

You can insert any HTML character entities, including   but don't fight the system! The system is your friend. What's that, Master? Yes, I've told him the system is his friend. No, not the electric eels, Master. Please, no!

You can read me like a book, FTSE100, I am the eternal independent! I think you have got me sussed :-) I can quite understand blocks of text being difficult to handle, but I am a bit worried about cutting up dialogue with white space between each piece of dialogue... I'd really appreciate any suggestions on that. Maybe a few non-breaking spaces before each side of dialogue to keep it within a paragraph?

Thanks!

Bryan

Well, faced with electric eels, I'll relent :-)

"I don't find it a problem to have a blank line between each line of dialogue," he asserted to avoid using the word 'said'.

"Ah, but have your tried it in zero-gee?" inquired the Captain scientifically.

"I'm a member of the Million-Mile High Club," said Gumption 17 proudly. "Bugger, I just did a 'said'".

"We aren't schoolboys," retrospondicated the Captain. "For all I care you can do 'said' until your space pants fall down. That was just a test, by the way. They don't fall down in zero-gee."

• Format: 4!c&nbsp ; _____Example: COMM

Format: 4!c&nbsp ; _____Example: COMM

seems the < u l > tag works. I will just test it

over a number of lines...................
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk jsjdgsgggggggggggg sssssssss gggggggggggggggggggs ssssssssssssssssssssssssg

Ok nevermind -- none of that worked very well. You're on your own.

ok now i'll try this but it most likel will not workk we can only hope, rightkjhsefwh wflehf woefh aodifhwaoie ghowiqi hegoqi hg

The ordered and unordered lists are fine.

To make an ordered list, this is what you type:

<ol> (this says you want an ordered list)
<li> (this says you are making a new entry in the list)
Booby hatch (this is the text you want as the first entry)
</li> (this says the entry is finished)
<li> (this says you are making a new entry in the list)
Jambalaya sandwiches (this is the text you want as the second entry)
</li> (this says the entry is finished)
<li> (this says you are making a new entry in the list)
Champing at the bit (this is the text you want as the third entry)
</li> (this says the entry is finished)
</ol> (this says the list is finished)

You don't have to put it all in bold, by the way. The result looks like this:

1. Booby hatch
2. Jambalaya sandwiches
3. Champing at the bit

Note that in forum comments you'll get a blank line between each list entry. If you do the same in story posts, there will be no blank line.

For an unordered list (bullet points instead of numbers) just replace ol with ul and /ol with /ul.