Formatting for "send a message"

[lajackson]

I am having a particular challenge with line spacing in the Send a Message page at LCR.

On a blank slate, every Enter, which used to be a Carriage Return/Line Feed back in the days when I was ringing the bell on my Underwood typewriter, adds a double line space. Is there any way to enter a single line space? I need this in particular when I enter my name and calling at the end of the message. I want them on two single-spaced lines, not Name, double space, Calling du Jour.

My workaround is to copy and paste text from a text program. When I do that, everything is single-spaced when it arrives at LCR SaM and will stay that way as long as I do not do anything to it afterward in LCR. But as it stands, I cannot properly type a message at LCR SaM until I learn how to single space.

I am not to the point of calling the Global Services Department because I do not need another nickel in my retirement fund. (If you understand that reference, you have been around for a long, long time.)

I am not set enough in my ways to be oblivious to suggestions that work. Bring them on, please.

[russellhltn]

On a blank slate, every Enter, which used to be a Carriage Return/Line Feed back in the days when I was ringing the bell on my Underwood typewriter, adds a double line space. Is there any way to enter a single line space?

Sounds like a bug to me.

[eblood66]

Have you tried Shift-Enter? In some editors Enter creates a new paragraph but Shift-Enter just inserts a simple line break. I don't have access myself anymore so I can't check.

[jdlessley]

Is there any way to enter a single line space?

An 'Enter' (hard return) is treated as an end of paragraph (new line + extra pace formatting). Use a soft return (wrap line key stroke) 'Shift + Enter' to avoid the extra line space formatting.

My workaround is to copy and paste text from a text program. When I do that, everything is single-spaced when it arrives at LCR SaM and will stay that way as long as I do not do anything to it afterward in LCR.

That works because text editors do not have all the special formatting as found in word processors. There is no hard return or soft return in text editors. An 'Enter' is a line feed with no paragraph formatting such as extra spaces between lines. To get an extra space between lines in a text editor another blank line has to be added.

[lajackson]

An 'Enter' (hard return) is treated as an end of paragraph (new line + extra pace formatting). Use a soft return (wrap line key stroke) 'Shift + Enter' to avoid the extra line space formatting.

Have you tried Shift-Enter? In some editors Enter creates a new paragraph but Shift-Enter just inserts a simple line break.

Thank you and thank you. Working with everything as a paragraph by default is a new experience for me.

So for my next lesson, working with existing text in Send a Message:

Sometimes I add a return (Enter) to break a paragraph into two at the end of a sentence. It appears to do so in SaM, but when the message is sent, the two "paragraphs" are run together with no spaces.

So what clues do I have to tell me where the divisions are between the various paragraphs in Send a Message.

If this formatting information is all available somewhere online, I will be glad to go there and learn. Just point me there. But as I said, this death by paragraph is a new thing for me. I am an old 0D/0A CR/LF guy from back in the day where the "Enter" key sometimes gave you both.

[jdlessley]

Sometimes I add a return (Enter) to break a paragraph into two at the end of a sentence. It appears to do so in SaM, but when the message is sent, the two "paragraphs" are run together with no spaces.

I tested this in SaM and ended up with the same results. I found that when reviewing the SaM message body code that a paragraph has this code using two formatting tags:

Code: Select all

<p>The first sentence. The second sentence.<br data-mce-bogus="1"></p>

Where "The first sentence. The second sentence." is the text typed into the message box for a single paragraph.

When the original paragraph of two sentences are split into two single sentence paragraphs by hitting "Enter" after the first sentence then the break tag, <br>, is missing that splits the two new paragraphs and the code looks like this:

Code: Select all

<p>The first sentence.</p><p> The second sentence.<br data-mce-bogus="1"></p>

So when the message is received the two one sentence paragraphs are one paragraph again.

So what clues do I have to tell me where the divisions are between the various paragraphs in Send a Message.

Unless you review the code I have no other idea.

I did check the code for a message created in a text editor like Notepad and then copied into SaM and noticed that SaM only had the opening paragraph tag, <p>, at the beginning of the message body and the end paragraph tags, <br data-mce-bogus="1"></p>, at the end of the message body. There was no other paragraph tags in the message body between paragraphs. There was only the simple break tag, <br>, without the code block "data-mce-bogus="1"".

By the way, <p></p> are browser HTML tags that define a paragraph. Browsers automatically add some space (margin) before and after each <p> element. The size of these margins can be modified with the margin properties in cascading style sheets (CSS).

There may be some issues in viewing SaM messages created with only text. I don't know whether it happens when the message is sent by SaM or at the recipient's message client. If the client defaults to text only then SaM paragraph formatting is possibly lost and the HTML paragraph tag space is lost. But if the client defaults to HTML then the space coded by HTML tags are present.

On the other hand there is the issue I see. My email client is MS Outlook and I have the default view to be HTML. When I get SaM messages there appears there are extra spaces (margins) added between paragraphs. The margins could also be just larger. I have not looked at the code for these messages but the way Outlook displays the message tells me there are some HTML formatting issues for paragraphs.

[lajackson]

When the original paragraph of two sentences are split into two single sentence paragraphs by hitting "Enter" after the first sentence then the break tag, <br>, is missing that splits the two new paragraphs and the code looks like this:

Code: Select all

<p>The first sentence.</p><p> The second sentence.<br data-mce-bogus="1"></p>

So when the message is received the two one sentence paragraphs are one paragraph again.

This is fascinating. I just tried to duplicate it and the paragraphs were separated just fine in the resulting email. I will have to try it again and look at the code before I send the message.

I am sending the messages to my Gmail account. I suppose it is also possible that something there is toying with me. I fully expected the separated sentence to be rejoined when it hit my inbox.

[jonesrk]

I have found for SaM that I can copy safely from a formatted rtf (Rich Text File) file and have that formatting survive through the sending.

[lajackson]

I have found for SaM that I can copy safely from a formatted rtf (Rich Text File) file and have that formatting survive through the sending.

I had not thought of that. Thank you very much.

[lajackson]

I have found for SaM that I can copy safely from a formatted rtf (Rich Text File) file and have that formatting survive through the sending.

I had not thought of that. Thank you very much.

Well, I tried it. The formatting from the rtf file came over and displayed properly in the SaM message box. I sent the message. None of the bold or underlining showed up. Every paragraph was in a different font and size. Most of the double spacing between paragraphs had reverted to single spacing. At least the paragraphs started on new lines and were not run on from the end of the preceding paragraph.

So, I investigate some more.

It was such a hopeful suggestion.

I have been able to reproduce the loss of bold and underlining repeatedly, along with a workaround that sticks and gets sent with the email, so I sent that information through the Feedback link at the bottom of the SaM page.

Basically, if you highlight the text that appears to be bold or underlined and click on the appropriate button (B) or (U) twice, it will appear that the formatting (which is not really there) is removed and then reapplied. This consistently works and the sent email is formatted as desired.