Comment formatting 101

By Alex Foster | Wed 29th October 2008 - 4:29 pm

Here’s a brief posting describing how to do formatting in comments. It may come in useful for those of you who engage in huge debates on thread comments – and I’m sorry if it seems hopelessly basic for those who have been on the net for a while.

This site, like almost all on the internet, uses a simple programming language called HTML to do formatting. You can use HTML yourself in the comments to help make it clearer when you are quoting or for emphasis.

HTML works using codes that surround the words that they refer to. Usually you have an opening tag, and a closing tag. The tags are commands surrounded by angle brackets < and > Here are some examples:

If you want to make a word bold, you put the code before the word and after it.

This word is bold

Italic uses the code

Another handy code for comments is <blockquote> for when you want to mark out a whole paragraph as a quote. Again, you put <blockquote> at the start of the paragraph and </blockquote> at the end.

So, this:

<blockquote>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Cras nec arcu eu est condimentum tempus. Suspendisse pellentesque mattis diam. Aliquam tortor. Nunc tortor velit, fermentum et, faucibus eget, gravida ac, neque.</blockquote>

Becomes this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Cras nec arcu eu est condimentum tempus. Suspendisse pellentesque mattis diam. Aliquam tortor. Nunc tortor velit, fermentum et, faucibus eget, gravida ac, neque.

Feel free to use the comments section below to practice!

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16 Comments

Laurence Boyce 29th Oct '08 - 4:40pm

But you haven’t mentioned links! Are you against them in some way? Sigh!

To create a link, type:

Here is a link to <a href=”https://www.libdemvoice.org”>Lib Dem Voice</a>.

Which produces:

Here is a link to Lib Dem Voice.

I like links!
Laurence Boyce 29th Oct '08 - 4:55pm

Also it would be really nice if we could employ the sarcastic strikethrough <s> in comments. I think I tried it once but it didn’t work.
Clegg's Candid Friend 29th Oct '08 - 5:20pm

~~<strike>~~
Laurence Boyce 29th Oct '08 - 5:22pm

test test test
Laurence Boyce 29th Oct '08 - 5:23pm

test ~~test~~ test
Laurence Boyce 29th Oct '08 - 5:23pm

Aha!
Different Duncan 29th Oct '08 - 5:42pm

So if I’m feeling bold I can tell you all my big ideas. For instance, when workers go on ~~strike~~ it seems to anger people whose views slant to the right.
Duncan Borrowman 29th Oct '08 - 5:43pm

Or for added emphasis
Duncan Borrowman 29th Oct '08 - 5:44pm

So Blink, thankfully, doesn’t work.
Different Duncan 29th Oct '08 - 5:44pm

Well big seems to have been disabled, but has small?
Different Duncan 29th Oct '08 - 5:44pm

booo!
Jonathan Calder 29th Oct '08 - 5:48pm

If I want to use something more than plain text in a comment I compose it in Blogger, then copy the HTML and paste that.
Matthew Huntbach 29th Oct '08 - 6:05pm

OK, just how much HTML can it take, hmm..

abc

d
e
f
Matthew Huntbach 29th Oct '08 - 6:05pm

It looked much nicer in the preview …
Jo Christie-Smith 30th Oct '08 - 12:06pm

Hooray! Thank you!! But I think Jonathan’s idea around composing in blogger and then copying over is also a good one!
Daniel Walker 1st Jul '16 - 11:13am

All adults (%) Leave voters (%) Remain voters (%)
The economy 34 3 67
The ability of Britain to
make its own laws 29 53 2
Immigration 20 34 4
National security 4 1 7
The NHS 4 3 4