|
The blog section on CIOZone is one of the most active areas of our site, and we're always impressed with the great content posted by our members.
We do receive questions from time to time about why blogs posted using our tool do not appear on the site the same way as they appeared in say, a Word document.
Why, for example, does a blog which was cut and pasted from Word with proper paragraph breaks, and items marked in bold, come out looking like one long paragraph and no bold markings?
The answer is that the CIOZone blogging tool, like many other blogging tools on the Web, requires html tags to create some of the effects built into word processing programs—effects such as bold markings, paragraph breaks, and embedded Web site links.
First of all, what are html tags? They are basically bits of code that Web designers have built into their sites or blogging tools to tell a Web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, how to display words or other items.
One good description I have read compares html tags to bookends. One appears at the beginning of an item to signal the format or style that should be displayed, and one appears at the end of the item to signal the finish of that style or format.
If you want a word or group of words to appear in bold, for example, you place a <b> tag at the beginning of the words to be in bold and a </b> tag (notice the slash) at the end.
There is a long list of tags that can be used to create a wide range of formats and effects, but the vast majority of blog posters on CIOZone will only need to know two tags to get the job done.
The first is an end paragraph tag—</p>
This prevents your blog from looking like one very long sentence. Place the end paragraph tag where you would like your paragraph to end.
The second is a line break tag—<br/>
This tag inserts a line break or space between your paragraphs. You don't have to have a line break between paragraphs, but it does make the blog easier to read.
So, in order for this sentence to appear as a complete paragraph, followed by a line break, you would put the tags at the end as follows. </p><br/>
There are three other tags that will come in handy. The first is the tag to place a word or a title in bold. At the beginning of the word or words use <b> and at the end use </b>. To place a section in italics, place <i> at the beginning of the item and </i> at the end.
The third tag you may want to use allows you to place a link to another Web site in your blog. The easiest way to show how this coding works is to use it in a sentence. If, for example, you would like to link to CIOZone's home page, a sentence would appear as follows:
For more information on how to become a CIOZone member, <a href=http://www.ciozone.com>visit our Web site.</a>
In this example the words "visit our Web site" would appear as a hot link.
In summary:
</p> to end a paragraph
<br/> for a line break
<b> and </b> to place items in bold
<i> and </i> to place items in italics
<a href=http://www.xyz.com> links these words to the XYZ Web site</a>
If you have other questions about blogging on CIOZone, send me an email and we'll do our best to answer.
Mel Duvall
Chief Content Officer, CIOZone
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. |
