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How to Lose Unwanted Inches From Your Blog
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Friday, October 28, 2005
6:43:00 PM EDT
Hearing The Shamen, Destination Eschaton
So earlier today, Journaler Dee asked me about a
problem she was having with her blog, Dear
Diary. Something she had put in one of her recent entries was
breaking the layout of her Journal, causing it to become too
wide.
Now, "too wide" is a subjective thing, but in most cases, if you have a horizontal scroll bar (so you have to scroll from side to side in order to see the content on the page), then your page is probably too wide.
In most cases, it's because of a photo is wider than the page layout and/or browser window will allow.
In other cases, a really long URL or other unbroken line of text will cause do it.
I took at look at Dee's blog, and saw that in one of her entries, there was a long string of non-breaking spaces at the end of one of the lines. [Update: Nonbreaking spaces are spaces that by definition won't break to the next line, so they keep going and going. This can push out the edge of a page area. If you look in HTML view, nonbreaking spaces look like this: ]
She took the spaces out, and her Journal returned to its normal width.
If you ever have a problem where your Journal gets extra wide when you don't want it to, try the following:
* Look at your most recent entries, or think back to when you started seeing the problem, and look at the entries you posted or edited around that time.
* Check the width of the photos; the non-scrolling maximum will depend on the number of columns you use for your Journal; for a three-column Journal (that is, 2 sidebars and a center column), a safe maximum is 550 pixels (remember that your readers may not have monitors as wide or resolutions as high as yours).
* If it's not the photos, it will have to be the text. Scroll all the way to the right of the page and look for anything that sticks out.
* If nothing is immediately obvious, it might be extra spaces at the end of a line. In the edit window of your blog's entry, click and drag the text with your mouse and look for extra spaces at the end of a line. (You can also check the HTML view -- change the pull-down menu in the formatting tool bar from "Text" to "HTML" to see the HTML tags.)
* Just added: If all else fails, try looking at the HTML source code for the entire page. You can do this typically (using Internet Explorer on Windows) by right-clicking on a blank area of the the blog page that's too wide, and choosing "View Source." This will show you all the text and HTML tags that makes up your page.
Even if you don't understand it, you can usually see what's making your page too wide -- just scroll all the way to the right, and scroll down until you see characters. Then, look around for some of the accompanying text so you can figure out what section it's in, so you can go back and change it.
Hope this helps. -- Joe
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6:43:00 PM EDT
Hearing The Shamen, Destination Eschaton
How to Lose Unwanted Inches From Your Blog
Now, "too wide" is a subjective thing, but in most cases, if you have a horizontal scroll bar (so you have to scroll from side to side in order to see the content on the page), then your page is probably too wide.
In most cases, it's because of a photo is wider than the page layout and/or browser window will allow.
In other cases, a really long URL or other unbroken line of text will cause do it.
I took at look at Dee's blog, and saw that in one of her entries, there was a long string of non-breaking spaces at the end of one of the lines. [Update: Nonbreaking spaces are spaces that by definition won't break to the next line, so they keep going and going. This can push out the edge of a page area. If you look in HTML view, nonbreaking spaces look like this: ]
She took the spaces out, and her Journal returned to its normal width.
If you ever have a problem where your Journal gets extra wide when you don't want it to, try the following:
* Look at your most recent entries, or think back to when you started seeing the problem, and look at the entries you posted or edited around that time.
* Check the width of the photos; the non-scrolling maximum will depend on the number of columns you use for your Journal; for a three-column Journal (that is, 2 sidebars and a center column), a safe maximum is 550 pixels (remember that your readers may not have monitors as wide or resolutions as high as yours).
* If it's not the photos, it will have to be the text. Scroll all the way to the right of the page and look for anything that sticks out.
* If nothing is immediately obvious, it might be extra spaces at the end of a line. In the edit window of your blog's entry, click and drag the text with your mouse and look for extra spaces at the end of a line. (You can also check the HTML view -- change the pull-down menu in the formatting tool bar from "Text" to "HTML" to see the HTML tags.)
* Just added: If all else fails, try looking at the HTML source code for the entire page. You can do this typically (using Internet Explorer on Windows) by right-clicking on a blank area of the the blog page that's too wide, and choosing "View Source." This will show you all the text and HTML tags that makes up your page.
Even if you don't understand it, you can usually see what's making your page too wide -- just scroll all the way to the right, and scroll down until you see characters. Then, look around for some of the accompanying text so you can figure out what section it's in, so you can go back and change it.
Hope this helps. -- Joe
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This entry has 12 comments: (Add your own)
-
Hi -- I'm not positive, but I think the problem lies in a bunch of nonbreaking spaces in this entry:
http://journals.aol.com/dancingcowgirl2/proud-army-wife/ent ries/2006/07/30/the-soldier/24
If you look in the HTML view of the entry, nonbreaking spaces look like "nbsp;"
Regarding photos -- if you just "squish" them down, they can look funny. For example, in one of entries, you've got an original photo ( http://hometown.aol.com/Dancingcowgirl2/NTC.jpg ) that's 1446x1037, which is huge; the space on the page (as defined by the height & width tags) is 186x131.
If you want to control how your photos look in the page, you will probably want to take your original photo, crop or resize it down to a smaller size (you can use MS Paint, Irfanview -- http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/2 006/07/18/a-stunning-reversal/ 1552 -- , or another program), upload it, then include that photo in your Journal.
The AOL Pictures integration will also let you pick automatically resized photos, as well -- http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/2 006/06/21/adding-photos-to-you r-journal-with-aol-pictures-pe rmalinks/1501
Thanks -- Joe (posted & mailed) -
Joe, I'm having the same problem, my journal is too wide. I looked at all the codes but not sure if I can tell where the problem is. Can you help?
http://journals.aol.com/dancingcowgirl2/proud-army-wife/
Also, it seems like I have to shrink down the graphics/pictures to get the width smaller but then the picture looks funny. What am I doing wrong? -
Hi Gary -- I am unable to find any blogs under your screen name. Can you please send me the address so I can take a look?
Thanks -- Joe (posted & mailed) -
I found this entry and hoped you can help me with just the opposite problem. My page doesn't go wide enough. I've looked through some of the help guide, but have not found the answer to this question.
Visitors to my page only see about half of the screen filled. So, as I add things to it, it becomes very vertical and I have a lot of wasted space on the right side of the screen.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Gary
nicholls11
4/23/08 8:32 PM
http://journals.aol.com/domsm