Why do I have no line breaks/carriage returns in my posts?

James Andrews:
I can't figure it out. Everything looks fine on my screen, and when I post, it's a wall of text. I've put in 2-3 carriage returns between paragraphs, and nothing helps. Thoughts? I'm running chrome.

 Hi, James. I'm sorry you've encountered this problem. What internet browser are you using (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome)? Also, do you see a toolbar with formatting options at the top of the text box where you type your message? Finally, how does the message look when you click the Preview tab after typing your message? Do the line breaks show?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Grace

James Andrews:
Thanks Grace, I'm running Chrome. I don't have a toolbar with formatting options at the top, no.



When I click preview, it's a wall of text, so at least it's being consistent between previewing and posting.

I do run a couple of plug-ins on Chrome that I thought might be affecting it (adblock plus, ghostery), but I disabled them for this site and reloaded to test, and it didn't make a difference.



I just discovered that I can use HTML and put in a <br> or a <p> to force a break (which is how I got the line breaks in this post) -- I guess I can do that when necessary, but that's more work than just hitting Enter, so I'd rather figure out why it's not working.

Hi, James. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to make the formatting options available in Chrome. The platform we're using for the forums is pretty old, and it's not fully compatible with some of the newer browsers. The formatting options are only available in Internet Explorer and Firefox.

We've been hoping for some time to upgrade our forum platform, but we have to balance that need with a number of others. Here's hoping the project can move forward in 2014! Stay tuned.

James Andrews:
Oh well, thanks for the answer!

I wonder how much html formatting I can do. Like, does bold work? Italic? I'll experiment in my next few replies...

You're welcome! You can pretty much use any standard HTML and CSS you want. I tend to use the HTML box to compose posts because I often include hyperlinks. The hyperlink option on the formatting toolbar often doesn't work for me, so it's easier just to write the HTML. *sigh* I use <p>, <strong>, and <em>, and they work fine.