Formatting Forum Posts

[Toffee 2843]

I have had a few people ask me about formatting forum posts, so I thought I would write up a guide with step by step instructions! Some of it is pretty self explanatory, such as the tool bar up the top that allows you to change font style, colour, and size. However, sometimes adding images and other edits can be a little tricky.

 

 1) Write up your post

 

Personally, I prefer to write up posts in Google Docs or another word processor before posting them to the forums. If you do decide to write directly onto the forums, however, the new topic screen does save even when you exit from the tab. This can sometimes accidentally be cleared, though, so be careful!

 

2) Paste it in

 

If pasting from Google Docs, it may show up as black and bolded, which does not show up well on forum posts due to the dark backdrop. Instead, click on ‘paste as plain text’ to return to the default font.

 

3) Format text

 

From there, you are able to change the font to your desired style. Myself, I prefer to use Georgia, therefore I use Command+A to select all, then click on Georgia from the font menu. Each title can be individually highlighted and made larger, plus have the colour changed as well. That’s up to your own personal preference!

 

4) Page Formatting

 

 

If you click the little button that says ‘page’, it will create a line on your forum post. Be warned, this translates to actually separating the post into pages, like so:

 

You can avoid this by putting in your own paragraph dividers. You can find them easily online, and it’s very simple to upload them. My preferred method is to save them to an image site such as Imgur, where you can then select copy link address.

 

In your forum post, click insert other media then insert from URL, and paste what you just copied. It should turn up in your post!

 

 

Click the image to highlight it, then select centre to put it into the middle of your page.

 

 

Double click it to open up the size options— in keeping the original aspect ratio box ticked, you can enter any size into the width box and it won’t distort or stretch.

 

 

This is the same process for all other images that you may want to add into your post!

 

5) Spoilers and Links

 

For a song at the beginning of your post, you may wish to put it in a spoiler. This saves space in your post, and ensures that viewers are seeing the content first as opposed to a large YouTube panel (as videos can be watched on the forum page as opposed to having to follow the link).

 

If you wish to add a link but don’t want to show the whole URL, you can click on the ‘link’ button to have certain text be able to be clicked on to show the link.

 

6) Don’t forget to preview!

 

7) Posting

 

Once you’ve checked and double checked everything, it’s time to post! Make sure your post is going into the right forum/subforum before you click ‘Submit Topic’. You may also want to check ‘notify me of replies’, which will send you a notification whenever someone comments on your post.

 

I hope this has been helpful! Obviously this just covers the basics, but if anyone had any further queries I’d be happy to help. You can contact me on Discord, Toffee#0458

 

[Ivoreyy 2303]

Toffee this is great and will be super helpful to so many players- thank you!

[Tigergiri 3073]

Thank you so much toffee! Ive had a few issues, with forums posts and this makes it a lot easier!