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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

The problem with bold and italics

32 replies

BertieBotts · 17/04/2011 09:30

I've just figured out what it is. If you try to do two different bolded words in the same paragraph it ignores the middle two asterisks and bolds everything in between as well. The same is happening with italics.

e.g.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

VS

The quick brown fox
Jumps over the lazy dog

Also: (I don't know what this does, I thought I'd experiment)

The quickbrown fox jumps over the lazy dog

OP posts:
Original poster
BertieBotts · 17/04/2011 09:31

Oh damnit it didn't work at all Confused Well what is causing it to sometimes ignore the middle asterisks then?

OP posts:
HopeEternal · 17/04/2011 14:56

Didn't we used to have to bold or italicise each word individually and it's fairly recent that the tags worked on a series of words? I think that's why you sometimes get a string of bold words with asterisks in them.

Like that.

Original poster
BertieBotts · 17/04/2011 15:02

Yes true. But in a couple of posts I've made (and I've noticed the pattern in others too) that you see two separate words someone intended to bold, but everything in between gets bolded as well. Sometimes it isn't obvious whether they intended to bold it all, but sometimes it is.

OP posts:
Original poster
BertieBotts · 17/04/2011 15:02

(trying to catch it out now Grin)

OP posts:
HopeEternal · 17/04/2011 15:10

When I see the stray asterisks, I assume the poster only meant to bold the 2 individual words and got caught out by the new way the tags work.

I wonder if there's a way to end the tag (like you do with the / in HTML codes)?

Test: The quick brown/ fox jumps over the lazy/ dog.

Oh. How bizarre...

ladyintheradiator · 17/04/2011 15:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ladyintheradiator · 17/04/2011 15:23

This reply has been deleted

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ladyintheradiator · 17/04/2011 15:24

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MissAnthrope · 17/04/2011 15:25

It seems to not work when incorrectly spaced, or next to punctuation.

Original poster
BertieBotts · 17/04/2011 16:05

Yes I noticed that too MissAnthrope. But when it happened to me on a thread (thread is long and I don't know how to link to individual post) there were no problems with spacing or punctuation being too close...

Next time I see an obvious example I'll link it here.

OP posts:
Original poster
BertieBotts · 17/04/2011 16:08

What did you do in your first post on this thread, Hope?

OP posts:
HopeEternal · 17/04/2011 23:50

Sorry, Bertie, got distracted by RL.

In the first sentence I put an asterisk before and after bold and an up arrowhead before and after italicise.

In the second sentence there were asterisks before and after a and before and after bold. In that instance the system appears to have read the first and fourth asterisk as the tags and emboldened the whole phrase - including the second and third asterisks.

That should be clear as mud...

Original poster
BertieBotts · 18/04/2011 13:08

No that makes sense. So why did your a string of bold all get made bold but my brown fox jumps over the lazy didn't?

Confused
OP posts:
Original poster
BertieBotts · 18/04/2011 13:09

See - it did it again!

OP posts:
RustyBear · 18/04/2011 13:17

a

a*

an

RustyBear · 18/04/2011 13:18

a lump of lead

RustyBear · 18/04/2011 13:21

a a an

RustyBear · 18/04/2011 13:28

Think it might be something to do with return characters...

a
a*
an

a a* an

aa*an

Those three sets are exactly the same (a a* and an, all with asterisks at each end) but the first has a return character between each set, the second has a space and the third has nothing.

Original poster
BertieBotts · 18/04/2011 14:03

In my post at 13:08 they were both the same though. No return character. And in the OP there isn't even an automatic line break caused by the page ending.

I hate not knowing how things work!

OP posts:
TrillianAstra · 18/04/2011 14:07

I would also like to know how things work.

There is definiteloy something about a requirement for a space before a beginning asterisk.

RustyBear · 18/04/2011 14:26

So why did your a string of bold all get made bold but my brown fox jumps over the lazy didn't?

That's your post copied from viewing the source code - so the asterix after the a didn't register as ending the bolding, which meant that the one before the b of bold didn't register as starting a new bold section.

your a string of bold all get

your a. string of bold. all get

your a string of bold all get

your a string of bold all get

RustyBear · 18/04/2011 14:27

Meant to preview, not post that....

HopeEternal · 18/04/2011 15:25

I think we're going to need Tech to come along and put us out of our misery.

I've looked at the codes for Bertie's OP and for my first post and I can't see any reason why it should have "worked" for Bertie (even though she didn't want it to!) and not "worked" for me.

MNHQ
RachelMumsnet · 18/04/2011 16:10

Hi there, we've reported this to tech so hopefully someone will come along and help out soonest. Sorry not to get back earlier.

OP posts: