A powerful formatting language developed specifically for this application
allows you to format your poetry submissions without knowledge of HTML. This
formatting language is easy for both HTML users and non-HTML users to learn
quickly. You can make your poem a true work of art, adding clip art from either
our limited supply or uploading your own clip art or pictures. There are
examples after each major section.
If you need some assistance with any of these formatting instructions, feel
free to contact the Webmaster.
The code is a keyword to invoke the desired formatting (for example, green to produce green text and b to produce bold text). Formatting tags are case sensitive. Formatting tags may be nested within other tags. A comprehensive list of available formatting tags is available in this document (although the system administrator can turn off certain tags).
To use formatting, enter the appropriate code(s) in the text of your message or subject line. When you preview your post, your formatting will be displayed so you can verify that you have entered your tags properly.
The "Symbol" font, supported on Windows platforms, allows the incorporation of Greek characters which is especially useful for mathematical notation in many scientific disciplines. The following table gives available Greek characters in groups of 5.
Tag
Result
Tag
Result
\greek{abcde}
abcde
\greek{ABCDE}
ABCDE
\greek{fghij}
fghij
\greek{FGHIJ}
FGHIJ
\greek{klmno}
klmno
\greek{KLMNO}
KLMNO
\greek{pqrst}
pqrst
\greek{PQRST}
PQRST
\greek{uvwxyz}
uvwxyz
\greek{UVWXYZ}
UVWXYZ
Backslashes, and curly braces have special meanings to the interpreter.
If you wish to use these characters as text within a tag, you
must "escape" them as with a backslash. Additionally, when you are using a tag that requires 2 or more arguments and you want to include a comma within the arguments (and not have it interpreted as a separator), you must escape it with a backslash. See the examples.
Upon posting, you are prompted
for an image file to upload. Images must be either GIF or JPEG format.
Images must be saved on your hard disk. Your browser must support form-based
file upload (Netscape Navigator 2.0+ and Internet Explorer 4.0+ support
this; IE 3.02 will also work provided that you have installed the file
upload patch).
Remember all images are uploaded
in the size they are saved in. Please edit your images prior to uploading
to the poetry page to ensure they they are the size that you require.
You can hand-enter tables or you can paste in tables directly from a tab-delimited
spreadsheet (such as Microsoft Excel). See the "Pasting Tables" instructions
if you are pasting a table directly from Excel.
Tag
Description
\table{Table Items}
Creates a table of the Table
Items (table HAS a border)
\tablenb{Table Items}
Creates a table of the Table
Items (table has NO border)
\list{List Items}
Creates a bulleted list of the
List Items
\olist{List Items}
Creates an ordered (numbered
list of the List Items)
Table
Items and List Items
The Table Items are divided into columns by commas and into rows by
newline characters (carriage returns). Thus, the entry \table{1,2,3}
would create a table with three columns (with entries "1", "2",
and "3").
The List Items are separated by newline characters (carriage returns).
Each List Item is given a bullet.
See the examples for further explanation.
Pasting
Tables
You can paste in tables from tab-delimited spreadsheets such as Microsoft
Excel. To paste a table, do the following:
Open your spreadsheet using Excel.
Select the range that you wish to paste as a table using Excel.
Choose Edit and then Copy.
Bring up your WWW browser.
Enter an "empty" table tag (such as \table{ } or \tablenb{
}) in your message. Do not put in any Table Items at this time.
Click the mouse between the curly braces in that tag.
The message preview shows your tags in action. If you look at it and your
\b{Bold text} isn't bold, you have made a mistake!
Using / instead of \ to start a tag
/b{Bold text tag} is wrong
\b{Bold text tag} is correct
Using parentheses instead of curly braces
\b(Bold text tag) is wrong
\b{Bold text tag} is correct
Using the wrong case in tags
\B{Bold text tag} is wrong (\B{ } is not defined)
\b{Bold text tag} is correct
Not escaping commas where necessary
Advanced tags use the comma to separate the various arguments. If you need to use a comma and not have it treated as a delimiter, you must escape the comma.
See the discussion under "Special Characters" for further explanation and many examples.
Putting spaces where they do not belong
\ b{Bold text tag} is wrong (space between \ and b).
\b {Bold text tag} is wrong (space between b and {).