Why have I lost the formatting ?

  • Unknown's avatar
    franciswright · Member ·

    Hello, and firstly, Happy New Year!
    I am not happy yet. I have just lost the formatting of the first post on my blog.
    It’s the one called ‘Marmaduke Stephenson & Others: some notes for a family history’.
    All I did was try and add one sentence to the text in ‘edit’. This was at about 17.45 UK time. Quite a lot of effort has gone into this piece of work, and it’s going to take me a long time to restore it, unless there is an earlier version somehow preserved that can just be reinstated. If this is the case, please could you reinstate it for me ?
    I would very much welcome an explanation as to why the formatting just disappeared like that … I simply do not understand it, and view it as a waste of time.
    Looking at some comments online, I don’t think I’m alone.
    Wordpress is a superb site, but there are some frustrations attached, especially for thos of us who are not full-time bloggers!
    Help!!!!!!
    Many thanks,
    Francis

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    If you are copying and pasting from a word processing document like Microsoft WORD go to http://en.support.wordpress.com/visual-editor/#pasting-text Note that the paste from WORD button was been removed from the editor, and using the post as plain text icon removes all formatting.

    Whether or not you are copying and pasting go to > Dashboard > Settings > Writing and enable this setting:
    Formatting
    __ WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically
    “save changes”

    Blog editors and word processors are not the same and do not work the same way. The web standard is one blank line only, so you cannot add more blank lines by pressing return repeatedly like you would do with a typewriter or in a word processing application. If you want to learn how to format and space your posts and pages see:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/advanced-html/
    http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2011/09/13/wordpress-formatting-and-spacing/

    P.S. When you create a new post, always make sure the Format tool is set to Paragraph before you start typing. It’s in the Visual editor Row 2 first position “style”. See the illustration here http://en.support.wordpress.com/visual-editor/#row-2 If you forget to do that then edit the post, highlight all in the Visual editor, select Paragraph from the Format tool, switch editor to Text then switch back to Visual and click Update.

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Quite a lot of effort has gone into this piece of work, and it’s going to take me a long time to restore it, unless there is an earlier version somehow preserved that can just be reinstated.

    Nothing I post below negates what I already posted above.

    To locate draft POSTS Dashboard > Posts > All Post > Drafts
    http://franciswright.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_status=draft&post_type=post

    To locate draft PAGES Dashboard > Pages> All Pages > Drafts
    http://franciswright.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_status=draft&post_type=page

    Provided you did not create the post in the new Beep Beep Boop editor where it’s saved only on your browser, and is not auto-saved to the servers for your blog you may be able to recover a lost post or page.

    If the post was created on the dashboard of your own blog at Dashboard > Posts > All Posts > Add New then you ought to be able to recover a lost post or page from revisions if needs be.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-revisions/
    See also if applicable > restoring from trash http://en.support.wordpress.com/trash/#restoring-from-trash

    (If you are referring to a Page then see here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/page-revisions/)

    I recommend:

    1. Always create your posts on the dashboard of your own blog at
    2. Dashboard > Posts > All Posts > Add New
    3. Immediately after creating a post and entering a title click the save draft link. Thereafter, “click save draft” frequently.
    4. Always allow pages to fully load before clicking any other links.
    5. Never leave a post or page open for content creation or editing and walk away from it, or open another tab in the same blog and work on something else while it is still open. Save it properly and return to edit it later.
    6. Use an offline blog editor so you have backups on your own computer http://en.support.wordpress.com/xml-rpc/

    If you cannot locate a revision or restore from Trash then the content has been lost and cannot be recovered.

  • Unknown's avatar
    franciswright · Member ·

    Hey thank you VERY MUCH indeed for this. Much appreciated. I shall see what I can do.
    Best wishes,
    FW

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    You’re welcome Francis.

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