Thursday, February 12, 2015

How To Use Basic HTML Text Formatting for Google Blogger Comments (add bold, hyperlinks, & italics to blog comments)


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By Gabriel Staples
Written: 12 Feb. 2015
Last Updated: 10 Oct. 2017
History (newest on top):
-Added links to hostinger - 10 Oct. 2017 
-Misc. updates - 21 Oct. 2016
-Major overhaul of the table formatting - 25 April 2015
-Added "entities" and additional clarification - 14 Feb. 2015
-Added screenshot of HTML-formatted comments - 21 Oct. 2016 

Other Articles:
Intro:

I've been wondering how to put hyperlinks in blog comments for quite some time now, so I finally did a little research to find out how!

Normally blog comments are plain text, but here's a sample screenshot of an HTML-formatted comment, just under this post, which I'm about to teach you how to do yourself.

Read on.

If you'd like to make your next comments at the bottom of an article a little more fancy, with hyperlinks, bold, or italics, for example, here's how!  Feel free to practice your new skills in the comments below this article too, as scratch space to test your syntax.

The following commands are accepted in Google Blogger comments:

HTML Commands ("tags"):


Command ("tag") Effect
<b>...</b> Bold text
<i>...</i> Italic text
<a href="URL">NAME</a> Creates a hyperlink named NAME, to website URL

Here are some examples:



Example Commands ("tags") Effect
I think you <b>REALLY</b> need to learn how to do this! I think you REALLY need to learn how to do this!
This is <i>really</i> neat! This is really neat!
Referring back to your post here: <a href="http://electricrc​aircraftguy​.com/2014/01/​the-power-of-arduino.html">http://electricrc​aircraftguy​.com/2014/01/​the-power-of-arduino.html</a>... Referring back to your post here: http://electricrc​aircraftguy​.com/2014/01/​the-power-of-arduino.html...
Referring back to your post <a href="http://electricrc​aircraftguy.​com/2014/01/​the-power-of-arduino.html">here</a>... Referring back to your post here...

Google Blogger comments, however, cannot accept all HTML formatting tags. Here are some examples of tags NOT accepted:


NOT Accepted Commands ("tags") Effect
<u>...</u> Underline text
<font size="3">...</font> Sets size of font, from 1 to 7
<font color="green">...</font> Sets font color, using name or hex value
<a href="URL"><img src="URL"></a> Creates an image/link







Special Characters (HTML "Entities"):

You can also type special characters using HTML "entities", or special codes that begin with an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon (;) and are used to represent printable characters, rather than to be part of HTML code syntax. Here are some examples:

&#64; = at sign (@)
&lt; = < ("lt" stand for "less than" sign)
&gt; = > ("gt" stands for "greater than" sign)
&Psi; = Ψ (Greek letter "psi")
&ne; = ≠ ("not equal" sign)
&sum; = ∑ (math sum indicator)

Do NOT forget the semicolon at the end of the codes or else they won't work.
For a full list of codes see this page here, from FreeForMatter.com. Notice how they have the entities broken up into categories, including the following:

ASCII Characters
ISO 8859-1 Characters
ISO 8859-1 Symbols
Math Symbols
Greek Letters
Miscellaneous HTML entities

Links to each of the categories are provided at the top of their page. The math symbols, for instance, could prove very useful if you'd like to write a professional-looking math-intensive comment with proper formatting and symbols.

Additionally, sometimes you want to describe how to write a certain HTML code, without the website interpreting what you write in the comment AS the HTML code. Here's how you'd do that, for example:

Instead of writing: "<b>this is how to make bold</b>", which looks like: "this is how to make bold", you could write "&lt;b&gt;this is how to make bold&lt;/b&gt;", which looks like "<b>this is how to make bold</b>".

You Try It:

If you'd like to practice these effects in the comments below, go ahead. Here's a block of text to copy and paste into the comments section to get you started:

--------------------------------------------START----------------------------------------------
I think you <b>REALLY</b> need to learn how to do this! (bold)
This is <i>really</i> neat! (italics)

Referring back to your post here: <a href="http://electricrcaircraftguy.com/2014/01/the-power-of-arduino.html">http://electricrcaircraftguy.com/2014/01/the-power-of-arduino.html</a>...

Referring back to your post <a href="http://electricrcaircraftguy.com/2014/01/the-power-of-arduino.html">here</a>...

<b>Special Characters:</b>
&#64; = at sign (@)
&lt; = < ("lt" stand for "less than" sign)
&gt; = > ("gt" stands for "greater than" sign)
&Psi; = Ψ (Greek letter "psi")
&ne; = ≠ ("not equal" sign)
&sum; = ∑ (math sum indicator)

<b>this is how to make bold</b> (this line is actually bold)

&lt;b&gt;this is how to make bold&lt;/b&gt; (this line shows the syntax of how to write the HTML tag to make a line bold)
--------------------------------------------END----------------------------------------------

Going Further with HTML:

If you'd like to have a more thorough HTML cheat sheet in general, not just for the few HTML tags you can use in Google Blogger comments, I recommend you check out this cheat here: https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/html-cheat-sheet. There are a LOT of HTML learning resources online so also check out TutorialsPoint.com and others too. Hostinger just so happens to be one who reached out to me directly is all so I linked to them as one example.

Also, if you use git or GitHub for version control of any source code you may write, here is a nice list of "Basic Git Commands" from Hostinger as well: https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/basic-git-commands.

References:



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9 comments:

  1. This is my test comment:

    I think you REALLY need to learn how to do this!
    This is really neat!

    Referring back to your post here: http://electricrcaircraftguy.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-power-of-arduino.html...

    Referring back to your post here...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you REALLY need to learn how to do this! (bold)
    This is really neat! (italics)

    Referring back to your post here: http://electricrcaircraftguy.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-power-of-arduino.html...

    Referring back to your post here...

    Special Characters:
    @ = at sign (@)
    < = < ("lt" stand for "less than" sign)
    > = > ("gt" stands for "greater than" sign)
    Ψ = Ψ (Greek letter "psi")
    ≠ = ≠ ("not equal" sign)
    ∑ = ∑ (math sum indicator)

    this is how to make bold (this line is actually bold)

    <b>this is how to make bold</b> (this line shows the syntax of how to write the HTML tag to make a line bold)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you REALLY need to learn how to do this! (bold)
    This is really neat! (italics)

    Referring back to your post here: http://electricrcaircraftguy.com/2014/01/the-power-of-arduino.html...

    Referring back to your post here...

    Special Characters:
    @ = at sign (@)
    < = < ("lt" stand for "less than" sign)
    > = > ("gt" stands for "greater than" sign)
    Ψ = Ψ (Greek letter "psi")
    ≠ = ≠ ("not equal" sign)
    ∑ = ∑ (math sum indicator)

    this is how to make bold (this line is actually bold)

    <b>this is how to make bold</b> (this line shows the syntax of how to write the HTML tag to make a line bold)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steve, if you can respond within 24 hrs and give me a convincing reason why you posted this statement, I'll let it stand. Otherwise I'm marking it as spam and deleting it.

      Delete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment or question! If it is a question, I will try to get back to you quickly. Notice to spammers: I personally remove all spam promptly and report spammers to Google, so please don't do it.

Note: some HTML tags are allowed in your comments. To learn how to add bold (<b>...</b>), italics (<i>...</i>), or hyperlinks (<a href="URL">NAME</a>) to your comments, read here.

~Sincerely, Gabriel Staples.

P.S. Yo hablo español también. Je parle français aussi. (I speak Spanish & French too).