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Questions tagged [formatting]

Formatting could mean the form and layout of any text or any other type of document. Formatting could also imply the preparation of storage media for accepting data. This would mean Formatting is the synonym of Formatting.

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1 answer
118 views

Blockquote button broken?

Blockquote Blockquote> HelloBlockquote Blockquote Above is an example of what I get when trying to create a blockquote using the toolbar button. I'm fairly sure this isn't what's meant to happen. I'...
7 votes
1 answer
131 views

List of "languages" to be used in "preformatted" code blocks for "Syntax Highlighting"

When I enter a "preformatted" code block in a body of Q or A, I have the option to specify the language of this code like this: ```bash #!/bin/bash echo "something" sleep 10 exit ``...
5 votes
2 answers
348 views

How should I paste from my terminal?

I am aware of the editing help topic, but I'm still not sure how I am supposed to format the text I copy/pasted from my terminal. I want to be able to share these details from my terminal and I want ...
6 votes
1 answer
75 views

How do I add files to posts?

I know how to add an image file in question post like this, but I need to add a very wide txt file and I am strugling for this. Please, what I'm missing ? If I click on image insertion button I can ...
3 votes
2 answers
118 views

Is the <blockquote> tag working correctly on Ask Ubuntu?

I've been trying to use the <blockquote> tag to include literal output in this forum, but I cannot get it to work for me. My understanding is that if a chunk of text is surrounded by the <...
9 votes
2 answers
151 views

Suggested improvements to "Markdown help" and formatting help

On Ask Ubuntu we have a lot of questions and answers that include multiple lines of terminal output which is best handled by using code fences. Without formatting, this information is difficult to ...
7 votes
2 answers
206 views

How do you handle questions that include Ubuntu pastebin links?

Ubuntu pastebin is a nice online tool for sharing formatted text between users, especially for very large log files for a short period of time, then it expires and is permanently deleted. Stumbling ...
9 votes
0 answers
166 views

Code fence formatting problems to watch out for and fix

Since the start of 2019, code fences have been fully supported on Stack Exchange sites. By code fences, I mean the use of opening and closing triple backticks to format a code block. The effect of ...
0 votes
0 answers
65 views

What kind of text formatting is possible in reply of the question in Ask Ubuntu? [duplicate]

I'm a newbie on Ask Ubuntu. I can use the text formatting in the body of question in Ask Ubuntu. Then, what kind of text formatting is possible in reply of the question? I did not find such ...
9 votes
2 answers
209 views

Formatting a comment

Is it possible to format a comment, as in, include blockqoute like properties? I've noticed that the help mentions that 'code' can be used for code, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Either ...
10 votes
2 answers
240 views

Standards for editing

I've being an active member of AskUbuntu and Unix & Linux for some time now. As such, I often edit Q&As. But I'm lost in some aspects and details of specific editing standards. This post and ...
6 votes
5 answers
651 views

How do I add images to posts?

How do I add images to a question, answer or comment. When I press Images on the top panel it says something like "Images are exactly like links..." and suggests adding the link to the image. But what ...
5 votes
2 answers
115 views

Use ISO 8601 or some localized format to display question, answer, edit, and comment dates instead of the "customary" M/D/Y

Date stamps are shown in a non-standardised format "mmm d 'yy": When you hover the pointer over the date, you get title text showing the date and time in ISO 8601 standard format: "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:...
2 votes
1 answer
264 views

Why does the little help box call them "backticks" when they're graves?

I've noticed that when the little help box appears to the side, it says to show code using "backticks" when they are called graves. For clarification, I am talking about these: `. I don't think that ...
2 votes
0 answers
195 views

Preformatted text horizontal scrolling - bug or feature?

AskUbuntu help recommend to style pre-formatted text and console output with #four spaces But sometimes it results in scrolling text. See this question as an example. The problematic line (as ...
3 votes
2 answers
130 views

Should abbreviations and acronyms be discouraged?

Sometimes, a question is not clear simply because it contains an abbreviation or acronym that a reader doesn't understand. I wonder if the instructions should encourage the definition of these things ...
12 votes
1 answer
179 views

Can't format question properly because of character limit

I have a problem with editing this question: Upgrade to 18.04, now sudo apt-get upgrade produces loads of insserv errors OP didn't format the terminal output (which as you can see, is really long), ...
8 votes
3 answers
178 views

Unexpected formatting with code in list

I posted a answer and below some list items the code content turned to other format different from what I was expecting. I tried to indent either by code button or manually but didn't work. Is It a UI ...
-5 votes
3 answers
348 views

Proper use of Bold and Italic text in posts?

I would like to make this post to specify "proper" methods of bolding/italicizing text in questions and answers to keep the site clean and easy-to-read. Partially based off of my other question on ...
11 votes
2 answers
370 views

Should the keys be written in uppercase?

Could you please explain about the usage of keys in Ask Ubuntu? Should the keys be written in uppercase (CTRL) or only the first letter should be in uppercase(Ctrl)? Is there any difference or both of ...
-3 votes
2 answers
91 views

Presentation of code should include explanation in a separate comment section

This is just an idea and I would like to see what the feedback is. The problem Starting Linux I've found myself many times looking through example code on this site and finding out what it actually ...
6 votes
2 answers
50 views

Transcribing syslog and preserving the line breaks

I'm trying to copy a segment of my syslog to a question here. The problem is that all the linefeeds are lost when I do the copy, so the transcription is very difficult to read. How can I avoid this?
4 votes
1 answer
86 views

How do I use the grey formatting in a comment? [duplicate]

Someone showed me (by editing my question for me) how to make some of your text show up grey to show it is code. Now I need to know how to do it in a comment.
4 votes
1 answer
201 views

How to properly add code in comment

How can I properly add a line of code in a comment like this test test I like it more grey than test test if that is possible. Or if there is another way to define code in a comment to make it ...
6 votes
1 answer
99 views

Automatically wrapping lines in Ask Ubuntu

I'm new to forums and stuff like that. I need to post my wifi-info scripts output in Ask Ubuntu using Firefox and I need to keep it as it is without wrapping any lines. As soon as copy and paste it, ...
10 votes
2 answers
455 views

What should I do when a user persistently insists on poor formatting and resists formatting improvements?

Context: https://askubuntu.com/posts/971884/revisions I edited an answer of a user who got distracted and forgot the Markdown syntax, using 1) instead of 1. for writing an ordered list. Therefore the ...
1 vote
0 answers
23 views

How to input/type buttons on posts? [duplicate]

I have tried multiple times to find the "button" button in order to convert e.g. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to button sequence. Can anyone help me? I tried to find it in the desktop version of Ask Ubuntu and on the ...
3 votes
2 answers
115 views

How to find posts with html tags like <code>

I keep finding things with the <code> tag or the <pre> tag instead of four spaces or inline code formatting. I want to find these and fix them, replacing them with the better code ...
15 votes
1 answer
327 views

Please don't use underscores for formatting

SE Markdown supports both underscores and asterisks for marking italics and bold: _foo_ __foo__ *foo* **foo** foo foo foo foo However, the SE editor (both in browsers and apps) only recognises (...
-3 votes
1 answer
184 views

Can someone elaborate for me the rule on using the back tick for emphasis? [duplicate]

Is there a rule against which markdown codes are allowed in formatting text for easy reading? It's my impressing that a lot of text that is displayed that isn't code is displayed using code tags to ...
2 votes
1 answer
377 views

How do I put scrollable preformatted / code blocks in my question?

This may seem like a simple question, but how do I put a box of scrollable code or preformatted text in my question or comment on AskUbuntu? It would be great if this question and the answer ...
4 votes
3 answers
2k views

How do I escape backticks in a backticks command?

I found: "How do I escape backticks in a comment?", but I want to escape backticks, if I use backticks to format code in an answer. The following doesn't work: `sudo update-initramfs -v -u -k \`...
1 vote
2 answers
24 views

Full documentation on formatting?

7 votes
1 answer
164 views

Make blockquote formatting button not destroy the source layout!

You ever had a post in front of you where the OP did mix up blockquote and code formatting? Not those easy cases where he/she wrote a > character before the paragraph himself, but those cases when ...
3 votes
1 answer
99 views

Formatting guideline / convention for program names, commands, strings, values, (...)?

I usually highlight anything that should stick out from regular statements like a program name, a command, a string or a value by enclosing it between backticks, while I usually highlight something ...
11 votes
3 answers
223 views

Code formatting: backticks or four spaces?

Code segments can be formatted by either starting the line with four spaces or by enclosing the code in backticks. What is the reason for using one over the other? The reason I ask is that my ...
2 votes
2 answers
131 views

Code tag/code highlight problem in sub-comment on askUbuntu mainpage

I am wondering, why code tag and bold text option which both work perfectly fine in full comments doesn't work in sub-comments, like shown in the screenshot below, using the same syntax?! Sometimes, ...
5 votes
1 answer
88 views

How to do code formatting within numbering or bullets?

When doing editing, in certain places I find difficulties to format codes those are within Numbering and Bullets. Example is this. What I did was cut and paste the line which needs code formatting to ...
8 votes
1 answer
123 views

When citing another user, how should her/his username be formatted?

E.g., I sometimes use bold-italics (***text here***) because it looks alright, and provide a link to what I'm quoting/citing. Alternatively, I could imagine to additionally linkify the username to ...
4 votes
1 answer
282 views

Is this syntax highlighting intended behavior or a bug?

I came across an answer earlier today which had code blocks containing some text portions in blue. Below is a screenshot of the beginning of the answer for convenience: I have never seen this before, ...
5 votes
2 answers
59 views

matched parentheses in hyperlinks are not handled correctly

When a hyperlink contains a ( character that is matched at the end of the URL by a ) character, AskUbuntu should recognize that the final ) character is part of the URL. However, currently that is not ...
2 votes
1 answer
120 views

HTML in questions but not comments?

Why is it that we can use HTML markup and entities in questions but not in comments? Shouldn't they be the same? Testing markdown here, italic, bold... well, that seems to work.
7 votes
1 answer
344 views

What HTML and/or Markdown code is allowed in comments?

What HTML and/or Markdown code is allowed in comments?
1 vote
1 answer
102 views

BBcode on Ask Ubuntu

Can somebody please explain how to post CODE in here? I followed this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1189729 but it doesn't work for me. I copy and paste a code from Terminal and ...
16 votes
1 answer
179 views

Formatting, backticks and editing

This was a concern raised in UL some time ago, but recently I've seen several cases where I've changed the use of backticks, I will ripoff strugee post from UL: I've noticed that a lot of new users ...
4 votes
1 answer
92 views

Has <key> been disabled?

I've noticed I'm not able to use key button formatting like <key>ESC</key>. Has it been disabled? And if yes, why?
4 votes
0 answers
64 views

Descenders in comments chopped off in Windows Chrome

In my browser (Chrome 29 on Windows 7), descenders are chopped off in comments, which makes it fairly annoying to read, as g's look like q's (most other letters with descenders are fairly unambiguous, ...
10 votes
1 answer
210 views

Using <pre> tags vs 4 space indentation

Which should be used to format a block of text in code (monospace font). I personally believe that manually indenting each line of long console output or a log file can be very slow and repetitive, so ...
7 votes
1 answer
118 views

What is the correct way to format search terms, button names, etc.?

What is the correct way to format terms which should be searched for or button names? Example: Search for "Settings" Click on the "System Settings" button Should an inline code span be used, "...
6 votes
1 answer
88 views

How to guide readers to specific sections to a lengthy answer?

Have basically copied a wiki article as an answer to a question on main site but would like to add some form of Table of Contents at the beginning of the answer to guide readers to the part which the ...