Dave, having formatting issues in stick links

Hi Dave, I was trying to update the African Violet sticky link (third post with all of the various links) and for some reason, my regular formatting is not working.
I have always kept a Word document with simple HTML (bold, italic, underline etc) to copy/paste from. An example is the second post with FAQ http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/565222/
or the Gesneriad list of links here http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/565223/

Today, I added links to my document, copy/pasted them as I have been doing for over a year, but today it seems something has gone awry.
Previously I had some conversations with Terry about odd characters appearing (see the screenshot below) that seemed to randomly appear even though I had not changed the formatting.

Today it was so messed up, when I posted the info, that I just deleted it.
any idea how to get it all back? (I do have a back up copy of what I deleted)

If needed, I can re-copy the info so you can have a look, or I'll try pasting it in the next post.

Meant to title this Sticky links not Stick, sorry bout that.

So I just tried it again, after three attempts that failed (didn't post all but just did a preview) and now it's working (scratching head???). And those stray characters are gone in this new post.
Weird gremlins at work? I see that the glyphs are there in the second post of the AV sticky though.

Gremlins are back. I left the Gesneriad sticky as it was after I posted the new links

Can you see how they all run together? That's how the AV links looked. I did the same that I always do with copy/paste from my word doc.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/565223/


Same thing happened with the AV's but the second go around, it looked correct? What's happening?

It looks like you copied and pasted in a bunch of HTML code. The system strips out that stuff to protect us all from web attacks.

Did you use some kind of special software to edit that post?

dave

Addendum: I restored the post from last night's backup...

I copy/pasted the same thing I have been doing for over a year. It is the same HTML code allowed in the FAQ section (bold, italics etc, but nothing more)

When I did the AV sticky this morning, the first three tries gave me the garbled results you saw on the Gesneriad sticky. The fourth try, it came out normally. I didn't do anything different at each try. Same with the Gesneriads?

I just use simple HTML code, save my work in a Word document, no special software. And what about those weird characters? I didn't put those in. The system did.

It's strange. What appeared in the post was html entities (like an ampersand, followed by a pound sign, then some numbers and then a semicolon). I think MS Word inserted those and they broke the formatting at DG... I recommend trying again, but this time make sure there is a space directly before each hyperlink.

dave

Well, not sure what's going on. But I tried once again, got the same garbled results, copied the same text into a blank email, deleted everything from the post and started over.
Worked this time. I'm going to quit fiddling around with it since I am likely nearing my edit capacity for the day, (or are stickies like the co-ops with unlimited edits?) and for the time being it's working (aside from those strange characters). Thanks Dave.

I think stickies still count as regular posts, unless the sticky is in one of the few forums that are exempt. Well, let's see how it goes next time.

Perhaps you could try this and see if it is Word's fault.. Cut and paste the HTML tags to Notepad first, fix everything as you would like it in there, and then cut & paste from Notepad to your thread. It's an extra step, which is a pain, but if Word is adding the gobbledygook Notepad will screen it out.

Thanks Marylyn!!! I'll give it a try.

Hey, good idea Marylyn! Notepad indeed would strip out any extra "junk" the Word would have put in. Well done.

Thank you! :-) I use Notepad a lot for moving data around for just that reason.

I'm not a geek, but I speak the language fluently... ;-)
~ Marylyn

I am not familiar with Notepad in Word (Mac version here) so I did a search and cannot find it. I have 'Scrapbook' is that the same thing?

Hmmm... I'm not too familiar with Macs. TeachText may do the same thing, if it is still available to you... You want a program that won't actually do any of the formatting, so it totally ignores it.

Begonia, the Apple discussion forums have been a lifesaver for this computer novice. Maybe there is some information for you there. 'discussions.apple.com/index'