HTML Table Formatting

[sasygle]

I'm new to literotica, currently composing my first story. I'm doing something fairly close to the litrpg genre (that is, I'm using an actual rpg, but the characters are not aware of the system), and I want to make a table of a character's stats.
I've been doing it with fairly simple html, like below:

<p>
<b>Quirks</b>
</p>
<table border="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" rules="groups" frame="hsides">


<colgroup>
<col />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Free-Spirited</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Suspicious</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Unnatural Features (Deep blue skin and hair)</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Unnatural Features (Coal black eyes that burn like embers)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Unfortunately when I do this and then preview the story, it seems like a massive amount of blank spaces get inserted between the <p> tag and the table. Is this just an artifact of the preview, or is there something else going on?

 

[PennyThompson]

Lit will accept a small subset of HTML tags, but sadly tables are not one of them, and it will just strip the tags out.

@FrancesScott has the definitive site-approved list of acceptable tags, How to Format a Story with HTML!

 

[FrancesScott]

Lit will accept a small subset of HTML tags, but sadly tables are not one of them, and it will just strip the tags out.

@FrancesScott has the definitive site-approved list of acceptable tags, How to Format a Story with HTML!

Thank you for the mention.

 

[Katie_Mae]

In addition to what penny said, I have seen one writer include a table by inserting it as an image. The inclusion did put that story into the illustrated section, which isn't necessarily what I'd chose to do, but it's an option.

 

[sasygle]

Oh, that's very strange. The preview actually displays the tables just fine, but for the insane amount of whitespace it adds, so is the preview not representative of how the final story will look?
I guess I can figure out another way to present the information if tables aren't supported at all.

Also disappointing that the list of HTML tags is so small, I had been hoping that <details>would work too.

Thanks much for the fast response though!

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I'm new to literotica, currently composing my first story. I'm doing something fairly close to the litrpg genre (that is, I'm using an actual rpg, but the characters are not aware of the system), and I want to make a table of a character's stats.
I've been doing it with fairly simple html, like below:

<p>
<b>Quirks</b>
</p>
<table border="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" rules="groups" frame="hsides">


<colgroup>
<col />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Free-Spirited</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Suspicious</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Unnatural Features (Deep blue skin and hair)</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Unnatural Features (Coal black eyes that burn like embers)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Unfortunately when I do this and then preview the story, it seems like a massive amount of blank spaces get inserted between the <p> tag and the table. Is this just an artifact of the preview, or is there something else going on?

Try using an unordered list with a colon separating the attribute and the value; How to Format a Story with HTML!

 

[Britva415]

is the preview not representative of how the final story will look?

In this particular case, I guess not.

The preview doesn't handle white space around break tags the same way as final render either.

I think I've seen mention of inconsistent rendering of html entities encoded UTF-style, too.

There are probably yet other issues.

 

[HectorBidon]

If you strip out all the carriage returns and just run all the html text together, it gets rid of the blank lines in Preview at least. Not sure if it will work in the publication version. Like this:

<p><b>Quirks</b></p><table border="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" rules="groups" frame="hsides"><colgroup><col /></colgroup><tbody><tr><td>Free-Spirited</td></tr><tr><td>Suspicious</td></tr><tr><td>Unnatural Features (Deep blue skin and hair)</td></tr><tr><td>Unnatural Features (Coal black eyes that burn like embers)</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

[onehitwanda]

Preview is not representative of the final published work, sadly.

 

[TheLobster]

Preview is not representative of the final published work, sadly.

Yup. Stripping of "unsupported" HTML tags is one thing it definitely doesn't do, given I just got it to show an <input> textbox.

 

[onehitwanda]

Yup. Stripping of "unsupported" HTML tags is one thing it definitely doesn't do, given I just got it to show an <input> textbox.

The tagocide happens on publish, not preview.

 

[sasygle]

It's really disappointing that the preview doesn't actually show how it will display, then. I need to re-evaluate how i write my story then, without the <details> tag it won't flow right as it is.

 

[FrancesScott]

It's really disappointing that the preview doesn't actually show how it will display

As far as I know. Preview is just that, as if you opened your file in a browser. When you submit, the site processes your input file. It chops it into pages (sometimes in inconvenient places), it replaces some formatting with other (hopefully equivalent) formatting, and it strips out some tags. Preview does none of that. It’s just one of the many quirks about this place.

 

[TheLobster]

It's really disappointing that the preview doesn't actually show how it will display, then. I need to re-evaluate how i write my story then, without the <details> tag it won't flow right as it is.

The <table> sample in your first post should work well enough as a <ul> list, which is supported (as per Frances's article).

<details> you can sort of replace with <blockquote>, insofar as visually highlighting an entire paragraph of text. You won't get the collapsible interaction but at least it the text will stand out from the rest of the narrative.

In general, the sad truth is that when it comes to text flow and formatting, you gotta lower your expectations if you want to publish here.

 

[sasygle]

Yeah, lowering expectations is unfortunate; I had wanted to publish here because this is where a lot of the inspiration literature that I've been using comes from, but not having the ability to have those sections be collapsible is likely killer to the flow of the story for anyone who doesn't want to see behind the curtain, which leaves me with the option to either just publish twice, once with and once without the commentary, publish just with the commentary and live with the fact that it won't reach as far as it might otherwise, or publish somewhere else.

 

[FrancesScott]

Yeah, lowering expectations is unfortunate; I had wanted to publish here because this is where a lot of the inspiration literature that I've been using comes from, but not having the ability to have those sections be collapsible is likely killer to the flow of the story for anyone who doesn't want to see behind the curtain, which leaves me with the option to either just publish twice, once with and once without the commentary, publish just with the commentary and live with the fact that it won't reach as far as it might otherwise, or publish somewhere else.

I’m at a loss as to how collapsible sections would work in a physical book. This is a site for storytelling.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Also, be aware that even some tags that are supported (as stated in FrancesScott's useful guide) may be glitchy. We apparently have a recent problem where scene dividers marked with <p align="center">, essential to many people's stories, sporadically disappear at display time.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

The <table> sample in your first post should work well enough as a <ul> list, which is supported (as per Frances's article).

<details> you can sort of replace with <blockquote>, insofar as visually highlighting an entire paragraph of text. You won't get the collapsible interaction but at least it the text will stand out from the rest of the narrative.

In general, the sad truth is that when it comes to text flow and formatting, you gotta lower your expectations if you want to publish here.

It's not so much about lowering your expectations as it is setting realistic ones. This site contains thousands and thousands of documents. I might even speculate that number is in the millions as it's been around for over 25 years. Do a little exercise. Write your story in Word. look at the document size. Move it to Notepad and save as a .txt file. Look again. The last story I did this for dropped in size by 25%.

It's simple, supporting everything is problematic at best. There have to be limits. Some are practical, i.e., file size vs storage. Others are more nefarious. I'm sure you've seen what a mismatched tag can do to a website. Now think about the fact that your tags are embedded in your story which is embedded in a web page that has its own taqs...

As I said, it's not lowering your expectations, it's setting realistic ones.

 

[sasygle]

I’m at a loss as to how collapsible sections would work in a physical book. This is a site for storytelling.

I mean; this site *isn't* a physical book. Physical books aren't the only means for storytelling, and a story isn't lesser for not being structured like standard books.

That said, glossed and annotated books are pretty common, as are footnotes, which are able to make use of the physical structure of books (pages are short and of fixed size, you can print whatever wherever you want, etc) in ways that simply aren't feasible in the structure of a story on this site, and collapsible sections allow the same experience of seeing that there are annotations, but being able to ignore them if you like.

 

[FrancesScott]

I mean; this site *isn't* a physical book. Physical books aren't the only means for storytelling, and a story isn't lesser for not being structured like standard books.

That said, glossed and annotated books are pretty common, as are footnotes, which are able to make use of the physical structure of books (pages are short and of fixed size, you can print whatever wherever you want, etc) in ways that simply aren't feasible in the structure of a story on this site, and collapsible sections allow the same experience of seeing that there are annotations, but being able to ignore them if you like.

I guess I’m saying, “Maybe focus on your writing.”