LEHSYS Side Notes: Windows Live Writer 2011: How to Indent Text [alternatives]

Windows live writer doesn’t have a definitive indent function; it’s not altogether obvious. And the indent function is not represented in the toolbar.

Curiously enough, you can utilize the TAB function on the keyboard to indent text, but Windows live writer uses the the BLOCKQUOTE function from the HTML, but this doesn't always work for all themes/users; because all themes are different, they use CSS in many different ways, and the results my not be what you want.

If you’re comfortable with HTML, and custom style sheets, you can edit the CSS for the blog to adjust for this, but if you know NOTHING about CSS and HTML, there should be an option to account for something like this - but there’s not.

Well, it can be done with other options.

The issue is that Windows Live Writer doesn’t offer indent options in the application. Even the WordPress editor has the option to indent [using the PARAGRAPH tag]…

If you have multiple blog accounts, using multiple themes, you may need the ability to use different types of indention methods, not just BLOCKQUOTE.

Here’s an robust option…

You can use a plug-in called Dynamic Templates. It has some advanced features so that you can create, and inject HTML directly into the post that you’re composing; the plug-in offers more advanced features than just providing an indent option.

Make sure you watch the videos- they are very educational.

Website:
http://www.joecheng.com/code/DynamicTemplate/

Example using a paragraph tag:
<p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">PUTYOURTEXTHERE</p>

Example using a DIV tag:
<div class="mycode" style="margin-left: 40px;">PUTYOURTEXTHERE</DIV>

You can add any amount of HTML code you want here, but we’re actually working with intentions…

and here’s a quick solution…

If you only have one blog, and you only had the need to insert some specialty code every once in a while and you don’t want any extra clicks, you can use another plug-in for Windows live writer called WintyCodeArea.

Here's a link to the main Windows Live Writer gallery...
http://gallery.live.com/results.aspx?bt=9&pl=8

This plug-in is actually very simple, in the fact that it will allow you to inject a simple piece of HTML code directly into the post, based on whatever you selected.

The options for the plug-in are in the menu area of Windows Live Writer, under plug-ins.