Formatting?

[Paint the Sky]

I given the thread the title formatting, because I'm not really sure what else to call it.

I updated my fic on the pens board, using the same text and layout as all the other updates, but this time it has done that thing were the text goes offscreen and you have to scroll across to read it.

Why would this have happened when I done everything just like before, and is there a way to fix it?

And, does it mean the rest of the page will follow suit?

Thanks for any info or help you can provide.

[maudmac]

Hey, Paint the Sky. Quiet Saturday Mornings, right?

I'm not really sure what else to call it.

lol, it's usually called a "margin fuck" but I guess if you wanted to be more polite (not that it's necessary), you could just say that something messed up the margins.

It wasn't your post that messed up the margins that way, it was someone else's post, and I fixed it. Your post was fine. No worries.

Usually the source of a margin fuck is a long, unbroken string of characters, usually something like someone screaming NOOOOOOOO.... or YESSSSSSS.... (but waaaay longer) or, in fics, overly enthusiastic breaks like a million ********* or ~~~~~~~~~~. When there is no space at all between any of them, it will stretch the page's margins that way and it will affect the whole thread. If I see them, I edit them. But if anyone else notices them in any thread, feel free to PM me and I'll fix it.

[Paint the Sky]

Thankyou.

I've always wondered what did that. And, margin fuck, ha-ha - most appropriate!

Sorry, I should have said what fic had been updated, my bad.

Thankyou for fixing it.

[PolarBear]

One hint about reading threads with fucked up marginals. Most people probably know this anyway, but just in case someone doesn't.

If you copy the text you want to read and paste it into a text editor (Notepad works fine) you should be able to read it normally there, without "marginal fuck". I did this when I was reading the update in question in and it worked. Personally I find reading extremely wide lines very frustrating so I always try that first and in most cases it works

[Paint the Sky]

Good tip, Polarbear. That's what i usually do when I'm reading fic's where this problem has occured, but as I thought I had caused the problem I wanted to know how to avoid it in future, and I was always curious about it anyway's so a little gap in my knowledge filled in.