I’ve noticed that in some individual posts, the font changes from Arial to [what looks like?] Times New Roman, and then back again. How does this happen? I am certain it is not intentional on the part of certain posters, but the change in font type between paragraphs definitely is happening. I’ve noticed it in many different threads, probably because the change in font happens to annoy me (so far, I’ve only noticed it occurring in the text immediately after a quote).
My theory–perhaps they are cutting-and-pasting their text from a word processor using Times, and some type of font-encoding is hidden in that data? (When I simply press the “quote” button on such a post, it does not reveal any visible font-specification coding.)
Click here and scroll down about 16 posts to the post by Dangerosa, to see an example of this phenomenon. Then go down a little further (~10 more posts), when Lamia quotes Dangerosa, and you’ll see it happen again. Actually, the best example I found in that thread is 4 posts up (at least right now) from the very bottom of that page, by Gaspode.
This is an old, familiar problem, though I’m unable to locate the thread that explained it. So, here goes. I think this happens only in Netscape, though I’m using Netscape 6 and I don’t see it. If you have a close-format tag, such as [**/b] or [/i****], with no corresponding open-format tag, such as [b**] or [****i], Netscape reverts to the default font, which is Times New Roman. To avoid this problem, make sure all your tags are paired up. Incidentally, if you put the open-format tag but leave off the close-format tag, you’ll get another familiar problem - the whole second half of your post will be in italics (or whatever). This happens in MGibson’s first post in that thread you linked to.
The reason that this happens so much with Quotes is this: Picking quote automatically inserts a [B****] at the beginning and a [****/B] at the end of the quote. People who who want to quote only the end of someone’s post, but who aren’t wary of this problem, will delete the [****B] and leave the [/****B], not realizing what the end result will be. It’s odd that you mention that when you pick quote that there is no visible coding. For me, these tags always show up. But don’t worry about there being invisible coding - I think we’re safe from that.
Also, you mention that it goes from Arial to Times and back again. Like I said, I can’t see the phenomenon, but if memory serves, I don’t think that’s possible to do in a single post. You can go to Times, but you can’t come back. I could be wrong about this, though, so whatever.
Thanks, Achernar, for your excellent explanation. I am using Netscape (v4.7), and verified that using an [/end] tag with no corresponding [beginning] tag was reponsible.
By the way, when I hit the quote button, I DO see the bold tags, etc., but meant to say that I did not see anything like [font=Times] or the like. Interestingly, I do not see anything wrong with MGibson’s post on my computer, although adjacent posts by Mangetout and Sterra both left the [b**] tag on without closing.
I was playing around in preview mode, and found that only {/b} and {/i}, not {/url} or {/quote}, will change the font. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure that I ever observed the font change “back again” within an individual post, but there certainly is at least one way it can happen within the same post, as I demonstrate below:
After the the end of this sentence I will use a stray [/i**] tag to switch the font. * OK, you are now reading this in Times, if your computer behaves like mine. And I will now change the font back to Arial, after executing the following code:
This is the 'code' font, Courier, I believe...
And now we are mysteriously back to Arial again!
So, I’ve demonstrated that one CAN have at least three different fonts in a single post, at least with some browsers 