# Formatting questions

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-questions/250498>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 15, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-questions/250498 "2004-06-15T16:55:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-questions/250498/1 "2004-06-15T16:55:56Z")

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1. How can I get my options to re-default to ‘display sig’? I’ve done some experimenting, but mostly seem to wind up with no sig. This is frustrating, and I’m tired of guessing. Shouldn’t this be a “sticky”?

2. How are superscripts and subscripts done?

3. How are non-English alpahbet letters (i.e., characters with diacritical marks) done?

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**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2004, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-questions/250498/2 "2004-06-15T17:01:08Z")

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1. Subscripts and superscripts are done just like bolding or italicizing, only with “sub” or “sup” instead.

2. You need to know the numeric code. In your entry you’d type **&###;**. So long as you don’t preview it works. Once you preview, it is over and you have to retype the number. I am extremely disappointed in this setup and wish that perfectly valid html characters were not eaten by the parser. There is nothing scary that will happen if someone uses ¢, unlike blocking scripting or actual markup.

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**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-questions/250498/3 "2004-06-15T17:02:29Z")

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Also, we have a forum for message board questions. [About this Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?&forumid=2).

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-questions/250498/4 "2004-06-15T17:26:01Z")

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> [@tygerbryght](#):
>
> 1. How can I get my options to re-default to ‘display sig’? I’ve done some experimenting, but mostly seem to wind up with no sig. This is frustrating, and I’m tired of guessing. Shouldn’t this be a “sticky”?

You can’t. That option is set globally by the admins.