# Formatting text on eBay

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-text-on-ebay/475451
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 3, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-text-on-ebay/475451 "2008-12-03T03:28:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-text-on-ebay/475451/1 "2008-12-03T03:28:17Z")

</div>

I used the search function for the ebay newbie thread in progress, but as we know it is teh crap. Anyway, I am trying to sell some books on ebay and want to list the chapters, like so:

Introduction

1- Setting up the widget

2- Configuring the widget

3- Maintaining the widget

etc., but it keeps stripping out the carriage returns so it looks like this:

1- Setting up the widget 2- Configuring the widget 3- Maintaining the widget  
Why would they do this? They aren’t saving bandwidth, who cares if my listing has a scroll? Are they just being dicks? How do I get around this so I can format a decent text listing for an item?

Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-text-on-ebay/475451/2 "2008-12-03T03:32:33Z")

</div>

It might have to do with HTML mode and it not converting the line breaks correctly.

Try adding a \<p\> at the beginning of every line for a double line break, or a \<br\> for a single line break.