Why does the font change in some posts?

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1

This has happened to me a few times: I type my text, preview, and the font changes in the middle of my post from what looks like Arial to something that looks like Times. Why is this happening? Is there some hidden code in there somewhere?

2

I seem to have noticed that a few times also. Do you have a link to a post that shows this behaviour?

3

Hi Arnold - see my post in this thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31532

Am I doing something wrong somewhere?

4

Don’t see anything out of the ordinary in that thread – where do you see the change in font?

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

5

Well, this is really weird - the changed font is gone. I am using a different computer than I was when I posted my original question but I am pretty sure that when this happened before I could see the different fonts on both computers. Hmmm. I’ll have to see if I can find one of my other changed posts and see how it looks now.

6

I’ve seen the changes a few times myself, but they don’t seem to follow any pattern, and I was always too lazy to view source. I’ll try to bemore on the ball next time I see it.

7

I think it is something that only effects Netscape. In missbunny’s post at the very end of the thread, the font changes to Times New Roman immediately after the quote. It actually goes to whatever the default font is.

I don’t see it when using Internet Explorer 5 and since Internet Explorer is the underlying browser for AOL then you probably wouldn’t see it with AOL either.

I see it occasionally. I think that it is caused by a leftover closing bold tag </b> when the bolding is taken off the quote. But why that puts Netscape into it’s default font, I don’t know.

Jim

8

JimB’s right. When you use the “Reply w/Quote” option, You’ll see that there’s a bold tag at the beginning, and an end-bold tag at the end. If you only want to quote the last half of what somebody said, you’re likely just to erase the first half of the quote, including the open bold tag (which is a pair of around a B). If you leave the end-bold tag, though, which looks like with a “/B” inside it, there’s no bolding to end. Netscape gets confused and interprets it as an end-text-formatting tag. Also, if you only quote the first half of someone’s post, you’re likely to delete the end-bold tag, but not the bold tag, and so your entire reply will be in bold.

Put simply, when you pick “Reply w/Quote”, and you delete a tag, be sure to delete its sister tag, or your post could end up looking like this.

9

Thanks guys! Now that I know why this is happening, I do remember that it has only happened when I quote someone. I’ll have to watch out for that end tag next time.

10

But why are the last two post different? Neither is bold.

11

JimB, here’s a cigar and a pat on the back for you! Excellent detective work.

Jois, are you talking about the two last posts in the thread linked to by missbunny? I don’t see anything different in Internet Explorer on Windows. I will have to look tonight using Netscape Navigator on MacOS to see if I notice the same effect that you are describing. If so, we’ll put JimB in charge of explaining it to us.

12

Wonko,

                     I think that I illustrated how your assertion that individual choice is the only cause of
                     imprisonment and that race and racism play no role is, in fact, a racist sentiment.

                     How do people get into prison without committing a crime? Do people just get rounded up
                     for no reason, and just get thrown in jail just to keep the ratios of racial groups even?
                     I know that some people are in jail and are not guilty, and we have recently seen reversals of
                     decades old judgements due to DNA testing and such, but most everyone in jail has at least
                     one common trait. They are criminals, and probably bad ones, because they got caught.

                     Everyone knows how to get into jail.
13

Au natural the Wonko post was one of the split ones with serif party quoted and partly not - Maybe Netscape is trying to help out and makes up the type after the missing **, neat.

14

**So will this activate the font change without a quote? I manually put in the “end bold” tag.

15

Thanks, Arnold. I don’t know which post Jois is talking about, but like Chronos just showed it doesn’t have to be a quote. Just leave an extra ‘end bold’ tag around and it happens. And Achernar did a lot better job of explaining than I did.

But, thanks for the cigar,
Jim

16

Nevertheless, JimB, you were the first to conquer the virgin territory that was the mystery of the changed font, and so you deserve full credit.

Achernar and Chronos will receive but a footnote in the history books. Such is life. :frowning:

17

*You switch to the user’s default tag by using an end-italics (as I did in this post) or an end-bold tag.

18

Agreed - you can have my footnote too. I wouldn’t even have posted, but I already went and did all the research before seeing that someone else had answered. Good job.