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Paragraph spacing/"Add paragraph dom element" button

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Posted   2 years ago
  ●   Edited   2 years ago

I prefer to avoid adding extra carriage returns to create spacing between paragraphs, so I was happy when I discovered the "Add paragraph dom element" button, which adds a few pixels of space between paragraphs that are otherwise adjacent. (I understand the nature of what the button's doing, essentially wrapping each paragraph in "p" tags.)  Unfortunately, that button is either a little wonky or I'm not using it right, because getting it to work consistently is kind of challenging. Sometimes it won't add anything, sometimes it adds space to the paragraph after the one that's selected, and sometimes it works the way it's supposed to. I've played around with line feed characters and carriage return characters to see if that makes a difference in how it identifies discrete paragraphs, and it doesn't appear to. 

I'm copying and pasting out of a Word doc into text boxes, and the content appears to be inserted as plain text, so I don't think there's any formatting weirdness that's being carried over from the source. It just seems like it's arbitrarily deciding that some hard returns aren't hard returns at all. Can you provide any guidance on how I might make better use of that button? Thanks as always!

 

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Posted   2 years ago
  ●   Edited   2 years ago

I'm answering my own question again.

I just discovered that the following steps work consistently to add spacing between paragraphs:

  1. Paste/type multiple paragraphs into a text box
  2. Insert two hard returns between two paragraphs, so it creates whitespace between them.
  3. With the cursor sitting on the blank paragraph that was just added, click the "backwards P"/"Insert a paragraph dom element..." button on the context-sensitive Format tab that appears when editing text.
  4. Use one of the arrow keys to move the cursor out of the blank paragraph. The blank paragraph will disappear, leaving behind only the additional space.
  5. If you click outside of the text box to exit the text editor, then double-click it to enter it again, the hard return you inserted (and that disappeared when you pressed the arrow key) will reappear. You should be able to delete it now, then use the "backwards P" button again, and it'll work the way it's supposed to. Some fiddling with inserting and deleting paragraphs might still be necessary in text elements that contain lots of regular paragraphs, especially if some are formatted as bulleted or numbered lists. 

Edit: Upon closer examination (and without the benefit of being able to debug the application myself), my guess is that there are inconsistencies in the way Claro interprets whitespace when text is being actively edited, and when certain commands are issued to the text editor. It seems to be ignoring whitespace between closed "p" tags in some circumstances, and respecting it in others. Have fun with that. :)

Edit 2: Clarified and expanded instructions.

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