Why is the text capsule set to paragraphs?

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   Titiaposted 9 years ago

   Every time I hit the enter in the text capsule, the cursor skips a line, resulting in an extra white line, like I wanted to start a new paragraph. It doesn't work that way here in the forum. When I hit the enter here, the new line is right under the line above it and when I want an extra white space I hit the enter button twice. Not so in the text capsule though.
   
   Very annoying when writing down a poem. The only way I can get it straight is to switch to html and remove all the  and . That's not a pleasant way to write. I tried the soft return, but that didn't help either.
   
   I'm a bit concerned now for when my lenses become hubs, because I wrote/used a lot of poetry in my lenses and some are written in the concrete (shaped) form, which will look like a mess I fear.

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   1. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      They are set to paragraphs because HubPages is designed for prose not poetry, and they want to ensure that Hubs have a clear space between paragraphs.  Left to their own devices, some Hubbers might not do that and use indent paragraphs instead, and HubPages wants to preserve their "house" style on all Hubs.
      
      HubPages exists to earn money, and poetry earns very poorly, so there's no incentive for HP to offer specialised formatting for poetry.   They do have a special section for poetry and exempt it from the length requirements, though. 
      
      Some Hubbers use one of the Heading formats for poetry but I can't recall which one.
      
      I believe the forums are run on third party software.

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   2. 0

      fluffanuttaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Try pressing Shift+Return or Ctrl+Return. That should give a line break without a new paragraph.

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      1. 92

         Titiaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I tried a soft return (shift+return), but it didn't work. Writing isn't about prose alone you know, there are many people who write poetry. I've done it my whole life and quite often I use my own photos to write to/about. A poem with extra line breaks looks terrible.
         
         Maybe HP could consider making a special capsule for poems where you have no extra line breaks and can at least center text.

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         1. 31

            Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I have six Hubs with poetry and you can look at them to see how to format them on HP.  Those Hubs have received more than 150,000 views in the past year, so poetry can do quite well here
            
            While you cannot center a poem, you can indent the text by clicking on the quote icon in the editing capsule. Or, you can display your poem as an image graphic.
            
            To preserve the single-space formatting you want, compose your text in a Word document, paste it into a text capsule, and then use the pull-down menu and choose 'Preformatted.' The proper spacing should appear when you save the capsule.
            
            

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            1. 92

               Titiaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Ok, Writer Fox, thanks for showing me the ropes to display poems. That's just what I needed. Actually you made my day with your answer.

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               1. 31

                  Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Cool!

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               2. 68

                  KathyMcGraw2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  I am very happy Titia that there was an answer that would work for you!

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