Wish I could use centered text in Poetry

1. 93

   Titiaposted 6 years ago

   It's not possible to use centered text in hubs, but when you write different forms of poetry sometimes centered text is a must. Shaped poetry, cinquain, diamante and more are poetry forms that will lose any significance if they can not be written in centered text.
   
   The only way to show them now is displaying them as a photo, but that way Google won't recognize it as text and HP shows zero word count.

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   1. 80

      snakeslaneposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Titia, I think you can center a poem by clicking on preformatted option in the dropdown list in the text capsule, you have to count the characters in each line as you type it in to get it right. I just tried it and it worked for me.
                 
                    "Hope" is the thing with feathers
                           That perches in the soul
                      And sings the tune without the words
                                 And never stops at all,
                               
                                                                                  Emily Dickinson

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         Titiaposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Ok, I'll try that, thanks.

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            snakeslaneposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Hope that works for you.

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   2. 96

      chef-de-jourposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      In my poetry analysis series if a poem I want to study has an unusual form I sometimes take a screenshot and use that for the benefit of the reader/student. Could this be a solution for you?

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   3. 80

      snakeslaneposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I'm so excited to have discovered this. The preformatted option in the drop down list in the text capsule allows for cut and paste of whatever you have previously created in word program. I just tried it. It worked.
      
      Edit: And the pasted text shows up in word count.
      Edit: that was supposed to be copy and paste.
      
      Edit: This may not work for a shaped poem, at least it didn't for me. Back to the drawing board.
      
      Center
      Centercenter
      Centercentercentercenter
      Centercenter
      Center
      
      So, it shows up in text capsule aligned, but you can then push the lines into shape manually, then highlight, then choose preformatting option in the drop down list. You can toggle back and forth until it looks right in preview. Still a lot of work. There's probably an easier way to do it.
      
                 Center
             Centercenter
      Centercentercentercenter
             Centercenter
                Center

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         Titiaposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I know this method and sometimes you can get it right, but most of the time it's not. And yes, it takes a lot of time.

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2. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 6 years ago

   It's a lovely idea.  Unfortunately, poetry is probably the least profitable of all the different kinds of writing on HubPages.  HubPages exists to make money.  If it's going to invest programming dollars in a new feature, it has to be sure it will recoup that investment.  With poetry, that's unlikely, so I'd be surprised if it ever happened.

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   1. 93

      Titiaposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I know Marisa, but if HP allows writers to publish poetry in different forms, then they should give them the possibility to show them in the way they should be written.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         The key word here is "allow", I think.  HubPages makes little or no profit for poets, so they are allowing poets a free ride on the site.  I'm sure they  are happy to provide that service to poets, but why should they spend extra money as well?
         
         To put it in perspective, how much money have you made from your poems?   Whatever you've made from those poems, HubPages has made less (the split is 60% to you, 40% to HubPages). I look at some of the dedicated poetry sites like creativeexiles.com and they don't seem to have special formatting either, so I suspect it's not that easy to achieve and therefore could be expensive to do.  On the basis of your experience of earning from poetry, do you think they can justify the expense for the small percentage of poems that require a special layout?
         
         As for Snakeslane's solution - I wonder how it would look on different-sized devices?

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            Titiaposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            I do understand that poetry isn't a pot of gold for HP, but you're wrong in thinking it would cost many dollars because centering text is just a text formatting thing like bold text or underlined text. 
            
            I can however understand why they locked it out, because it then could be used by all the writers on HP and would mess up hubs when used in the wrong way.
            
            Nevertheless it's a bit of a disappointment when you like to write poetry in different forms and can't display a poem in the form in which it's supposed to be displayed.

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            1. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               I know it's "just formatting", but I've noticed that many other sites don't offer that particular format either  - so I'm assuming it must be that bit more complex for some reason.  However, as you point out, the other reason could be the potential for abuse.
               
               I'm wondering, for short poems, could you use the Callout capsule?   I know it has a gray background but it is all centred.

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