Mike Powell has just proved that he is not only a talented photographer and knows his stuff about birds and insects (go and look, here). He is also a technical detective/wizard/ferret. Alone, single handed and with only his patience and curiosity and the tenacity of a terrier, he has discovered the way, in a single click, to circumvent the blocks.
For those of us who use Mac and Word, it has been impossible to get the new editor to accept a post formatted in the way we see it in Word. It strips it of spacing where we do want it and adds double spaces between the lines of poetry where we donโt.
To avoid this mess, and to avoid having anything to do with the blocks at all, simply write your post/poem in Word, copy, open a WP new post, don’t bother choosing a block, just paste using shift+command+V. The usual way of pasting, command+V lets WP mess it up. Add shift and the combination overrides whatever is going on in its mechanical head. ย
Thank you again, Mike. You deserve a medal.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Oh my! Genius. I just tried this with some nonsense, and it worked. Thank you and Mike!
When someone with a bit of techy knowhow and a willingness to help gets their teeth into a problem, that’s what happens. Bravo, Mike!
Yes, indeed! Bravo!
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Reblogged this on Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings and commented:
Sharing this from Jane to help others struggling with the new WP blocks.
thank you so much!
He’s saved so much suffering! I’m only half-kidding ๐
right! and they haven’t changed mine over yet for some reason, but I know it’s coming very soon, and already dreading and fearing it, so this really helps
It probably depends what you use your blog for, but for anything simple like text and an image or two, it’s over complicated. It wants to do things you don’t, and it insists, throwing these blocks at you all the time when all you want is to paste six lines of poetry. It’s a pain and a time waster.
yes, and mine are always quite simple
Which is why the new editor isn’t designed with us in mind.
Thanks!
๐ I can probably live with it now.
Anything to make one’s life easier!
There are more important things to get angry about, after all ๐
Thanks for all of your kind words, Jane. I hope the workaround that I discovered helps a few people avoid some frustration. Maybe we can get WordPress to custom design a format in the new editor for creative authors like you–they could call it the writer’s block. ๐
Ha ha! What a great idea!
There are obviously a lot of bloggers having trouble getting this new editor to do what they want it to, and your workaround has certainly solved my basic gripe. I’m sure it will be the case for most of us who just want to post poems, pics and a bit of text.
I’m been doing some more studying today on the block editor and think that I have a pretty good understanding now of how it works. A lot seems to depend on a person’s preferred work flow. If you compose your text in WordPress, the issues are different than if you compose it in a word processing program and then want to paste it into WordPress. So, for example, the “verse” block gives you a little more freedom of format than the default “paragraph” block, but only if you compose within WordPress. Now that I understand more about the underlying “philosophy” of the new block editor, I can more realistically assess its capabilities and limitations (and find ways to make it do what we want it to do.)
Yes, I think that’s the basic problem. I can’t imagine anyone composing prose or poetry directly in a blog post. For one thing, we usually intend to keep a copy, and for another, it isn’t something you just rattle off without changes or leaving it alone and coming back to it.
At a guess, I’d say this editor has been developed for people who want to use a blog post like a magazine page or an advertisement, images shuffled around with captions or bits of text to go with them. You can do that with the new editor, but it isn’t suited to anything of a different creative nature.
I tend to use my blog more like a journal, so I do compose directly in WordPress. Normally I get up in the morning, sit down at the keyboard and start writing, having decided already which photos I will feature. Sometimes I know in advance what I want to say, but often I make it up as I go along, trying to weave together information and experiences and occasionally some messaging. I think you are correct, Jane, that the new block editor is more like a page layout program, akin to Adobe InDesign, rather than something devoted to text. I’m trying to keep an open mind about it. ๐
I’m trying not to think about it at all. Now you’ve worked a way of actually posting without the tearing of hair I’ll be fine with this. Writing is what I do, and I blog as a form of procrastination that is actually helpful as well. It’s also good to have some kind of communication with other people who are also writing as it’s a special kind of bubble to be living in ๐
“the writer’s block” hahaha – I love that NAME! Glad you found a great solution for Jane!
It ought to sort out all the frustration I was having with posting. It is a great name, isn’t it? If WP had any heart (or sense of humour) they’d adopt it ๐
Yeah, it really caught my imagination and I thought ‘Writers Block’ would look fantastic lined up with the other options!
Something a little out of the ordinary ๐
Thanks, Liz. I have the same kind of patience and persistence in dealing with software as I do in taking photos, so I don’t get frustrated easily. Now that I understand the block editor concept I can see that it has some distinct advantages, but it may have gotten overly complicated for users with simple requirements.
While I can use the block editor I object to the time it takes to load on my old laptop. I’ve taken to the Dashboard Editor and now I know about it I like it more than the old Classic Editor! It’s not pretty but everything is convenient and available with a minimal clicks.
It definitely is slower than old editor in loading, even on my Mac Pro desktop computer. I never moved to the version that came before the block editor version and have continued to use the old version that I access through the dashboard, which I get to by clicking on WP Admin when I am in the My SIte tab and then clicking on the icon that looks like a pushpin. Is that what you mean by the Dashboard Editor?
That’s it! When I joined, WP Admin wasn’t on my ‘My Sites’ tab – suddenly appeared a couple of years later! I was only aware of it because it was on Nigel’s – he’d been on WP a bit longer than me. I found how to edit my url to reach it but rarely used it. Didn’t realise about this different editor until recently. Delighted to find it’s quite efficient to work with ๐
Great solution. Thank you to Mike Powell, and Congratulations! Michael
It’s cracked it for me ๐
Great to hear that. Sometimes its very crazy how WP forces users to love their new inventions.Its an old advice for programmers never to change a running system. Enjoy your Sunday, Jane!
Thank you, Michael! I did. Hope you did too ๐
Thank you Jane! Michael
I always use Word first. I could never do it directly here.
I think it’s only people who write captions or text to go with an image who would write directly into the post.
I’ve met quite a few people who do it directly on WP. I could never do it.
It would be like writing on the back of an envelope.
Yeah.
Oh, dear, I havenโt posted to WP in weeks and now Iโm afraid! I usually do write directly into WP, but rarely do I post immediately. My posts usually sit and stew for a few hours to a few days. And I preview and preview and preview. Iโve definitely had the experience of WP overriding my formatting for no good reason. Well, thanks to you and Mike. Iโll have to brave it sooner or later because I miss writing. I just donโt understand why WP insists on making things complicated.
I think you’ll be okay writing straight into WP. It’s been the copy and paste that has caused problems.
It is needlessly complicated for people who don’t want to turn their blog into a shiny showcase for something or other.
Indeed, I was already doing a fair amount of cursing on WP. I donโt like it when technology tries to think for me. I want to be master of my blog.
Me too. When you sign up for something you expect it to get updated when necessary, but not totally changed.
Yes! You will stay then ๐
I had a look at Wix and started to put together a site there, but I didn’t like the theme I’d chosen and left it. If I can get away with not having to start another blog, I’d rather ๐
Hope you can stay, I have never heard of Wix I will have to look it up ๐
It’s another free site for building a blog. Now that there’s no rush to move, I’ll persevere with it and see what it looks like when I’ve finished. Not sure how it works yet.
All the hard work building it up would put me off ๐
Yes, I must admit, if I’m not forced to, I’ll pass on that.
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