BBB Question Roundup

So sometimes I get BBB questions that only require a one paragraph or less answer, and I have a hard time justifying dedicating an entire post to that question! So I thought I’d merge a few together and do a bit of a roundup!

Table of Contents

• What does   mean?
• How to stop WordPress from turning quotes into curly quotes?
• How do you make cool blockquotes?

What does   mean?

Hi there! I was experimenting with my blog design today and this snidbit kept popping up when I was in the Html format: &nbsp;</p></blockquote>

What is the “&nbsp” bit before the blockquote? Is it there for a reason? Just curious.

Thanks!

Moka

Hi Moka! Short answer: this is the visual editor doing wonky shit.

Weird things can happen if you switch between the visual editor and the HTML editor. You’re intended to use one or the other—but not both. If you switch between the two, extra markup can be awkwardly inserted in places.

But what does   actually mean?

  just means “non-breaking space”. It is essentially HTML lingo for an empty space! Just like hitting the spacebar on your keyboard. It’s safe to remove and won’t harm or change the look of your blog. 🙂

How to get rid of curly quotes in WordPress

Hey Ashley,

I’m using WP now (I got convinced), but I’m not too familiar with the plug-in stuff yet.It just won’t snap inside me head. But that’s now what I was going to rant on about.

Actually, since you’re familiar with HMTL and CSS, I wanted to aks if you could fix a small problem of mine. My sites and posts always make the ” topographic, even in a textarea (it’s not happening in the sidebar). You know codes don’t work when the ” aren’t straight, so I’m freaking out. I searched WP forum for the problem, and got a block of code. It used to work, then there was a theme update. After that, I re-entered the block and all of a sudden my page was blank. I deleted it, and everything was there again. Frustrating. However, since I don’t know which part of that block of code causes the problem (it made that nothing got auto-formated anymore), maybe you can give me only the one line I need and it’ll work.

Thanks for your time. =)

Caro

Hi Caro! You can easily stop WordPress from auto-converting quotes into curly quotes by adding this line to your theme’s functions.php file after the opening <?php tag:

remove_filter('the_content', 'wptexturize');

This will remove the curly quote filter from all of your posts. If you want to also remove it from titles, excerpts, and comments, you can add these two lines:

remove_filter('the_title', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('the_excerpt', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('comment_text', 'wptexturize');

Or, if you don’t want to edit the functions.php file, you could even create your own plugin to do it! All you have to do is create a new file in a text editor and paste this code in:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Remove Curly Quotes
Plugin URI: https://www.nosegraze.com
Description: Stop WordPress from converting your quotes into curly quotes.
Version: 1.0
Author: Ashley Evans
Author URI: http://www.creativewhim.com
*/

remove_filter('the_content', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('the_title', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('the_excerpt', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('comment_text', 'wptexturize');

?>

Save it as something like remove-curly-quotes.php (no spaces!) and put it in a folder called “remove-curly-quotes” (no spaces!). Then zip that folder up so that you now have a file called remove-curly-quotes.zip. Now you can go to Plugins » Add New » Upload and upload your plugin! This way you won’t have to always edit your functions.php file whenever you update your theme.

How do you make cool blockquotes?

How do bloggers make their posts have sections of color, or a border? For example, there would be a book and the summary of the book in a cool border with a background color that is different.

I tried making my background color by highlighting it but it doesn’t have the same effect. Is this something only WordPress blogs can do? I have blogger.

Help!

Dee

Hello Dee! This requires a bit of custom CSS work! I already have a guide on how to style blockquotes that you can check out! I hope it helps. 🙂