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At this moment, the online tool of preliminary text formatting provides the following functionality:

• line breakdown of the text
• clean text
• clean lists
• wrap paragraphs in tags
• exclusion from processing
• built-in syntax of HTML tags
• count processed symbols

Text requirements

Formatted or not formatted plain text, separated by lines, from any text editor. An example could be to copy a text from the Microsoft Word text editor and paste it in the main form. The text will be formatted in blocks by lines.

Text cleaning

At the beginning of the text preformatting process, the service removes duplications of white spaces and tabulation characters from text. This option can be disabled. In this case, text will remain its original format. In addition, all HTML tags will be removed, maybe in future versions it will be possible to keep them. After cleaning, a process of text and syntax parsing happens.

Lists cleaning

In addition to cleaning the text, the service has the ability to clean the lists. If this option is enabled, any initial characters in the lists will be removed during processing. Initial characters are any single characters at the beginning of the string, except for letters and numbers. This is convenient if you need to remove automatically added list markers from the list items.

Text and Syntax

Each processed line will be wrapped in a paragraph <p> or a block <div> tag, or will remain unchanged. This behavior depends on settings which you can find above the main form (by default it is set to a paragraph tag <p>). In addition to paragraph wrapping, the service has its syntax which allows getting HTML tags in the resulting text in a simple and quick way. The syntax is case-insensitive, what’s why uppercase and lowercase letters can be used.

There are currently two options for adding tags:

Specifying a tag at the beginning of the line, allows adding single- and multi-line HTML elements by wrapping the inside text in them. At this moment, you can specify Headline tags <h1>-<h6>, tags <strong>, <b>, <sup>, <sub>, <small>, unordered <ul> and ordered <ol> list, as well as a paragraph/block with built-in line breakdown with the <br /> tag.

Specifying tags in the line body, allows adding multiple HTML elements with a specially defined mask to the resulting strings. Currently, implemented tags are: <a>,<abbr>,<b>,<code>,<del>,<dfn>,<em>,<i>,<img>,<ins>,<small>,<span>,<strong>,<sub>,<sup>.

Each syntax construction that starts with an exclamation mark (!) will be ignored while processing. Please note, that incorrectly formed constructions will also be marked the same way after processing. If you find a syntax structure with an exclamation mark in the resulting text, please check if the syntax was correct.

Quick reference

Single-line elements:
Wrapping a line with headlines	h1 space at the beginning of the line before text (available values h1 to h6).
Wrapping a line with a strong tag	stg or strong space at the beginning of the line before a text
Wrapping a line with a b tag	stb or b space at the beginning of the line before a text
Wrapping a line with a sup tag	sup space at the beginning of the line before a text
Wrapping a line with a sub tag	sub space at the beginning of the line before a text
Wrapping a line with a small tag	sml or small space at the beginning of the line before a text
Multi-line elements:
Wrapping lines with an unordered list	insert uls before a list and ule after a list
Wrapping lines with an ordered list	insert ols before a list and ole after a list
Wrapping lines with a paragraph	insert pbs before a paragraph and pbe after a paragraph
Wrapping lines with a block	insert dbs before a block and dbe after a block
Inline elements:
Adding a link tag a	anywhere inside a string a:url_address or a:attribute=data_without_spaces:attribute="data with spaces" (href and text attributes are mandatory)
Adding an img tag	anywhere inside a string img:path_to_file_without_spaces or img:attribute=data_without_spaces:attribute="data with spaces" (a src attribute is mandatory)
Adding a small tag	anywhere inside a string small:data_without_spaces or small:attribute=data_without_spaces:attribute="data with spaces" (a text attribute is mandatory)
Use the same technique to add other tags <abbr>,<b>,<code>,<del>,<dfn>,<em>,<i>,<ins>,<span>,<strong>,<sub>,<sup>.

Detailed reference

For wrapping a line with a headline, write a headline number, e.g. h1, at the beginning of the line before a text. Usage:

h1 test text => will get => <h1>test text</h1> h2 test text => will get => <h2>test text</h2> h3 test text => will get => <h3>test text</h3> h4 test text => will get => <h4>test text</h4> h5 test text => will get => <h5>test text</h5> h6 test text => will get => <h6>test text</h6>

For adding a small text, use the same technique as with headlines. Write sml or small at the beginning of the line before a text. Usage:

sml test text => will get => <p><small>test text</small></p>

For adding an image (the <img> tag), you can use two syntax constructions: short and full. In the short version, you need to edit manually an alt attribute of the image tag. In the full version, you can pass any attributes, including the alt attribute, in one syntax construction (in the full version the src attribute is mandatory).

the short version: img:default.jpg (after a colon an image filename path without spaces is mandatory. If you want to use data with spaces wrap it in single or double quotes!) img:'/images/default.jpg' img:"/long/path/get/default.jpg" => will get => <img src="default.jpg" alt="description" /> <img src="/images/default.jpg" alt="description" /> <img src="/long/path/get/default.jpg" alt="description" /> the full version: img:src=default.jpg:alt="Some description":class="image" (after a colon a name of the attribute is mandatory, after an attribute name insert equal sign (=) and the attribute data, which may contain white spaces or not. If you want to use data with spaces wrap it in single or double quotes! The src attribute is mandatory!) img:src='/images/default.jpg':alt='Some description':class=image img:src="/long/path/get/default.jpg":alt='Full image description.':id="image" => will get => <img src="default.jpg" alt="Some description" class="image" /> <img src="/images/default.jpg" alt="Some description" class="image" /> <img src="/long/path/get/default.jpg" alt="Full image description." id="image" />

For adding a link (the <a> tag), you can use two syntax constructions: short and full. In the short version, you need to edit manually the internal text of the link tag. In the full version you can pass any attributes, including the href attribute, in one syntax construction (in the full version the href and text attributes are mandatory).

the short version: a:http://www.preformatter.com/ (after a colon the URL address without spaces is mandatory. If you want to use data with spaces wrap it in single or double quotes!) a:'http://www.preformatter.com/' a:"http://www.preformatter.com/" => will get => <a href="http://www.preformatter.com/">link_text</a> <a href="http://www.preformatter.com/">link_text</a> <a href="http://www.preformatter.com/">link_text</a> the full version: a:href="http://www.preformatter.com/":text="link text" (after a colon a name of the attribute is mandatory, after an attribute name insert equal sign (=) and the attribute data, which may contain white spaces or not. If you want to use data with spaces wrap it in single or double quotes! href and text attributes are mandatory!) a:href='http://www.preformatter.com/':text="link text":class=out a:href="http://www.preformatter.com/":text="link text":class="out" => will get => <a href="http://www.preformatter.com/">link text</a> <a href="http://www.preformatter.com/" class="out">link text</a> <a href="http://www.preformatter.com/" class="out">link text</a>

For adding other inline elements <abbr>,<b>,<code>,<del>,<dfn>,<em>,<i>,<ins>,<span>,<strong>,<sub>,<sup> you can use two syntax constructions: short and full (in the full version a text attribute is mandatory).

short version: small:text (after a colon the text which will be placed inside the tag without spaces is mandatory. If you want to use data with spaces wrap it in single or double quotes!) small:'text with spaces' small:"text with spaces" => will get => <small>text</small> <small>text with spaces</small> <small>text with spaces</small> full version: small:text=text:class=out (after a colon the name of attribute is mandatory, after an attribute name insert equal sign (=) and the attribute data, which may contain white spaces or not. If you want to use data with spaces wrap it in single or double quotes! The text attribute is mandatory!) small:text='text with spaces':class=out small:text="text with spaces":class=out:id="small" => will get => <small class="out">text</small> <small class="out">text with spaces</small> <small class="out" id="small">text with spaces</small>

For adding lists in the text you need to outline a text block, which you wish to wrap in a list, and separate this part by adding new lines before and after the text. After that, you need to write a construction ULS or OLS at the new line before the text block and a construction ULE or OLE at the new line after the block. Use ULS…ULE construction if you want to make an unordered list and OLS…OLE for an ordered list. Usage:

uls (ols for ordered lists) item 1 item 2 item 3 ule (ole for ordered lists) => will get => <ul> (<ol> if ordered ols) <li>item 1</li> <li>item 2</li> <li>item 3</li> </ul> (<ol> if ordered ole)

In a similar way, but with a little bit different syntax, you can wrap a part of a text with a paragraph or a block tag with line breakdown inside it. The line wrapping is realized through a usage of the <br /> tag. In this case, you need to outline a text block and add a construction PBS at the new line before the text block and a construction PBE at the new line after block. Use PBE…PBE construction if you want to make a paragraph with wrapped text or DBS…DBE construction for a block with wrapped text. Usage:

pbs (dbs for <div> block) test text 1 test text 2 pbe (dbe for <div> block) => will get => <p> (<div> if dbs) test text 1<br /> test text 2<br /> </p> (<div> if dbe)

At the moment this is the whole syntax and functionality, which are enough for me. However, if you have any comments or suggestions on expanding the syntax or functionality of this service feel free to write to me, I will update the service with pleasure.

Usage

To perform a text preformatting simply copy it from a source, for example a text editor, by pressing Ctrl+C hotkey, and put the copied text in the Text for processing field on the main page by pressing Ctrl+V hotkey. Check the text for errors, it will go red (only if your browser has this functionality). After the check, use the syntax from the Quick reference section. When the text is ready for processing click the Format button.

In the Text to copy field you will find a preformatted HTML code, which can be easily copied. To do this, just make the field active by clicking on it. When you are inside the field press Ctrl+A hotkey, which will select all the text, and after press Ctrl+C hotkey.

Please pay attention to text processing statistics above the resulting field. In this statistics you can find information about the number of processed lines and number of characters, white spaces, etc. Sometimes it can be very useful :)

Armed with this knowledge you can already move on to such a tedious task as text formatting for websites. I hope that this service will be useful for you and will have become your permanent and helpful assistant!

With any comments or suggestions please feel free to write to me.