WordPress Tips - Alt-V

This is why I read the WordPress.com forums: pressing Alt-B Alt-V in the Rich Text Editor brings up a second menu with advanced options.

UPDATE 2006/09/22: The keystroke has changed to Alt-V. Alt-E can be used to switch between Compose and HTML mode.

UPDATE 2006/09/23: Mr. Matt of WordPress points out that you can insert page breaks instead of paragraphs in the Rich Text Editor using Shift-Enter.

UPDATE 2007/01/10: If you’re having trouble getting it to work, make sure you click in the text entry box first. Also try Alt-Shift-V instead of Alt-V� (if Alt-V is bringing up the View menu in your web browser).

The biggest surprise was that you can cut-and-paste from Microsoft Word to WordPress and have it generate good HTML!

It has options for

  • selecting text and applying formatting
    • paragraph
    • address
    • preformatted
    • heading 1-6
  • underline (also Ctrl-U)
  • align full (full justification, IE: text is fully justified on the left and right columns with extra spaces between words)
  • text colour
  • paste as plain text (instead of doing an OLE paste that will retain formatting)
  • paste from Word (haven’t tried it, but I assume it correct some of the HTML cruft from Word)
  • remove formatting eraser (leave text content, but remove and of the HTML around it, useful for correcting a messed up section)
  • clean-up messy code (HTML auto-correction)
  • insert custom characters (accents, special characters like copyright and trademark)
  • undo (Ctrl-Z) and redo (Ctrl-Y)

After the break, formatting examples.

wordpress alt-b

Formatting Examples

This is preformatted text.
It will look like however it is typed.
This is an address.
123 Road Street
City, State
YOYOYOOY

Standard Headers H6

underline

Full text justification will expand the text so it fills the entire line. This will make it look more like a newspaper column. Personally, I don’t like the way fully-justified text looks on the computer.

Add colours to text to make it pretty (ugly).

Paste Examples

This is what the original MS Word text converts to when cutting and pasting from Word to WordPress.

<p class=”MsoNormal” style=”margin-left: 36pt”><b>This</b> <i>is</i> an <u>example </u>of horrible Microsoft Word OLE <span style=”font-family: “Arial Black”">cut-and-paste</span> to <span style=”font-size: 22pt”>HTML</span>.</p>

paste as plaintext (pops up a window)

<p>This is an example of horrible Microsoft Word OLE cut-and-paste to HTML.</p>

paste from Word (pops up a window)

<p><b>This</b> <i>is</i> an <u>example </u>of horrible Microsoft Word OLE cut-and-paste to HTML.</p>

pasting from Word and then selecting text and using the remove formatting tool

<p class=”MsoNormal” style=”margin-left: 36pt”>This is an example of horrible Microsoft Word OLE cut-and-paste to HTML.</p>

pasting from Word and then selecting text and using the clean-up messy code tool

<p class=”MsoNormal” style=”margin-left: 36pt”><b>This</b> <i>is</i> an <u>example </u>of horrible Microsoft Word OLE <span>cut-and-paste</span> to <span style=”font-size: 22pt”>HTML</span>.</p>

Related Links

This entry was written by engtech, posted on September 03, 2006 at , filed under Technology, WordPress.com Tips. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

28 Comments

  1. ptolemayos
    Posted September 04, 2006 at | Permalink

    Oh my god! They haven’t told us anything! :-)

  2. britgirl
    Posted September 04, 2006 at | Permalink

    this is brill… how did you discover this?

  3. engtech
    Posted September 04, 2006 at | Permalink

    Someone else found it and mentioned it in a forum post.

  4. EclecticGeek
    Posted September 05, 2006 at | Permalink

    Yes, many tasty tidbits are found in the forum.

    Been trying to figure out an easy way to paste and insert special characters forever. Thanks for the informative post.

  5. livingjourney
    Posted September 05, 2006 at | Permalink

    Yeah… I was shocked when I read that for the first time.

    Well, there you go, you learn something new everyday with WordPress.

    by the way good blog entech

  6. engtech
    Posted September 05, 2006 at | Permalink

    thanks livingjourney.

  7. CAPitalZ
    Posted September 08, 2006 at | Permalink

    Wow.. man thank you so much

  8. Neeraj
    Posted September 11, 2006 at | Permalink

    Maybe I’m doing something wrong !! But Alt-B invokes “Bookmark” menu in Firefox [though it works in IE]. Any alternates in Firefox of invoking advanced tinyMCE ?

  9. engtech
    Posted September 11, 2006 at | Permalink

    Hi Neeraj,

    In FireFox you have to click inside the Rich Text Editor / TinyMCE window before hitting Alt-B.

  10. michael
    Posted September 12, 2006 at | Permalink

    Ok, I have tried this in Firefox and IE and cannot get this too come up.

    I know I have version 2.0.4 installed on my hosting account, I didnt ad any other plugins besides the basics, am I missing something here?

    Or am I just up a creek?

  11. engtech
    Posted September 13, 2006 at | Permalink

    This is probably only available in the latests and greatest that is installed on WordPress.com

    Sorry mang.

  12. UrmiSaagar
    Posted September 13, 2006 at | Permalink

    Great feature!!!!!!!!
    just wondering… why isn’t wordpress is telling everyone??

    engtech, Thanks a lot!!!!!! great blog…. i just bookmarked it!!

  13. engtech
    Posted September 22, 2006 at | Permalink

    It looks like this feature went missing with the Compose/HTML switch update on 2006/09/22. I’ve put in Feedback asking for it to be reinstated.

    It’s Alt-V now. Thanks podz.

  14. hadi farnoud
    Posted September 25, 2006 at | Permalink

    can i have this in my own WP? (not wp.com)

  15. engtech
    Posted September 25, 2006 at | Permalink

    Don’t think so.

  16. Uncle Su
    Posted December 19, 2006 at | Permalink

    engtech, I was the guy who found out about alt + b.

    Thanks for preading the word, though.

  17. Uncle Su
    Posted December 19, 2006 at | Permalink

    and for firefox 2.0 users, the shortcut is now

    alt + shift + v.

    the “add a post page” is now alt + shift + g

  18. TaruN
    Posted December 26, 2006 at | Permalink

    I uses firefox 2.0, and i tried
    alt + shift +v
    it always opens view drop down menu.. any clue.. ??

  19. engtech
    Posted December 26, 2006 at | Permalink

    @tarun:

    click your mouse in the text entry box first.

  20. TaruN
    Posted December 27, 2006 at | Permalink

    ya got it engtech.. i had not enabled “rich text editing” .. thats y that combination of keys were not working…

  21. Dave
    Posted January 11, 2007 at | Permalink

    I’m also having trouble getting this to work. I’m using Firefox, but have also tried in IE and I always get the same result. When I do Alt-V, Ctrl-Alt-V, or what ever other combination has been recommended above the “View” menu always pops up. Yes, I make sure to click in the text field and I have checked the box in the “Options > Writing” section that says “Users should use the visual rich editor by default”.

    Any ideas? I would so love to get this working!

    Thanks

  22. engtech
    Posted January 11, 2007 at | Permalink

    Try Alt-Shift-V :)

  23. Dave
    Posted January 11, 2007 at | Permalink

    Same thing… pops the “View” menu. Urgh!!

  24. engtech
    Posted January 11, 2007 at | Permalink

    Really? Weird. This is what I do in Firefox 2.

    - edit/create a new post
    - click in the text entry box and type something
    - press and hold alt-shift-v

  25. engtech
    Posted January 12, 2007 at | Permalink

    David, you might be running an older version of WordPress that still uses Alt-B or Alt-Shift-B.

    Sorry I didn’t think of that sooner.

  26. TaruN
    Posted January 16, 2007 at | Permalink

    Dave,
    Select visual while editing then press alt+shift+v
    there are two kind editors. One is visual other one is code.. if your all settings are correct then while posting you will see two tabs.. If you select the visual tab then definitely alt+shift+v will work..
    http://www.4freeimagehost.com/show.php?i=4902951868a3.jpg

  27. Arkhitekton
    Posted April 22, 2007 at | Permalink

    I’ve tried ALL the keyboard shortcuts suggested above but none seem to activate the advanced (second) menu. Would the fact I’m running OS X make any difference? On a Mac, the shortcuts don’t seem to work in Firefox, Camino, or even Safari.

    Any suggestions?

  28. engtech
    Posted April 22, 2007 at | Permalink

    @arkhitekton: sorry I can’t be of more help. I haven’t tried it out on a mac.