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Adding text and special characters to web pages using Dreamweaver

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Adding text to web pages using Dreamweaver works very similar to adding text using word processing software. You place your cursor where you want to add text and start typing. Every time you hit enter new paragraph starts. Paragraphs are separated by line of white space.

Something like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed lorem dolor, vulputate in, mollis vitae, suscipit id, elit. Morbi eleifend, risus et placerat iaculis, diam dolor dapibus neque, rhoncus feugiat justo urna sit amet nunc.

Nulla vehicula consectetuer ligula. Nunc venenatis blandit pede.

Best way to control this white space is to use CSS. For example to remove the white space completely you would set margin property for <p> tag to 0px:

p { margin: 0; }

Another, less preferable way is to use line-break tag ( <br />). Line-breaks simply start a new line within a paragraph. You can use shortcut Shift + Enter to insert <br /> tag.

When working in design view Dreamweaver doesn't give you any ques to where the line breaks are. This can create a problem with controlling the paragraphs and line breaks especially when pasting text from other websites or word processing applications.

You can change this setting in Dreamweaver preferences.

To open Preferences dialog box use Ctrl + U or go to: Edit -> Preferences. Select "Invisible Elements" category and check "Line Breaks" box. Confirm by clicking OK.

When working in Design View, line break symbol  will appear to indicate where <br /> tags are placed. This makes it easier to locate and remove any line breaks. You can click on the symbol to select it and the either hit "Backspace" to remove line break or "Enter" to convert it to new paragraph.

Inserting Special Characters

Standard keyboards don't have enough keys for special characters. Dreamweaver provides us with a dialog box that allows us to easily add those characters in our web pages.

Special characters such as Copyright, Registered, or Trademark, can be accessed from the Insert menu.

Go to: Insert ->HTML -> Special Characters and select what character you want to insert. 

Option "Other Characters..." displays a dialog box with much bigger selection of characters to choose from.

Please note that if you set encoding of your web page to anything other than Western in the Page Properties adding special characters may not work.

Copy and Paste text

Copying and pasting text works just like in any other word processing application. You select the text with mouse or by pressing Ctrl + A; next press Ctrl + C to copy selected text to the system clipboard. Place the mouse cursor where you want to paste the text and press Ctrl + V or select Edit -> Paste from the menu.

When pasting HTML formatted text from either Word Processor or source of another web page use "Paste Special..." by going to Edit ->Paste Special or Ctrl + Shift + V. Dreamweaver 8 Paste Special feature allows you more control over what formatting to include/exclude from the paste. If you don't use paste special, Dreamweaver may remove all the formatting making the text appear as one big paragraph.

Similar to "Paste Special..." in Dreamweaver 8 is "Paste HTML" in Dreamweaver MX 2004. However "Paste HTML" doesn't let you control what formatting to include/exclude. It simply pastes all selected formatting.