Poptropica Help Blog

When writing comments around our blog, there are many different ways you can type to get your message across better. Putting in one or two smilies to express how you feel or changing the text style to make it stand out are some ways of communication you can use on all WordPress.com blogs!

(Note: Make sure you follow all the instructions on this page if you want to do it correctly. Don’t make comments to ”test” these methods: if you aren’t sure it’ll work, it’s better not to use them at all. Comments made with the intention for ”testing” is considered spam and are likely to be deleted.)

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WordPress Smilies
Did you know that when typing in your comments, you can insert these little smilies, or emoticons, into your comments? Here’s a table to explain what text you type in to insert a smiley into your comment. These work for all WordPress.com blogs (unless the administrator decided to disable this function, which is possible to do but not recommended), such as the Poptropica Help Blog you are currently at. Some emoticons have more than one way of being typed, as shown in the chart below:

Icon	Text 1	Text 2	Full Text
	:)	:-)	:smile:
	:D	:-D	:grin:
	:(	:-(	:sad:
	:o or 8O	:-o or 8-O	:eek: or :shocked:
	:?	:-?	:???:
8)	8)	8-)	:cool:
	:x	:-x	:mad:
	:P	:-P	:razz:
	:|	:-|	:neutral:
	;)	;-)	:wink:
	–	–	:lol:
	–	–	:oops:
	–	–	:cry:
	–	–	:roll:
	–	:evil:	:twisted:
	–	–	:!:
	–	–	:?:
	–	–	:idea:
	–	–	:arrow:
	–	–	:mrgreen:

On July 6, 2009, WordPress changed all the blog smilies by default into a weird, blobbish, and smooth-looking type. Fortunately, they were automatically changed back into the ”old smilies” on July 22, 2009, which many seem to enjoy more.

Make sure to type a space before and after your smiley text. That prevents the smiley being accidentally included in the text around it. Also, don’t use quotes or other punctuation marks before and after the smiley text. Please don’t put in comments that contain only smilies – such comments would be considered spam and will probably be deleted. For better instructions, please see http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Smilies.

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Typing in Bold
Bold typing is when you make the characters in your text thicker, like this. One way to catch a reader’s attention among lines and lines of words is to use bold, which is heavier and darker than regular text. They are used to make important phrases stand out, and are commonly used in headlines to increase the contrast between that and body text, as you can see on this page. Bolding your text is also very helpful for readers to just scan through a page, as demonstrated in many newspapers.

Please note than staff members on this blog often use bold to type in their replies to a comment, so we’d like to ask that you refrain from using it too much since bold is mainly reserved for us to use.

To type in bold, type <b> at the beginning, then enter your text. When you’re done typing, add </b> to finish it off. Check out this guide for more tips: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/finetypography/ht/bold_type.htm.

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Typing in Italics
The italic form of typing is when the text is slightly slanted to the right side, like this. Italics are best used for stating quotes, book or newsletter titles, names of any TV series (but not the names of any individual episodes, where it’s better to use quotation marks), names of movies (films) and plays, and names of ships, planes, automobiles, or trains. They can also be used to emphasize an important word in a sentence, for example: I love Poptropica. You should also italicize any words from foreign languages that may not be familiar to your readers (but do not do so for proper nouns).

To type using italics, type <i> at the beginning, then enter your text. When you’re done typing your message, add </i> to finish it off. Remember not to overuse them or it won’t have a good effect for the readers. Check out this guide for more tips: http://www.ehow.com/how_5951_italics.html.

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Underlining your Text
Underlined text is when the words have a line underneath them, like this. However, it’s actually best not to underline text on the Internet because people may mistake it for a link. Bolding or italicizing text is a more web-friendly option. Underlining may be used as an alternative for bolding important headings or italicizing book titles.

To underline your text, type <u> at the beginning, then enter your text. When you’re done typing, add </u> to finish it off. Check out this guide for more tips: http://www.ehow.com/how_2052964_use-underline-titles.html.

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If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this article, you may submit a comment to us below or e-mail us at poptropicahelpblog@gmail.com and we will try to answer you to the best of our abilities. Thanks.