A Fix For The Table Problem Some People Are Having

I’m crossing my fingers when I say this, but I think I’ve found what is causing the problem some people hare having with the tables they insert in their posts to run off the right side of the page.

Actually, I think the problem is two-fold.

First, I went through the HTML provided in the How To Insert A Table In Your Post tutorial and found two errors in the code. These have been corrected. If you are using tables to track your process, you will need to copy and past the corrected HTML and use that in future posts.

Second, looking at the actual HTML of the problem tables, there is a lot of extra code there that is not in the HTML provided in the tutorial as well as some code that has been altered. After playing with a few test posts, here’s what appears to be happening and how it can be fixed.

WordPress.com uses the latest version of the WordPress platform with some modifications. One effect caused by one, or more, of these modifications is that, given the opportunity, WordPress.com will alter some of the HTML inserted into a post. It appears that it is these modifications that are causing the problem of tables running off the side of the page.

I’m not going to go into the what or why of these modifications, but here’s how I believe you can make sure you don’t provide WordPress.com the opportunity to modify your original HTML.

1. Write your post as you normally would but DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR TABLE OR ANY OF THE HTML ASSOCIATED WITH IT.

2. Do whatever spell checking, editing, etc. you would normally do. You can save it as a draft and come back to it later if you need to.

3. Once you hare happy with your post and have all the figures you need for that week’s table, go ahead and insert the HTML wherever you want it in your post. Immediately insert your figures in the appropriate places.

4. Publish you post immediately. DO NOT save it. DO NOT preview it. Doing either of those will provide the opportunity for WordPress.com to modify the HTML you inserted and the table will run off the side of the page.

This should solve the problem. If it doesn’t we’ll dig deeper.