A Place for Indents

Summary

The web content provides instructions on how to create indented lines in the Medium text editor for poetry formatting.

Abstract

The article addresses a common issue faced by poets using the Medium text editor, which is not inherently designed to handle line indents. The author offers two main solutions: using three backticks to create a code block, which results in a grey background and mono-spaced font, and using embedded special characters to achieve varying levels of indentation in the normal text editor. The latter method involves cutting and pasting pre-formatted indents and then customizing them with the poet's own text. While the techniques require some experimentation, they have been tested and confirmed to work across multiple browsers and platforms, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Android, and Safari. The author remains open to learning and sharing additional methods for indenting lines on Medium.

Opinions

The Medium text editor's lack of native support for line indents is seen as a limitation for poets.
The backtick method, while suitable for programmers' code, is not ideal for poetry due to its formatting constraints.
The embedded special characters technique is preferred for poetry as it allows for normal text formatting with indents.
The author acknowledges the trial-and-error process involved in achieving the desired indentation.
There is an open invitation for readers to share alternative indenting methods to improve the article's utility.
The author emphasizes the importance of cross-browser compatibility for the indenting techniques, highlighting the need for a solution that works universally.

For poets, the need to indent lines is often a must. Here’s how I did it.

The Medium text editor isn’t kind to indents. So here’s a couple of ideas.

Backtick

To do this write 3 backticks in a row [```] at the beginning of a line and hit Enter. Note the backtick [`] character should not to be confused with the single quote [‘].

This is shown below.

The writing here
   is indented
      So you can break your thoughts
          gracefully...

This technique is used for writing source code for programmers where indents are must. A limitation is the background formatting is grey and the font is mono-spaced.

Embedded Special Characters

In the The Blue Egg I use a different technique to achieve indenting in the normal editor as shown below. The following lines are indented:

this line is not indented this is indented 1 time this line is indented 2 times this line is indented 3 times this line is indented 4 times

There is no way to easily enter the above indents (that I know of) but you can cut and paste the above text in to your poem and then delete my words and replace them with yours to achieve indented formatting.

A word of caution, it takes some playing around but it does work. Note that the above technique has been tested to work in all of the of the following: Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Android/Safari.

I’m open to other ways too if you know them and I’ll post them to this article to keep it up to date.

Cheers, -Manu

P.S. Some other indenting techniques won’t work on Firefox so if this is critical and you want to use another technique you’ll need to view your text in both Firefox and any one of Chrome/Edge/Safari.

Indented lines & the Medium Editor

For poets, the need to indent lines is often a must. Here’s how I did it.