Compose Tools: the Insert Menu

When we blog, we tend to find a groove in how we compose–our rhythm, if you will. That can often times lead to tunnel vision, seeing only what we are focused on, and know we need, blind to other tools that could be of use to us. In this post, we'll uncover the tools inside the Insert menu of the compose screen. There may just be a gem in there you'll find useful.

At the top of the compose screen, when in Rich Text mode, you will see several drop-down menus available.

The menu we're focusing on today is the Insert menu, the first shown at the top left of your Rich Text compose screen. Clicking on it, you'll find several tools you may already use (e.g. Insert Image).

As you can see, the majority of the tools listed in the Insert menu can be found in the toolbars with a corresponding icon. Those that are not on the toolbar, however, may just be something you've needed this whole time. Let's check them out.

Horizontal Line

The horizontal line option allows you to insert a line that separates content. This is great for adding bylines, designating certain areas for specific topics, and more.

Anchor

The anchor is, in short, a link to another location on the page. With the update we made to the compose editor a while ago, it's now extremely easy to insert an anchor link into your blog post or page. A video may illustrate better how simple it is, so take a look below.

Simply add your text, then place the cursor where you want your link to return a reader. Use the Insert menu to select the anchor option, then give the anchor a name. Next, place your cursor where you will insert the link that will lead readers to the anchor. Add text, highlight it, then select Insert Link (either from the menu or the toolbar; that's up to you). In the pop-up that appears, there will be an anchor dropdown menu. Use that to select the anchor you want the link to go to, then click OK. Well done!

Insert date/time

This is self explanatory, but we'll give explaining it a shot: the tool inserts the date and/or time in the format of your choice. That went really well. Good job, Team Typepad!

Nonbreaking space

The nonbreaking space, or non-breaking space if you can't stand to see that word not hyphenated, allows you to force an empty space to appear before or after text, an image, and so on. It looks like   in the code of your post or page. If you've ever tried to tap the space bar a few dozen times to increase the distance between two words or images, you know that those taps don't translate to actual space. That's where the nonbreaking space comes in.

So, did you learn something new? Figure out how you could ease the burden of some task you undertake in composing your posts? If so, tell us all about it in the comments section below!