I think WordPress’s engineers come in two grades: really good and really awful. I have gotten a lot of the awful kind, but once in a while, I get a good one. This one has been really good and helpful. Very helpful. She didn’t solve the problem, unfortunately. In the end, it’s my problem. If I want to save posts, I’m going to have to go through each post, then copy and paste the ones I think are worth saving. Otherwise, they are chock full of comments, tags, categories and are a mess. Only personal editing will make them better.
But, I finally have all the XML files from all 7 years of posting on WordPress. If I want to transfer them, I can. Not a decision I’m ready to make right now.
I realize that a lot of my dissatisfaction with WordPress has to do with the templates. When customization still enabled me to use point sizes to adjust fonts, I could make more templates look at least professional. But now I can only use “Large, Normal, Small, and Tiny.” Nothing looks right. A large header — which is less clumsy looking than a “normal” header, looks too small combined with “normal” text. But SMALL text is too small for almost anyone who has older than forty and is too small for me.
The spacing between lines of text (called “leading” and pronounced “ledding”) is too large. the results are unattractive. I realize that I’m being fussy, but I spent a lifetime designing books and being unable to create a single paragraph that doesn’t look totally amateurish is beyond frustrating.
Given the year we’ve all had, I’m already frustrated by just about everything, so adding this to the heap of problems that swept in during 2020 is that one straw too many.
I don’t think there is an answer to saving posts for any purpose other than creating a duplicate site somewhere else. If I’m going to create a new site, I don’t need every post I ever wrote. Too many of them are irrelevant and aged out.
I have promised to make one more good faith effort to see if I can make the block editor viable for writing. The worst part of this — for me — is that were I able to wrap my head around the block editor, the issue of creating a format that is attractive isn’t going to improve. Spacing and size issues are old, old problems that go back many years. These problems have never been addressed and aren’t being addressed now. AND the overall design of the block editor is terribly inconsistent with how I work, so much of it will continue to be useless for me.
Frustration heaped on frustration make for a grumpy blogger.
Meanwhile, the lovely autumn leaves are drifting in the wind. We’re still in need of a lot more rain, though at least we’ve gotten some, if not enough. But I did want to say thank you to A. Jay, a “Happiness Engineer” at
WordPress.com – Automattic Inc. He? She? has been a great help and very patient because I’ve definitely been crabby about this.
Considering how much I have complained, it’s good to be able to offer a thank you to someone who has gone out of his or her way to work with me.
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Categories: Computers, Customer Service, Humor, Software, Technology, WordPress
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Good customer service is always appreciated, and I’m still avoiding the Block Editor. 🙂
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I didn’t realise you have such a wealth of knowledge about layouts and formatting. I can well understand how frustrating it must be. 😦
We’ve had rain and now we’ve got a teensy window of blue and some sunshine. -waves from Melbourne- Going to race outside to enjoy it before our changeable weather takes it away again. This has been one of the wettest Springs we’ve had in a long time. Stay well.
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It is as if the rains move around. One year, North America is awash and the next year, it’s pouring all year in the UK or Switzerland or New Zealand. The winds and waters have changed from what they were to something unpredictable. It makes forecasting very hard and making sense of the weather even harder. For places like here — and maybe where you are — the weather has always been strange and unpredictable. In a lot of places, what used to be occasional has become constant — like fire in the west in North America. There have always been fires out there, but not like they are now.
Yes, I designed books. I was one of those “can do it all” professional writers. Small companies loved me because I could do everything, from interviewing developers, to testing the software, to writing it, rewriting it, turning it into an illustrated book. And I liked being the one and only in a small company. My co-workers became pals and little companies were fun. They also, sadly, went bankrupt rather often, so I changed jobs a lot. Also, they usually only had one product, so when I finished writing the book, there weren’t any more books and just updating one book was not a full-time job. So I knew, as I closed in on the finished product, I would be looking for a job very soon. No small company can afford an employee whose job is done. But I did love the design part of the project. It was my “dessert.”
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I think you had the dream career before the concept became mainstream. 🙂
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Even if it doesn’t “fix” things, I’m always appreciative of knowledgeable respectful help.
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What it made me realize is that I don’t really want to start a new blog somewhere else. I either find a way to stay here, or quit. I don’t have the mental energy to start again and really, I don’t even want to. I might create a book from existing posts — but that’s not writing. That’s a LOT of editing!
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