Looking at ebay avidly each day, I am struck by the poor presentation of most articles for sale.
The most sellers appear to attempt, is to use one of the "free" template providers and this produces a standardised "look and feel" that does not reflect the personality of the seller or let them develop their own "in house" look that will identify them to their customers.
Yet it is so simple, because ebay allows the use of styles. I'll give one example at the risk of boring people who shudder at the mention of HTML.
Suppose you want your page divided up into headings that are distinctive.
Ah you cry, I need a degree in computing and access to an expensive editing software. Not at all, no expenditure or any skills required - I promise you! Open Notepad (free with every Windows computer) and write (or simpler, copy and paste)the following.
<P style="border: 6px red solid; font-style:verdana; font-size: 180%; color:navy; background:yellow; padding:10px">This is large lettering in navy Verdana font on a yellow background with a red solid border</P>
See its in English - P means Paragraph!
Then select the "save as" command and most importantly choose the all files option (not txt)
type in "experiment.html" Then in the save in box select "my documents" (notepad tends to default to the windows directory and if you just "save" you will never find it again!)
Open your Internet explorer browser, Choose "File", "Open" select the "Browse" button, find Experiment.html and lo and behold, a heading!
Then start altering the parameters to suit your design ideas. Press the refresh button on Internet Explorer each time you want to check a new effect.*
How do you enter it on ebay? Duplicate your finished boxes, enter the various titles you need and then paste them amongst the rest of your text in the appropriate places.
If I have missed out a vital step, or made an error, just ask for a corrected version.
I hope that a few of you will be encourage to "have a go"
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Points to note - the whole expression must be enclosed in " " - The order is command : (colon) attribute ; (semi-colon) - Watch the <>!
If it works for you, find other >Names of Colours< here Don't use hexadecimal notation until you aquire a bit of familiarity with the colours you want to use!
Most browsers support Verdana, Arial, "Times New Roman" (use "" for this font) but you can choose almost any you like but remember that Mac computers don't support all Windows fonts
OK, OK I haven't introduced any positioning elements, but I want to encourage non technical people to have a go.
*You do use ALT TAB, don't you to switch between open windows? If you don't, hold down "ALT" with your thumb, dab "TAB" until the window you want is selected, release "ALT" You would be amazed how many people don't know that!
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