Cache creation - description starts to do strike-through ??

[+Mysterion604]

Apologies if this should be under website questions or something. I am writing up a multi-cache (a big one which has been in the works for a long time).

Well, I wrote up the description on a word processing program (like usual) and am in the process of copying over the text into the cache page editor, and now a weird problem has happened, and I do not know why.

After a certain point, the text I am copying over starts to turn bold for a few lines, then after that all the text has a strike-through going through every line.  

It does not happen when I am copying & pasting, but manifests once I save the edits. I have not added photos or anything, just test so far, all in default font and size.

 

Do you think this is some issue of using certain word processing programs and browsers ? (I am using Open Office and browser is Firefox.)

or

Is there some kind of upper limit on how long a cache description can be, and this is the unsubtle way Geocaching.com enforces that? (If so I have never heard of such a limit before.) 

 

[+kunarion]

25 minutes ago, Mysterion604 said:

Do you think this is some issue of using certain word processing programs and browsers ? (I am using Open Office and browser is Firefox.)

or

Is there some kind of upper limit on how long a cache description can be, and this is the unsubtle way Geocaching.com enforces that? (If so I have never heard of such a limit before.) 

 

I sometimes use Open Office Writer to compose text.  And Brave browser.  I tried to copy/paste several large groups of text into my unpublished cache, a length of over 1000 words.  The only issue I see is there are a lot of extra line feeds, which happens on many web sites.  I also use a utility called "Pure Text" to remove all text formatting at times.

 

How much text are you talking about?

Are you pasting codes or symbols?

 

Edited May 27 by kunarion

[+Mysterion604]

Oh I was just pasting text at that point, very plain stuff. I had not even reached the stage where I start to alter things with changes to font & styles. Just plain text which did that when I hit the Save button. It was almost half the description when got unexpectedly converted. (I intend to add a lot of "flavour", but this is also a multi with 6 places to visit to get the clues, so there is quite a lot to read & do.)

I have gone back into the editor and manually altered it to undo the Bold, then the Underline, then the Italics, then the strike through.

But I am not sure that change will stand up if edited again, and I wonder if there is a ilmit or what.

Edited May 27 by Mysterion604

[+kunarion]

29 minutes ago, Mysterion604 said:

there is quite a lot to read & do.

 

I tried editing my unpublished cache page using Firefox, and pasted over 10,000 words of cache description text without issue.  If you truly require pages and pages of text, you certainly won't have a lot of Geocachers reading all of that.

 

Consider being more forthcoming about what you're doing.  

[+Mysterion604]

Well, not 10000 words, thankfully, but just over 3400. Perhaps half of that is essential info. It's a multi that sends people on 5 separate hikes in the local mountains to gather clues, and also talks a bit about local search & rescue organizations and hiking safety. (D4.5, there will be no physical waypoints or preceding caches to find, nor advanced navigational math formulas to get to the final coordinates, so I am leaning on its unusual methods and the sheer workload to get to completion.

 

Well, anyways, this is more about the unusual happenings while I build the page. And you reply about pasting 10000 words without issues cropping up suggests this may be a one-off problem, not an imposed limitation of some kind. 

[+niraD]

Have you tried pasting text with the "Paste and Match Style" function, or the "Paste Without Formatting" function, or whatever your system calls it? Basically, instead of pasting with formatting, you can paste plain text.

[+Mysterion604]

Paste without formatting, yes. I manually re-corrected the issue, but hopefully it does not revert later on.

Mostly I posted on this forum because if there was some sort of length limit at work, I suspect someone with insider knowledge of cache page restrictions would say so. 

 

[+brekkcaching123]

To fix these issues, highlight anything you don't want to have modificications on, so if this was my description:

 

Quick P&G near a popular golf course.

 

But it turned out like this:

 

Quick P&G near a Popular golf course.

 

Highlight it and click the T with a diagonal line over it. It will clear the formatting of the text.

[+NanCycle]

On 5/26/2025 at 8:35 PM, Mysterion604 said:

 talks a bit about local search & rescue organizations and hiking safety.

Beware of wandering into "agenda" territory.  

[+Mysterion604]

I figured out what was causing it ! 

 

It was my use of [ brackets ] for the clue answers in my working copy (before removing the answers for the final version of the cache page).

Even though it was in "user friendly editor" mode, when it saw a B or S or I between brackets, but without a space to separate it from the letter, it would interpret that as a command for Bold, or Strikethrough, or Italics, and then it would stay in that mode for the rest of the document.  (Yes, even though it was in user-friendly mode, not source code mode.)  

 

I noticed this after my manual corrections, because the affected letters were actually gone from the text I wrote. When I restored those letters in brackets, the problem came back, and the affected letters were gone again. 

Now I have changed it to add a space between the bracket and the letter and it does not do that, just the difference between [this] and [ this ], and that is all it was. 

Not a problem with my browser or word processing app, and not a problem with the document length. Hurray ! 

 

(Ironic, since I will be deleting those clue letters before the final iteration of the cache page, and they are just there now for me and possibly the reviewer.)    

[+Mysterion604]

3 hours ago, NanCycle said:

Beware of wandering into "agenda" territory.  

 

 

Oh, I know. I have discussed this with the reviewer already. I am keeping it strictly informational.