How to get WordPress to stop removing your break tags
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Oh the joy of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors. They make all of the difficult things involved in editing an HTML/PHP page easy but they make all of the easy things impossible. One such easy-thing-turned-impossible is the ability to insert <br> tags to create line breaks.
It seems the WordPress developers did not think the average blogger wise enough to use discretion with <br> tags. The TinyMCE editor that comes with WordPress, at its default setting, will automatically remove <br> and <p> tags (that are empty). Although this may simplify the editing process, it proves to be a major pain in the ass for users who may need the <br> tag to push text further down a post so it doesn’t align horizontally with an image or if they just plain like to see giant spaces between their paragraphs (who doesn’t?).
To remove this wonderful feature in WordPress, you will need to download the TinyMCE Advanced Plugin. This amazing little plugin is the best thing since Akismet (the WordPress equivalent of sliced bread). With the plugin, you will be able to:
- Deactivate the removal of <br> and <p> tags after saving in TinyMCE
- Change the button arrangement of your buttons in TinyMCE
- Add over 20 buttons onto your TinyMCE editor that did not exist before
- Imports all CSS classes from the main theme’s stylesheet and add them to a drop-down list
- Do search and replace editing
- Add inline CSS styles to your elements
- And more
The TincyMCE Advanced Plugin for WordPress Screenshot
That said, TinyMCE Advanced is a must-have plugin for the adept blogger.
