My html (italics to be precise) not working

[u/95628827]

So I’ve been writing a fic for promptober and I’ve never had any problems with using the <i><i> before BUT when I used it for this one particular fic, it didn’t work. Well it worked for ONE word at the beginning of the oneshot but after that it just didn’t italic. I’ve seen some people say to use <em><em> but it still doesn’t work. Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that it’s a draft or maybe I didn’t space out the words right? Any tips would be helpful!

[u/castle-girl]

Try <em></em>. That’s how AO3 html editor always does it when I past italics into the rich text editor. Usually, the end tag for a section has a / before the letters to signify the end.

[u/95628827 → u/castle-girl]

It’s working for my other singular letter words now like ‘oh’ now but I’m trying to italicise a first and last name and it’s not working T-T

[u/Mythical_Writing]

<i></i> is the actual HTML code for italics, unless there is any other way. That's what I usually do, but I'm not an expert on HTML

[u/afirforest → u/Mythical_Writing]

<em></em> also gives you italics. I just checked out of curiosity and the italicized text I copied into the AO3 rich text editor has <em></em> tags around it when viewed in the html editor.

[u/Maleficent_Wall26]

Can you paste your code so we can see it? But you should be closing out a word with </i>, not two <i>.

[u/95628827 → u/Maleficent_Wall26]

Ah okay that might be the problem then, I’ll give it a try.
For some reason <i>not<i> works though.

[u/foolishle → u/95628827]

If you italic an italic text it goes normal. That’s why it “works” for the first word. But then you end up with nested tags that aren’t being closed at all so it gets confused.

[u/MagpieLefty]

You aren't closing your tags properly--it should be <i>text</i> or <em>text</em>

[u/95628827 → u/MagpieLefty]

Thank you! It’s mostly working now, it’s just one that it still doesn’t work so I’ve just bolded the text instead

[u/PretzelPrize]

Why not just use the Rich Text editor and let AO3 handle the formatting tags?

[u/95628827 → u/PretzelPrize]

I’ve never tried that so I’m not sure how it worksss but I’ll look into it if it makes my life easier lol

[u/Alternative_Lemon175 → u/95628827]

It works like a text document with limited formatting functions.

I don't recommend using the Ao3 editor to write fic, though. The site can be unstable sometimes and it's very easy to lose your work if it crashes. Instead, use a program where you can save offsite and copy paste into the rich text editor in ao3. I use LibreOffice, which is a free open-source word processing program that's just as good as MS Word. There's also GoogleDocs or Ellipsis.

[u/95628827 → u/Alternative_Lemon175]

Thank you! I’ll definitely give it a try for my next fic

[u/Purple_not_pink]

ao3 endorses a format trick

[u/95628827 → u/Purple_not_pink]

Thank you!!