How Does a Person Justify Text in eBay's 2022 Listing Tool?

[hurley_byrd_ias]

I just changed over to the new listing tool eBay is pushing for 2022 and it seems to work fine mostly.  It's slimmer and lighter for sure and I believe that to be a good thing.

BUT......  I have 100's of listings and all have their text descriptions set up for center justified, my preference and how I have designed my listings.  When I try to do this in the new lister..... it will not take. It will show the text centered (or even right) but the moment I click outside the text box.... it reverts to left justification.  I have tried a number of times and it will only produce left justify.

Has anyone else had this issue and have you been able to overcome the default?

Thanks,

Pete

[rfmtm]

There appears to be no simple justify option for any position; left, center, or right.  Maybe you can add it from the HTML view.

@shipscript  Can you comment here?

[richard1rst]

In HTML mode add the code

<center>

before anything you type.

Unfortunately in the advanced mode they HIDE the HTML link.

Just above the description box and to the right it says something like "other options" (not sure of the exact wording.)

Click that, ignore their pop=up "suggestions" and click "proceed anyways" (Love how they make acceptance a negative).

That will open the HTML link. It also opens some other text and formatting icons along the top row.

[shipscript]

Here is a graphic of the Description editor on the Unified Lister:

[readabouthorses]

In the advertising and marketing world center justifying a big block of text is a big giant no-no and one of the first things you learn.

Our eyes are not set up to accurately read and comprehend large blocks of center justified text and can end up missing lots of things.

Center justified is meant for headlines and small blocks of text.

So maybe the new listing program has finally realized it probably isn't a good idea to do it. Good for them.

[vivabe]

Use "advanced Editing" and type, edit, your description as you want it, text, color, center, etc. Then switch to "HTL.

Copy the HTML and save it as your future template.

[vivabe]

I am assuming you are saving your own template in your computer.

[vivabe]

This is my HTML template from editing on the listing page. I reduced the size of the template font and kept larger colored font for my description.

[shipscript]

@hurley_byrd_ias 

I don't know if you are preparing your description in a text editor and pasting it, or whether you are typing directly into the listing. If pasting your description into eBay's editor, you will see it just as it came from your editing tool. But, when you preview or when you toggle between HTML and Standard editing, eBay's rendering engine will modify the underlying code to strip out some types of code.

eBay's Unified Lister and Quick Lister seem to use different rules than the older Business Lister, but your ability to style your description is not lost, although, your coding may need to change.

When looking at your older listings vs. your newer listings, I no longer see the older types of HTML attributes.  Instead, I see inline CSS styles. eBay's description editing tool uses the HTML engine built into your browser, so different browsers may produce different HTML/CSS results. And when you use eBay's markup/styling toolbar, you will be adding the codes that your browser prefers.

I took one of your listings and re-coded it using inline CSS.  It is much cleaner code than what I see in your old and new listings. Below is the code that could be pasted into the HTML view of the listing form.

I made a box for your text that is no more than 480 pixels wide because most of your lines appear to be short. If they are longer, they will wrap within that small box. Then I center aligned the text within that box and set the outer margins of the box to auto-balance (center) within eBay's container.

I put a thin black border around the text because I can never find simple descriptions on a listing page. The line around the box is the third row below and can be removed. In the first code line, there is padding of one character width (em)  to keep the border away from the text.

<div style="max-width:480px; text-align:center; margin:auto; padding:1em;
font-family:arial; font-size:1em; 
border:1px solid black; box-shadow: 2px 5px 5px 0px rgba(0,0,0,.5)
">

<h3> 8" x .180" 50 Pound Mountable Zip Ties </h3>

<p> 8" Black Nylon Push-In <br />
Arrow Head Mount w/ Wings </p>

<p> .180" Wide x .060" Thick <br />
Fits a 1/4" or 6mm hole that is no <br />
more than .118" or 3mm in thickness. <br />
Secures a maximum bundle diameter of 1 3/4" </p>

<p> You will receive a quantity of 300 </p>


<p> Ships USPS <br />
Order Today - Ships Today <br />
<span style="font-size:smaller"> (unless the carrier has already picked up) </span>
</p>

<p><span style="font-size:larger"> Hurley Byrd IAS </span><br />
Fairmont, WV 26554 <br />
WV Business Cert: 2233-2698 </p>
</div>

Once the description template is used in a listing, it should hold up in a sell-similar to make another listing.  When editing in the rendered view, instead of in the HTML code view, pressing the enter key will create a new paragraph (<p> in the code above). Use the shift+enter key to drop a single line (represented as <br /> in the code above).

Or to simplify it even more to just keep doing what you've been doing:

<div style="text-align:center; font-family:arial; ">

...add text here...

</div>

Since the bottom of your description is boilerplate, you might want to try out the "Custom Template" feature on eBay's description toolbar. Add the bare template to your description without adding any more details. Then open "Custom Template" and select "Create Template". You current description will be loaded into the template screen. Add a short name and save.  The list won't immediately update, but it will be saved.

Now you can complete the rest of your listing.

The next time you create a listing (or refresh your screen), the Custom Template will be available in the list. It can be selected before adding anything to the description.  This is really not much different than starting with "sell-similar" except that if you really do need a fresh start due to a different category, this method will standardize the description.

Unified Lister - HTML - template

[bighossthetoyboss]

This works well,Thank you very very much. So manage your existing templates by simply doing this and pressing enter before saving seems to have don the trick and now my listings look professional again.

[siamjane8]

Wow- I enjoyed reading your posts about all the work-a-rounds for the coding to make it work. I have no interest in programming or coding but it is interesting.... just a shame ebay decided to make so much busy work for all us sellers- we cant even focus on listing- I just read that ebay's "head tech guy" is quietly moving on so maybe the heads are starting to roll over this mess.  

[siamjane8]

Its been nearly two weeks since we cant go back to classic- has anyone been able to fight through the new listing process long enough to be productive yet?

[siamjane8]

Just tried to do a listing and found that the color gamut  is terrible muted colors that do not even differentiate themselves from the black text..... worthless in trying to convey importance or highlight something about the item for sale. My son then showed me how to get the html code for bright red and switch to the html view off the listing tool and redo it so that my listing was correct (yes ebay- its not an opinion- its just correct).  He admitted its completely stupid that ebay is limiting the colors and fonts and sizes! he noted that the ebay tool should have every option that any modern word processing software does.

      That being said- it is infuriating that the classic tool has been taken away and we are now forced to use a subpar listing tool in 2022!   It is not practical to alter html coding to make 3 words stand out in RED.  LOL- I can use a real RED in this tool but not on ebay listing tool lol lol... almost makes you crazy- this is what the listing tool gives you NOT RED. Does not even stand out against the black print and i think it is actually brighter than the listing tool offers.

    I've heard that the colors they use are approved for color blind people and have certain contrast ratios so they can see the words..... noble but impractical to to disadvantage 99.9% of the people reading the listing so possibly 0.01% can, and that is even if they are looking on ebay in the first place........WE USE BRIGHT RED TO HIGHLIGHT IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF A LISTING TO AVOID RETURNS AND BUYIER  DISATISFACTION.