How do you edit the width of displayed text in description

[spike3333]

I would like to edit my listings so they display full width (750 characters?) in my listing descriptions. Whenever I do bulk description edits, they are reverting to mobile friendly 270 characters, which I don't want. All my listings are plain text with no formatting.  I tried to find and replace

<table width="270" border="0"> with <table width="750" border="0">

and it doesn't work. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[spike3333]

Currently I am only trying to change my shipping costs from $4 to $5. I need to do that in the description (which is what has caused my issues) and also in the actual shipping cost themselves (which I can currently do myself once the descriptions are altered). I have over 4000 listings so I would like to test this on a small number to make sure I don't cause a bigger problem than I am trying to fix. It is not clear to me from the ActiveContentEditor site how I would accomplish this so I would welcome your help. Am I downloading the listings and then editing the results of the download, then uploading the edited file back up to eBay?

[shipscript]

@spike3333 

This is the general process:

1. First, the ActiveContentEditor will retrieve copies of all of your descriptions.
2. Then you would define the find/replace filters (I can help).
3. With the filters assigned, the tool will apply those filters to each of your listings and save them to its server.
4. You would then retrieve those descriptions as a zipped spreadsheet file. There may be multiple zip files, depending on the size of your descriptions.
5. You can also download a copy of your originals in case you might need to reverse the process.
6. When you unzip and upload those spreadsheets to eBay, eBay will apply the revisions.

Yes, you definitely would want to test this feature with a handful of listings.

Then it would be wise to modify the process that created those listings, otherwise you may be chasing those issues well into the future.

[spike3333]

Thanks, can you tell me what options I should have checked or uncheck prior to download.

[shipscript]

@spike3333 

You can uncheck everything in the first three rows (although they don't affect your listings anyway).

If you want to remove your run of hard spaces that are keeping your text wide, you can checkmark the "HardSpace Runs".

Then checkmark the final "Find/Replace/Add" to open the find/replace slots.

In those slots, you can enter all of the find/replace attributes.

Find in the first column, and replace in the final column.

Let me think about that a little because I think we may be able to more efficiently script those.

I'll be back within the hour (maybe sooner) if you can hold that long.

Also consider all of the listings you have. This global change could affect any that have width settings, not just the ones that you have in mind.

[spike3333]

No rush, thanks. All my descriptions that I want to edit have simple text with no formatting. I will only be editing those that currently have $4 shipping.

[shipscript]

Do you want to bulk edit the $4 to $5 as well? Are there any listings that might have $4 where you do not want that value changed?

The tool is going to go through ALL 4600 listings and will modify any width dimensions that it finds.

Can you give a couple of examples of listings within that 4600 that you do not want to edit?

[spike3333]

Yes, I do.

I guess I need to clarify what led me to post here. In an effort to change my listings from $4 to $5 shipping, I tested the bulk editor on the two listings I originally sent you. The editor did change the test from 4 to 5 but in doing so it stripped out the line spaces I had added that made the listing full width and not narrowed for viewing on a mobile device. Not knowing how to do it using HTML I just used a crude solution. All the listings that still have $4 also have the line spaces. So, I want to use your third party recommendation to change from 4 to 5 and still have the description view full width.

Here is one I put through the editor (there are only two of these):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224693543476

and one that is the original formatting (there are 4,465 of these which are comic listings):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224693543610

The rest of my listings are other items that I have other shipping options and I don't want to change.

Thanks

[shipscript]

@spike3333 

If the other listings are not in the comics category, then using the category selector at the top of the ActiveContentTool can load only those items from the specified categories.

Another option that I have with another tool is to only find those listings that use a <table>, since that seems to be causing the issue with the width. There are 3811 of them across all categories. We could also  change the price in those 3811.

They range in date from Nov 14, 2021 to May 9, 2022.

[spike3333]

Great program. I think I can play with it and make some limited changes to test it. If I run into any issues I will let you know and ask for further help.

Since you are so helpful, I was wondering if I could share a couple of other issues I have had with the new eBay listing tools or should I start another post?

[shipscript · Accepted solution]

If you decide that the 4600 items already loaded into the tool do not include "other" listings and only include listings where $5 postage is desired, these 3 wildcard filters can be used in the ActiveContentEditor to generate revised descriptions:

Find:
/(width\=\"\d{3}\")/
Replace:
width="100%"

Find:
/(width\:\d{3}pt)/
Replace:
width:100%; max-width:750px

Find:
$4 
Replace:
$5 

I've encoded the filters so that you don't have to look for specific numbers, as it seems each listing session generated a different width value. Instead, it will look for a 3-digit number as a width.

Also, you may want to keep a single space after both $ price values to avoid modifying the front end of a price that may be 2-digits, like $41 changing to $51; although I suspect you don't have a price like that in your descriptions.

Also be sure to checkmark the filter to remove the long runs of HardSpaces. Once the code is fixed, you won't need those and they impede viewing on a phone.

Since there are many avenues we can take, I just wanted to confuse you with some of the options. If you need clarification on any of this, I'll be happy to guide you on the chosen path.

I also want to remind you that the tool will make backups of your originals so that if something goes amiss, the whole job can be undone by uploading the backup batch to eBay.  Be sure to download the backups (originals).

I can help with other issues, but it might be better to start a new topic for those.

[spike3333]

Thanks again, I'll let you know how it goes. I will start another topic for the new lister issues.