What is the Rich Text Editor? What is the HTML Editor?

Dreamwidth gives you two ways (interfaces) to compose entries: the HTML editor and the Rich Text editor. You can switch between the two by selecting the appropriate tab on the Post an Entry page. You can also select which editor to use by default on the My Account Settings page, under the Display tab. By default, the page will remember which you used last.

The HTML editor (also called the plain text editor) allows you to change the look of your text with HTML markup. It can be used in both entries and comments. There is a full list of the HTML you can use on Dreamwidth.

The rich text editor lets you add formatting and pictures to text without using HTML tags. It can only be used when posting an entry, not making a comment. The rich text editor will attempt to preserve your formatting if you paste text from another source, such as a word processor, into it. This can cause problems for subscribers reading your entry from their reading page as your entry might be unreadable for them.

The rich text editor can sometimes produce markup that doesn't do what you want it to do. If your entry doesn't look like you want it to look when you post, you may want to switch to the HTML editor and make corrections.

Remember that forcing font changes may make things difficult for those reading your entries on their reading page. If you want to make changes to the way the text appears on your journal without changing the way the text appears on others' reading pages, see: How do I change the appearance of my journal?.