eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Format the Description with HTML

Use HTML tags to turn a drab block of text into an interesting, attractive, and effective sales tool.

As a seller on eBay, you’re expected to wear a lot of hats: diplomat, market researcher, salesperson, and yes, even web designer. Since eBay auctions are web pages, your description area can be decorated with the same fonts, colors, images, links, and tables found on any other web site.

Tip

If you’re already familiar with HTML, you’ll probably want to skip this primer or perhaps just use it as a quick reference as the rest of the hacks in this chapter contain more meaty HTML code.

Now, if you’re using Internet Explorer, the Sell Your Item form [Hack #43] includes a rudimentary HTML editor (below the Standard tab on the Describe Your Item page), as shown in Figure 4-10. (You’ll see only an ordinary text box here if you’re using Mozilla or Firefox.)

Here, you can select a font from among four standard Windows typefaces, a font size, and even a color. You can bold, italicize, or underline your text, change the justification, indent, and format bulleted and numbered lists. And at any time, you can click the “Enter your own HTML” tab to view the code for the text you’ve typed so far. (You’ll see something similar if you’re building your listings with Turbo Lister [Hack #93] .)

But if you want to include images, tables, JavaScript, or any of the other advanced tags used throughout this book, you’ll have to type the HTML by hand or import it from another program ...