Community : News : Chatter : Ask Griff : April 2006

Jim Griffith, also known as "Griff", is one of eBay's most beloved staff members. Griff has also authored the eBay "How to" guide, The Official eBay Bible, and is the host of eBay Radio, with shows airing Sundays at 4:00 PM PT and Tuesdays at 11:00 AM PT. Each month, Griff will take some of your questions about eBay, and answer them in his own inimitable style.

In honor of all the eBay sellers who use a Mac computer, this month's question and answer addresses a thorny issue regarding the lack of a Description Editor for Mac users.

Q: Hi Griff! I am delighted to hear that you are a Mac user like me. I love using my iMac for shopping on eBay! Recently I started selling on eBay. Unfortunately, I don't have a clue about HTML, so was eager to use the HTML editor that I had heard was built into the Sell Your Item (SYI) form. Imagine my disappointment to learn that the HTML editor doesn't show up on a Mac! My questions are: do you have any tips or tricks for a newbie seller using a Mac? Is there a workaround for the lack of a Mac HTML Description Editor?

A: Mac users of the world unite! Indeed I do have three tips for Mac users selling on eBay. The first one is an easy get-started tip for formatting text in the Sell Your Item (SYI) Description box, using simple, basic HTML tags. The second tip is for more advanced text formatting using a special application called a Web Page Editor. The third is a recommendation for a great program designed for Macs, which works like TurboLister.

Tip 1. Learn the basics of HTML and do it yourself!
Basic do-it-yourself HTML is not that difficult. All it involves is the placement of things called "tags" in your text. An HTML tag consists of a small bit of special text. When it's “read” by a Web browser, it results in text and images being displayed on a Web page exactly the way you want viewers to see them.

You can use HTML tags to "mark up" your text while typing in your description into the Description box on the SYI form (for Windows users, this is the “Enter Your Own HTML” area). If you're new to HTML, I recommend that you type your text and tags into a TextEdit file, and then copy it over to the Description box after you're done. This will help you minimize errors.

All HTML tags come in pairs. For instance, if you want a part of your description to appear in bold text, you would type <b>the text you want to appear in bold typeface</b>. Here, the opening tag <b> tells the Web browser to start bolding text; and the closing tag </b> indicates the point at which the browser should stop bolding.

Check out the HTML tips page in eBay's Help system for a list of some of the most useful tags that you can use on your eBay listings. It's not too difficult to get the hang of the basics. Another great place to learn more about do-it-yourself HTML is on Photos & HTML discussion board.

Tip 2. Use Web page editing software.
For more complex formatting on a Mac, I recommend using a WYSIWYG (What You See IS What You Get) Web page editor to create your item description much in the same way you would create a formatted document in a word processor. Once you have created the description, you simply copy and paste the formatted text from the web editor application into the Description box on the SYI form.

There are some very good Mac web editors out there but they cost money. There is a free editor that I really like. It's called Nvu and it's one of the Web's best kept secrets. Download Nyu for free.

Nyu is an excellent package for creating beautiful, HTML formatted eBay item descriptions on a Mac. Once you have installed and opened Nvu, here's how it works:

In the "Normal" pane view, create your description and mark it up using the toolbar, just like you would if you were marking up a Word document. Nvu has a toolbar with options for bolding, italicizing, aligning text, changing fonts and font colors, and creating bulleted lists, among others. Once you have your description looking the way you want, switch from the window from the" Normal " pane to the "Source" pane. In the “Source” pane you'll be able to see both your text and the HTML code it needs to be displayed with the formatting you want.

Next, highlight all of the text between the first <BODY> tag and the last </BODY> tag (don't include the <BODY> and </BODY> tags in your selection). Copy your selection and paste it, either into the Description box on the SYI form, or into a TextEdit document for future use. (When using TextEdit for HTML-formatted text, make sure to save the document as plain text, not in the rich text format).

Tip 3. Try GarageSale
There is also an inexpensive "pay ware" program for Macs called "GarageSale" that works like a Mac version of eBay's TurboLister. GarageSale lets you create listings in bulk and edit your descriptions with its built in WYSIWYG editor. You can download and try GarageSale for a short trial period. I've used this application on my iMac and I recommend it for sellers who are looking for a bulk uploading tool like TurboLister.