Dreamwidth Studios has a few special tags which are not a part of standard HTML but have a special meaning here.

<user name=username>: Creates a link to your journal. To link to another user, substitute their name for yours. For more examples of ways to link to other users, see How do I link to another user?

<cut>: "Hides" text behind a link. For more information, including information on how to change the default "Read more" link text, see What is a cut? How can I hide part of my entry behind a cut?

<raw-code>: Temporarily turns off auto-formatting. For more information, see What is the Auto-Formatting?

Dreamwidth supports several different ways to format entries and comments.

Formatting Types

• Casual HTML

Casual HTML is Dreamwidth's classic default formatting.

Casual HTML automatically formats line breaks and @user mentions, and lets you use HTML tags for text formatting (like <strong>bold</strong>, <em>italics</em>, <a href="http://some.url">links</a>, <img src="http://some.jpg" alt="images">, and more). If you need to disable automatic formatting for just part of your text, you can wrap that part in a <raw-code> tag.

More information:

- Auto-formatting
- @user mentions
- Dreamwidth-specific HTML tags
- The main HTML tags to know

• Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for formatting text.

Markdown automatically formats paragraphs and @user mentions, and has shortcut syntax for the most common kinds of HTML formatting (like **bold**, _italics_, [links](http://some.url), ![images](http://some.jpg), and more). It also lets you use normal HTML tags for formatting (when something doesn't have a shortcut syntax, or just because it's what you're used to). If you need to disable Markdown for just part of your text, you can wrap that part in a <raw-code> tag.

More information:

- Markdown syntax reference
- @user mentions
- Dreamwidth-specific HTML tags

• Raw HTML

Raw HTML is HTML without any automatic formatting.

Raw HTML ignores line breaks and extra spaces; you'll need to handle paragraphs manually with <p> tags. It also ignores @user mentions, although you can still link to users with the Dreamwidth <user> tag. Raw HTML is mostly useful for posting markup generated by another program (like a word processor's HTML export function), or for when you just want to party like it's literally 1999.

More information:

- Dreamwidth-specific HTML tags
- The main HTML tags to know

• Rich Text

Rich text uses a WYSIWYG editor that resembles a desktop word processor. It won't work in every browser, especially the newest ones.

More information:

- The rich text editor

How to Switch Formats

Note: Different parts of the site have different formatting options. Sometimes this is because we can't update everything at the same time, and other times it's because certain things just work differently.

• In comment forms and on the beta create entries page, you can switch formats using the drop-down menu above the body text area.
  
  If you switch to a different format, you'll have the option to set it as your new default after you finish posting. (New posts start with your default format selected, but you can always use a non-default format as a one-off. We save separate defaults for entries and comments, in case you have different preferences.)
  
  Comments don't currently support the rich text format.


• On the old create entries page, you can use the tabs above the body text area to switch between HTML and rich text formats.
  
  By default, the HTML mode uses casual HTML, but you can switch to raw HTML by checking the "Disable Auto-Formatting" checkbox above the body text area.


• When posting or commenting by email, you can use the post-format header to switch between Markdown and casual HTML formats. Email posts default to Markdown if there's no post-format header.

Other areas of the site (like user bios and private messages) don't currently support switching formats. These types of content only support casual HTML.

Formats on Old Posts

If you edit an older entry or comment, its format might be set to something that doesn't normally appear in the format switcher, like "Casual HTML (Legacy 0)".

This just means that we made changes to that format at some point after you originally wrote the post. When we add new formatting behaviors or change existing ones, we create new versions of those formats so that older content isn't affected. For example: since we only added @user mentions to casual HTML in mid-2019, we don't automatically format @user mentions in the casual HTML posts written prior to that.

If you change the format of an older post to the current version of that format, you'll be able to use all its current features; however, you might need to update the text to make sure the new features don't have unintended effects. If you're only making minor edits, it's usually easiest to leave the old format in place.

Developer Info

Under the hood, Dreamwidth uses some additional formats that aren't always displayed in the UI. Full details about the available format IDs and their meanings are available on the developer page about formats.

Email posts can optionally pass a format ID in the post-format header instead of using the html or markdown aliases. If you use an automated system to post by email, you can use a static format ID so your formatting won't be affected if we change the behavior of the default formats.

Dreamwidth's legacy XMLRPC API doesn't support directly specifying a format; posts or comments made via this API default to casual HTML, and can be switched to raw HTML by disabling auto-formatting. We have no plans to add format support to the XMLRPC API, since most clients that use it are no longer being updated.

The work-in-progress JSON-based API will fully support formats, but the endpoints for posting entries and comments aren't completed yet.

Although we've based Dreamwidth Studios on the Open Source LiveJournal software, we've also added a lot of new features of our own. If you're already familiar with LiveJournal, this list will give you a quick glimpse of some of the things we've added and has links you can follow if you're looking for more information.

• We've split the idea of "friends" into two new concepts. You now give Access to people to share your locked content and Subscribe to journals you want to see on your Reading Page.
• You can import your personal journal including entries and comments from LiveJournal and some other sites based on LiveJournal code.
• We've increased length-limits on usernames to 25 characters.
• We've increased the length limits for entries to 300,000 characters.
• We've increased the length limits for comments to 16,000 characters.
• We've removed the word count limit for interests.
• We've increased the size limits for polls made through the poll creator.
• We've added another option on the "gender" field. Instead of "female, male, unspecified", the choices are now "female, male, other, unspecified".
• We've renamed "Adult concepts" and "graphic adult material" to "NSFW" (short for "Not Safe For Work") and "18+" so it's clear what they are and what they do. Users under the age of 18 will not be permitted to view 18+ material under any circumstances. Users over 18 can select whether they want to view 18+ posts in their account settings.
• We've completely reworked the system of "Adult Concepts". You can still optionally mark your posts as "18+" or "Not safe For Work", but other people can no longer flag up your content for review.
• We now allow people to describe why they chose the particular adult-content setting they chose, so you can (for instance) say "NSFW for image of naked people" or "18+ for violent content", etc. This works for both individual entries and for your whole journal, so if you set your entire journal to 18+, you can make the click-through say "this journal contains frequent nude images", or whatever else you want.
• We've added the ability to upload more than one user icon at a time.
• We've worked extensively on OpenID accounts so they're easier to use and can do more.
• The RSS and Atom feeds of your journal will now treat cuts appropriately
• We've changed the name "maintainer" for a community to "administrator" to make it clearer as to what the position is.
• If you're the administrator of a community, you'll now get a warning if you try to delete your journal, reminding you to pick a new administrator.
• We've changed the logic of when the Navigation Strip is shown to you. It's now a viewing preference and not a style preference — you choose when and where you want to see it and no one can override that for you.
• We've added a "description" field to user icons. This is used to add a text description of the content of the icon, which shows as "alt" text for blind users and some other forms of assistive technology.
• We've added a new account type for staff accounts, to only be used for staff business. These are clearly marked with a unique icon so people will always be able to know when someone they're talking to is site staff and acting as such.
• We've renamed all the LiveJournal tags to more general forms. The lj user tag format is now <user name="username">, and the lj-cut tag is now simply <cut> or <cut text="Cut Text Here">. The old tags will still work, for those who don't want to memorise new versions.
• We've made it easier to refer to people on other services by using <user name="username" site="livejournal.com">.
• We've upgraded the spellcheck option and added support for custom dictionaries. This will let us add commonly-used terms that aren't in the dictionary already and new words that come from the community.
• We've added some extra links to the navigation strip. You'll now find a link to reload the page you're looking at with ?style=mine and ?format=light options, a 'Track User' link, and a 'Confirm Email' link for accounts with unconfirmed email addresses.
• We've streamlined process for creating new accounts.
• The Lynx site skin now displays whether you're logged in, and the name of the logged in account. We've also added a search option to the Lynx skin.
• We've added bad password checking to increase account security.
• We've added a Preview button to comment Quick Replies.
• We've made it easier for a journal owner to tell the difference between visible and screened comments.
• Added "random community" page, as well as the existing "random user" page, to help you find interesting active communities.
• You can now list your Twitter and Delicious accounts on your profile.
• We've fixed a lot of minor bugs that have always annoyed us. for instance: comment notification emails no longer strip single returns, and the entry preview will now respect the "don't use custom comment pages" option if the journal owner has it set.
• As part of our commitment to Open Source, we've explicitly license our FAQs under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license so other sites can use the documentation we write, and updated the LICENSE file in dw-free, by adding the dual-licensing option (GPL and Artistic) for code we wrote entirely ourselves and updating the copyright information for the files we forked from LJ.
• We've added a selective screening option, to make it easier to control comments in your journal or communities.

To tell search engines not to index (make available on the Web) your journal, go to the Privacy Tab of the My Account Settings page and select the checkbox labeled "Attempt to block outside search engines from indexing my journal".

Choosing this option creates something called a "robots.txt" file for your journal. The "robots.txt" file is where search engines automatically go for instructions, and it contains the information that your journal is a place that they shouldn't index or let people search through. This change will take effect immediately after you select the option and save your changes.

While checking the "Minimize my journal's inclusion in search engine results" will limit the ability of search engines to index your Public Access journal content, public posts are not secure, and it isn't possible to completely keep search engines from reading and displaying them to others. If this might be a concern for you, consider adjusting your journal's security settings to restrict your posts to an Access List.

Dreamwidth Studios is not affiliated in any way with Google or Google Analytics. This feature is provided only as a convenience. We're not responsible for any errors with or changes to Google Analytics, and cannot offer help or support with it.

If you have an account with Google Analytics you can use it to track visitors to your Dreamwidth journal if you have a paid, premium paid, or seed account.

If you want to verify your site ownership for Google Search Console, you can use your Google Analytics code.

To set it up enter https://username.dreamwidth.org on Google Analytics as the site to track. Then go to the Display tab of the My Account Settings page and enter your Google Analytics ID (UA-xxxxxx-x) in the appropriate box, and push the save button.

If you have a Paid, Premium Paid, or Seed account, any email sent to username@dreamwidth.org will automatically be forwarded to the email address you use on Dreamwidth.

This is not an independent email account, and cannot be used on its own. It is only a forwarding service, and you will have to read forwarded email through your email provider as you would with all other email.

It is possible that the email address you use on Dreamwidth could be exposed to someone in certain circumstances: if you have this feature enabled, and an email someone sends to your username@dreamwidth.org email address bounces (because your mailbox is full, for instance), the bounce message may include the email address you use on Dreamwidth. If you are using a sensitive email address for Dreamwidth and don't want others to accidentally see it, you can turn email forwarding off by unchecking the appropriate box on the Privacy tab of the Account Settings page.

This feature is not available to users with a free account.

We do not have a mobile app. In order for an app to be included in the Apple or Google App Store, a site needs to have a number of content guidelines for what content their users can post. We do not agree with the content guidelines Apple and Google would make us impose on your accounts in order to have an app in their App Stores. We would need to place more restrictions on what you can post than we would want to, so we have chosen to skip having a mobile app and avoid letting Apple and Google dictate to us the things that you can post.

Our ongoing goal is for the site to work just as well in mobile browsers as it does on desktop browsers instead. Both iOS and Android will let you create a shortcut to Dreamwidth for your home screen that will take you directly to the website in your mobile browser when you tap it.