Don't understand the documentation for changing html output

I have been looking through the documentation and I found this page, which seemed hopeful:
http://docs.cksource.com/CKEditor_3.x/D ... Formatting

However I don't know where or how to implement changes. I don't know what file to edit... I don't know whether I need to edit the code or add to the code... I'm lost!

Here is what I am trying to do. Currently CKEditor defaults to writing html like this for paragraphs and lists:

<p>
   Text here blah blah blah after a new line then a tab that I don't want...</p>
<ul>
   <li>
      list item 1 after a new line and two tabs...</li>
   <li>
      list item 2, same thing...</li>
</ul>

For me that is too much white space and it's ugly, messy, confusing code. I want it to write code like this:

<p>Text here blah blah blah inline...though I do want a new line for each paragraph</p>
<ul>
   <li>list item 1 all on one line</li>
   <li>list item 2 all on one (new) line</li>
</ul>

To me that is much cleaner and easier on the eyes... the code the CKEditor currently writes is driving me bonkers, truly. I guess I'm just OCD that way.

I found a similar thread from two years ago with one very unhelpful response (here) that said to "read up on ckeditor's event system. You wait until the instanceReady event fires so all the default rules are in place, then modify them to suit your liking."

I don't even know what that means. I'm not a programmer, I'm a designer. I have had a steep learning curve learning things like Zen Cart e-commerce software and how to modify it... that is where I am using CKEditor, and this is a steep learning curve, too, it seems.

So can someone tell me what file(s) I need to edit, maybe even tell me line numbers (hint, hint) and tell me whether I need to modify some existing code or if I need to add some new code/rules or what... but mainly WHERE? I've played around with the only file that seemed to have code that had any resemblance to that documentation example, and that's ckeditor/_source/htmlwriter/plugin.js but editing that file (as ineptly as I'm sure I did) didn't make the changes that I wanted to happen, happen. Fortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, it also didn't completely break it.

Anyway, I could use some help/handholding. Please remember that I'm NOT a programmer. Beyond HTML and CSS I don't know ANY programming languages and can't write ANY kind of code. I can only modify and extrapolate based on examples.