Zanski: Blog

As may be painfully obvious, I have only the minimal acquaintance with the hard and soft technologies that underly my ability to write my thoughts in standard English text which then appears on a video screen. The same goes for those technologies' attendent jargon, even jargon no longer recognized as such by those who have become conversant in its arcane subtleties.

Keeping that in mind, here are my observations of the text formatting following the update of Back Trail dated 3/5/2023:

My bonafides: My Back Trail file was formatted in LibreOffice Writer version 7.4.3.2 (x64), whatever that means. NOT that I'm asking for an explanation--I can already feel my eyelids getting heavy.

I saved it in an odt file by this process: On the standard "writing" screen, I clicked File/Save As/Save as file type: ODF Text Document (from the drop-down list). I saved the file to my Desktop to keep it handy.

Then I uploaded through the SOL wizard.

Here's what I've noticed to date:

Ellipses

The elipsis (...) at the very end of Chapter 18 (and...) converted to a solid line. An ellipsis in Chapter 3 (in the same paragraph as the word "porky," for reference) was preserved in the update.

Italics

As best I can determine, none of the italic formatting transferred. I italicised the cigar brand, Guardia Real, throughout my odt file, but those I've seen are in standard text, not italics.

Text indents

I see no evidence of indented text. Most of the very short Chapter 16 is a handwritten letter formatted both indented and italics in my odt file. I use that format for block quotes from letters and telegram texts. I haven't found any in the update.

ñ (tilde N)

These, most happily, appear to be intact, of the several I searched for. This is perhaps the most gratifying format transfer, for my particular story context. It easily overshadows all other issues herein.

Centering

I only centered the "Chapter #" which were all converted to the SOL standard chapter heading.

To be determined

Will text indent if it is not italics? Any bets? It will be my next format for correspondence quotes.

Just for experience, and per the recommendation from dozens of correspondents, I intend to convert the next book, False Trail, to HTML. I will use LibreOffice Writer's Save As/Save as file type: HTML Document (Writer), then see how that comes out.

After that, I may have to try the unique suggestion of limnophile##### (actual numbers redacted by me), who recommends conversion of text to UTM-8 format. He (presumed gender by me) provided a URL for that purpose, which I will share only with those who will sign a Waiver of Liability, as this limnophile##### comes across as a somewhat shady fellow. Actually, he was quite helpful despite my off-the-wall responses. I have no idea if this is SOL author limnophile, but I have my suspicions.

Thanks to all who offered advice, though I have to confess to having mostly no idea what you all were talking about.

I am pleased to see the repaired version of Back Trail on the pages, and I'm grateful to Lazeeze or whomever it is who works weekends for tending to my Saturday afternoon submission.

Even so, despite the many times I've gone over the text, my own errors persist. For instance, in referencing the United States, my rule is to use "US" in quoted dialogue and "U.S." in expositional narrative. But not always, apparently.

Another, brought to my attention thanks to the sharp eyes of some correspondents, including prolific SOL author Anne N. Mouse, is a rather glaring date typo: wrong century. What's more it breaks another of my rules, to use numerals (twelve) rather than numbers (12). Eventually, I'll get around to fixing it.

There are others I've found and I'm sure there are more. I won't rush to fixing them unless they are so subtle and insidious that they would deceive the average reader into misunderstanding the storyline.

Considering such errors in the main, I begin to sense a subtle vibe that I may only be human. Go figure.

Contrary to earlier stated plans, I found it advantageous to repost Back Trail before proceeding with False Trail. To that end, just a few minutes ago I submitted an odt file of the entire story. Now we'll see if I finally got it right. The suspense....

I am ducking out of email replies for the moment and returning to the truly joyous work of formatting detail. I won't go into how bass-ackwards I've been approaching all this posting business, but what I thought was a time-saving approach has been quite the opposite. Now I must turn a clean txt file back into a clean odt file. I am thankful for all the advice and guidance which has made these processes more understandable to me. Whoever said you can't teach an old dog new tricks without a rolled-up newspapaper and lots of shouting was right.

I might also note that I have deleted two somewhat rancorous blog posts that suggested SOL was somehow responsible for my own failure to grasp the processes that are explained in detail on the author's pages. While I do fall back on my unfamiliarity with much of the jargon, my vitriol was uncalled-for. Mea culpa.

Betwen the coaching from Lazeeze and the advice of many others, I think I'm getting a handle on this. I've learned that stories can be submitted in multipke formats, not just the preferred text files, and I've received numerous tips and tricks from readers and other authors. NUMEROUS.

And while I still can't explain the odd Ös and other doodads, I do plan to try to clean up and repair the paragraph breaks on Back Trail after False Trail is posted. False Trail is ready to go as a txt file (at least as ready as I know how to make it), but Lazeeze is in correspondence with me and I asked his advice on a process that may affect my choice of file type. Even so, the txt file I have looks neat and clean to me, so I may just push the button. But not yet.