Forum: Author Hangout

SOL software still messing up text, even with .odt instead of .txt

Justin Case 🚫
Updated:

SOL software still messing up my text and paragraph structure, even with .odt files.

Example....

Skye leaned to Lisa and whispered something, who shrugged and whispered to Beth, who busted out laughing for a minute. Beth caught her breath and announced loudly, "Breasts, Lisa." "Tits. Boobs. Fun-bags. Hooters. Milkers. Boobies. The term 'chesticles' is just a play on men's 'testicles'."

This should appear as...

Skye leaned to Lisa and whispered something, who shrugged and whispered to Beth, who busted out laughing for a minute. Beth caught her breath and announced loudly, "Breasts, Lisa."
"Tits. Boobs. Fun-bags. Hooters. Milkers. Boobies. The term 'chesticles' is just a play on men's 'testicles'."

I could care less about ''quotation rules', 'proper structure' or 'preferred paragraph layout'.

It's MY writing style, and it would be really nice if those who are reading it could see it exactly as I created it.

Gets kinda (no, strike that) IT IS EXTREMELY irritating when I have to re-post my work because someone (or some lousy program) else thinks their 'dialect rhythm' is the only way to write.

Replies: Dominions Son Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@Justin Case

Gets kinda (no, strike that) IT IS EXTREMELY irritating when I have to re-post my work because someone (or some lousy program) else thinks their 'dialect rhythm' is the only way to write.

That's probably not what's happening.

I use OO/LO for writing. Before the recent change to allow posting .ODTs directly, I would save as HTML and submit the HTML.

I've had the same thing happen to me, an extraneous new line in an odd place. In my case is was in the middle of a sentence of dialog the first time I caught it.

My master file looked fine in OO/LO and the .html looked correct if I opened it in OO/LO.

It was only when I opened the .html file in my browser that I saw that the extra new line was in fact in the source document I was submitting, not a problem being created on SOL's end.

In OO/LO go to the view menu and turn on formatting marks. There's probably a stray formatting mark at the location where things are going wrong.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Dominions Son

In OO/LO go to the view menu and turn on formatting marks. There's probably a stray formatting mark at the location where things are going wrong.

I still remember to ever popular 'underwater' screen for WordPerfect on DOS where it showed the formatting tags. I always had it visible by default and often typed in that window because you could even manually edit the tags.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Justin Case

Gets kinda (no, strike that) IT IS EXTREMELY irritating when I have to re-post my work because someone (or some lousy program) else thinks their 'dialect rhythm' is the only way to write.

We're not out to irritate you, trust me :)

If you want a single line break between paragraphs you must do it manually by inserting a {br} tag where a space replaced that single line. Like this:

"Breasts, Lisa."{br}
"Tits. Boobs.

There is no real way to operate a site like SOL with the vast number of author submitting stories, each with their own style of writing, their own setup (platform and software), and handle the problem you're complaining about correctly.

I always tell authors, don't ever mix single line paragraph separation with double/multi-line paragraph separation. Whenever you do that, then paragraphs separated with a single return will be joined and separated only with a space. If you insist on mixing them, then you should take responsibility for your decision and handle it manually by separating single return divisions with a {br} tag.

And that applies to any format you upload.

Replies: Justin Case

Justin Case 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

I went back, re-posted with the right spacing, and it still posted without the right spacing.

The SYSTEM is doing what I showed as an example above.
It removes spacing between lines and 'compacts' (for lack of better term) the text.

My choice and responsibility ??
My 'choice' is to have my work as I wrote it.
Something else is talking away that choice.

It is the responsibility of whatever 'IT guy' to make sure the site doesn't change things when we post.

Replies: Michael Loucks Switch Blayde

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Justin Case

I went back, re-posted with the right spacing, and it still posted without the right spacing.

I've had no trouble posting with the {br}. It works correctly every time. I make extensive use of it. And I use {psc} to prevent smart quotes, and also other {} formatting constructs (block, tt, etc). They all work.

Would you post the raw text snippet you submitted? You are posting .txt files, right?

See this: Text Formatting Information & Guide

Make sure you post .txt when you use these tags. And please do not harass the site owner. Thank you.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Justin Case

The SYSTEM … removes spacing between lines and 'compacts' (for lack of better term) the text.

If you type:

xxx
yyy

and get the "yyy" on a new line by hitting the return key after the "xxx", I think it shows up as:

xxxyyy

But if you type:

xxx{br}
yyy

and hit the return key after "{br}", I think it shows up as:

xxx
yyy

Are you sure you're putting in the {br}?

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Forum: Author Hangout

SOL software still messing up text, even with .odt instead of .txt

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