I've noticed that in one of my stories when it's posted on this site it does something weird to my story. It'll break the paragraphs into odd forms. Sometimes it'll combine two or three paragraphs into one and then others it'll break one paragraph into one or two. But in my originals the paragraphs are as they're meant to be?
It'll break the paragraphs into odd forms.
In which chapter does this happen? I'll investigate.
It's happened multiple times. But the current chapter is 18. I made some edits and am about to submit the edited version so maybe that could change. But I doubt it. Unless you want me to wait for a while to post the new version. I'll wait. It's my story titled Elena.
It's happened multiple times. But the current chapter is 18
Yes, now I remember.
I've noticed that your submissions are peculiar and I should have said something.
The text you're pasting into the wizard is a little odd.
Most of the text (almost 85% of it), has 5 spaces at the start of each paragraph. Our software converts these spaces into an additional newline thus separating each paragraph with 2 returns or newlines.
However, the last 15% don't have those spaces and only a single newline, so if we don't do anything and simply process the text as usual, those 15% come out in one giant paragraph because our software converts a single new line into a space.
As far as I can tell all your submissions have this oddity.
When I process your text, most of the time I notice the problematic portion and add an additional newline to all newlines, and the text comes out good. But if I'm in a hurry or vixen is in a hurry and we don't take the time to scroll through the text to spot any oddities, then we don't do this step and the text comes out messy to say the least.
So you need to figure out why this happens to your text, why isn't it all uniform, so that this problem doesn't occur.
Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster) for the next chapter I'll try not to hit the tab button at the beginning of each paragraph. And I'll just go down one space.
And I'll just go down one space
it would be best if you could do two new lines between paragraphs.
But the most important thing is that the text would be uniform. Either all paragraphs have a tab at the start or none at all or all paragraphs get double newlines or all single newline.
Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster) When I say I'll go down one space I think I'm meaning what you're saying about double new lines.
As in a space between the paragraphs with nothing there.
So you need to figure out why this happens to your text, why isn't it all uniform
I think there's a simple test that would identify if you're unwittingly using different formats in your text.
Assuming all breaks between paragraphs appear the same, try highlighting an entire chapter and changing the setting for paragraph spacing from single to multiple. If your formats are inconsistent the paragraph breaks would no longer appear consistent.
Assuming all breaks between paragraphs appear the same, try highlighting an entire chapter and changing the setting for paragraph spacing from single to multiple. If your formats are inconsistent the paragraph breaks would no longer appear consistent.
You can also have WORD highlight the paragraph marks (by clicking on the paragraph character at the top of the window on the formatting ribbon). I do this often to keep track of what I've left out, or accidentally included (like extra trailing spaces or extra blank lines).
I always do a "save as" to plain text and upload that file to the Wizard. When you take out all the formatting, potential errors with the Wizard become apparent.
Not sure what you are using but if you have MS Word, saving it as .htm works like a charm, preserving all text modifications (Bolt, Italic, Underline, even super and subscript notation) as well as line breaks, added lines.
I haven't found any aberrations in the way my stories post since I started using that format.
Not sure what you are using but if you have MS Word, saving it as .htm works like a charm, preserving all text modifications (Bolt, Italic, Underline, even super and subscript notation) as well as line breaks, added lines.
I haven't found any aberrations in the way my stories post since I started using that format.
As I mentioned, it not only handles all the various publishing marks (curly quotes, em-dashes and ellipses), but I've also included several foreign languages (using UTF-8).
The key is, though, not to use in-line formatting (except for the occasional italic), but to use Style Definitions, so the formatting is consistent and can be transferred (say to an ebook).
The key is, though, not to use in-line formatting (except for the occasional italic), but to use Style Definitions, so the formatting is consistent and can be transferred (say to an ebook).
MS Word style definitions don't transfer to SOL formatting though. Inline formatting works (italics, bold, superscript).
MS Word style definitions don't transfer to SOL formatting though. Inline formatting works (italics, bold, superscript).
You're right. I meant that it's better to use style definitions when transferring a story to ebooks, so you get the precise look and consistency you're looking for. In-line is the way to go on SOL, but often, when you publish via third parties (Amazon, SW, lulu) those in-line marks often get flushed and you lose many of them if they're not entirely within the confines of the paragraph (ex: you start a sentence with bold or italicized characters).
The key is, though, not to use in-line formatting (except for the occasional italic), but to use Style Definitions, so the formatting is consistent and can be transferred (say to an ebook).
CW,
I think it's better to say the Style Definitions work best to get a uniform paragraph set up and used while the in-line formatting of bold, italics, etc. is best for where it's wanted in the text within the paragraph.
However, while this works extremely well for those of us who save the word processing file as html then post cleaned up html to SoL the needs of those who post text direct into the SoL Wizard are different and the paragraph styles don't transfer over, although they will ensure a uniform layout in the text uploaded.
So you need to figure out why this happens to your text, why isn't it all uniform, so that this problem doesn't occur.
I had a similar problem when I was helping a new author a few years ago. The issue was partly due to the fact they used the space bar to create and indentation for some paragraphs, a tab entry for some indentations, and an indented paragraph style of some other indentations. By not using the paragraph style for their normal text paragraph starts it caused problems when translating between document types since they used two computers to write their story on and each computer used a different version of MS Windows a different variant of MS Word.
On my advice they set up paragraph styles on one computer and only used that to write the next chapter, and the problem vanished.
On my advice they set up paragraph styles on one computer and only used that to write the next chapter, and the problem vanished.
If you use paragraph styles (a MUST if you're creating html posts via MS WORD), then most chapters should start with "". You can create other paragraphs types, just list them by class so they'll all post using the same formatting. (For help with this, ask either Ernest or myself, since we deal with this all the time in our own postings).
I edited a couple of stories recently for an author and was having some problems with paragraphs and weird characters appearing and eventually tracked it down to the different text programmes we were using. I made sure everything was using UTF-8 fonts and had no more problems. It seems some of the more modern programmes are set up as "Western" which has a few differences from the older UTF-8.
Hope this helps
What you're describing also sometimes happens if your chapters are over a certain size (i.e. the chapter spans a single SOL page, causing it to break at odd points).
Crumbly Writer So I should write shorter chapters or something?
That (chapter overflow) only occurs for chapters over 10,000 words. In that case, when it happens, you can simply resubmit with the paragraphs manually broken at a more logical point.
As for the character type, you need to examine your html file (assuming you're submitting using html) in an html editor. If you're defaulting as the newer "Windows-1252" (like I typically do) you can switch it (recreate the files) as "UTF8", but just be aware, you've got to hard code any smart characters or publishing marks, otherwise they won't appear correctly.
That (chapter overflow) only occurs for chapters over 10,000 words. In that case, when it happens, you can simply resubmit with the paragraphs manually broken at a more logical point.
Lazeez fixed this issue some months back. The system now finds a paragraph break re start the new page at. If you read a story with a break in the wrong place send Lazeez a message with a link to the story - chapter - page and he'll fix it.
Lazeez fixed this issue some months back. The system now finds a paragraph break re start the new page at. If you read a story with a break in the wrong place send Lazeez a message with a link to the story - chapter - page and he'll fix it.
Thanks. Now that you mention it, I recall him announcing it, but as it rarely affects me, I hadn't paid it much attention at the time.
After my early days (when I encountered the problem often), I generally keep my stories around 6,000 words (2,000 - 8,000), so they're easier to manage.
So I should write shorter chapters or something?
No. All it does is break the chapter to a new page. It doesn't mess with the formatting. If I remember right, it was done because of problems with old browsers and the large size.