Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

I guess that's what I'll have to do. It's just bizarre, though. Why wouldn't a "convert to html" tool convert (i) tags? I wish I could just upload an .rtf but I guess there's probably heaps of problems that stem from that.

Thanks for your help.

I write in Word so I didn't reply since I don't have any Gdocs experience/knowledge. But when I'm writing a story for SOL, I do not use Word's ctl/i to make it italics. I actually put the HTML tags before and after it. Then when I submit the story to the Wizard it converts it to SOL's format.

But the more I write, the less italics I seem to be using so it's no big deal to do that.

does away with a lot of useless bells and whistles. I also write in multiple locations

What I like about Libre Office is it is so easy to use, but has the extra capabilities if you want to use them. It's like the pre-ribbon MS Word. I also use a number of locations to do my writing, but I have copies of my latest master files on a USB drive I take everywhere I go and update the copies on my main system when I get back to it.

I've a problem with cloud storage because I've seen too many people lose all their data when something went wrong with the cloud storage people or the cloud storage people simply closed their doors. In short, I don't trust important data to a place I can't control the future of.

Wow. I had no idea people disliked Gdocs so much. On my home computer, I have Office 2012 Professional but I actually prefer Gdocs because it does away with a lot of useless bells and whistles. I also write in multiple locations so Drive is incredibly useful. But thanks anyway. Sorry about the confusion, I didn't know where else to ask a formatting question.

This (the forum) is the correct place to ask these questions, but since it deals with writing, I'd put it in the "Author's Area", rather than the "Editing/Review" Area, since formatting has nothing to do with editing.

As for Google Docs, I'm mostly pissed at how Google, and Google Docs by extension, treats authors. In the case I referred to, a single user got upset about a story and registered a complaint. As a result of that single complaint, Google deleted the entire account, not allowing any protestation of innocence and the author lost months of work. After all, if the information is available from anywhere, why bother backing it up?

I'm also bothered about Google's selling your data. I've had enough trouble with Google marketing my comments to trust them on this. I got adds for rent-a-cars in cities I've never visited, simply because I researched story locations, and you can bet--if you mention medical conditions in a story--that Google will sell that information to medical companies.

In short, talking about Google online is like mentioning Amazon. Authors tend to have strong opinions about their livelihood, so while Amazon and Google offer new options, they also threaten much of what keeps booksellers afloat. Make of it what you will, but these companies also threaten much of what authors hold dear (like privacy and the ability to hold keep their information secure).

But separating Google from Google Docs, I understand the attraction of 'cloud computing', but Gdocs just has too many issues. While it doesn't have 'all the bells and whistles', there are also multiple areas where it just falls apart (as you've discovered). There other is their lack of "Review" features for editors to make corrections to an existing story. Sure, it's easy for them to access the story, but they can't make it up in any manner other than color coding the edits, which fails miserably when adding or removing commas.

@Switch

I do not use Word's ctl/i to make it italics. I actually put the HTML tags before and after it. Then when I submit the story to the Wizard it converts it to SOL's format.

That works when posting to SOL, but not when creating books for publication.

I prefer to format as I'm writing, rather than doing it all in a separate pass, simply because I prefer seeing what the reader sees. But either method works.

That works when posting to SOL, but not when creating books for publication.

I believe he was addressing only SOL.

I prefer to format as I'm writing, rather than doing it all in a separate pass, simply because I prefer seeing what the reader sees

When I'm writing to publish, I do use italics and then use the global find/replace in Word to add the HTML tags.

Back to SOL, the reason I use the HTML tags instead of ctl/i is simply because I want to see what the reader sees. You see, I edit using my browser to display the story.

Reposting doesn't affect stats.

Reposting a chapter or a story doesn't affect the stats, unless you delete the story first. Just use the Wizard option to repost the chapter or the story - I do ti all the time with no problems.

Again, best thing to learn and use is Markdown. It's the other tagging/formatting system we support.

Often, your best bet for creating html files is to create them using a simple text editor, even if you only cut and paste the text from another source. You can also do this with markdown, which Lazeez prefers. Relying on Gdocs is a mistake, as they have no experience with html tagging!

For posting, the issues with Gdocs isn't as apparent, but for publishing or posting to websites, most word processors utilize Styles, where each type of text is defined once as a specific style (like "H1" for Chapter titles, or "Indent" for indented text (as opposed to blockquotes).

Since gDocs doesn't support Style definitions, it renders it useless for posting to the internet or publishing purposes. You don't need to buy the M$ bait, but working with established formats makes publishing much easier.

As for your stories, Barleby, I'd rely on the old 'cut-and-paste' solution. Write all you want, but then convert the gDocs markup to standardized html (or SOL style markup) once you finish.

For those interested in the ASCII text simplicity (KISS) of Markdown and its various outputs, there are two excellent free apps for Windows.

My eternal frustration with the popularity (among developers) of 'markdown' writing apps, is that they generally don't support style guides. Thus, every time you indent a line, you only indent that one line, instead of defining "Indented text" once, and having that apply every time you utilize it. This is especially handy for centered/bolded text, section breaks, etc.

It doesn't matter much for SOL, but it becomes a major issue when publishing across a variety of platforms, each of which is implemented differently on different devices.

I'm intrigued that WriteMonkey supports CSS templates, but I'm skeptical it offers much in the way of features (i.e. you can justify all the text, but I doubt you can indent normal text but not indent the first paragraph of chapters/sections).

I keep looking at new writing tools, but so far, I've been intensely dissatisfied with the results. I'm especially frustrated because the few programs which did work well were bought out by larger corporations (M$ and Google, in two instances) and essentially trashed, only to be replaced with crap products.

By the way, I now build my own CSS instructions in my ePub documents, unfortunately, they require so much additional processing, I rarely publish them (since few publishing sites offer the functionality).

I understand the philosophy behind Markdown, but I'd rather not have to individually code each and every instance of a starting paragraph or an indentation (especially since Amazon limits the functionality of < blockquote > commands.

Although you don't force print formatting on a cellphone, that doesn't mean you can't ease the process. Markdown essentially assumes that authors are too stupid/insipid, to properly format things.

By using CSS Styles, I can display formatting (including graphic chapter headers) on a smartphone with no loss in readability or quality (I use a "width="80%"" setting to ensure the images are properly adjusted to fit the display and indent text as "2em;" (two character widths, whatever size the user selects for the character size on their display).

Ernest and I differ in that he wants each page of a document to display perfects, to the point he'll edit each page to ensure it breaks at the right point (no orphaned paragraphs spilling over to the next page). That's why Ernest only publishes .pdf ebooks. They're essentially copies of his print books. But that's not what I'm doing.

But there's no sense arguing formatting with someone focused on plain text markdown. You wouldn't use markdown if you wanted to format your documents.

My issue with Markdown is that those programs/apps are specifically designed for those terrified of technology. Those of us comfortable already known how to code reflexive (?) displays.

Also, this is NOT the place for arguments over markdown over CSS. No one cares, and it's too easy to get into petty, unimportant arguments.

But this IS the place for a discussion (not an argument); and I would drop it if you weren't making such bald-faced WRONG statements about Markdown. Many thousands of people use it daily (check the forums) and it works.

I'm not arguing that the "stripped down" writing apps aren't popular, my point was that there aren't any alternatives, and the few decent alternatives which existed were purchased by larger companies and removed so the Markdown apps wouldn't have any competition.

Just because stories are displayed on a small device doesn't mean you can't format documents. You just have to know what you're doing. With the Markdown programs, you've got to remember to format each individual instance, and even then, with CSS definitions, the formatting will often be overridden by select devices.

My text does not overflow the page, or force a specific font size/color on users, instead I use the appropriate ePub commands, which also apply to most other ebook formats as well.

It was just sounding like the discussion was descending into a "he said"/"he said" argument, with conflicting statements which most readers wouldn't be able to make sense of.

Anyway, there's enough of that. Some of us like formatting, some don't. Plain text is fine, but because I've included foreign languages in my earliest stories, I've long had to work around the limitations of ebook design. I'm used to it.