Bad formatting

[JackQRussell13]

Hello, fellow Literoticans,

A story that I submitted as a Word doc. (because it had a necessary use of italics) has just published, and the formatting is WRONG. Instead of two paragraphs of italics (relating a back story), sentences in the paragraphs start with italics and finish without. I'm certain anyone reading the story would be thoroughly confused.

My question is, how do I get this corrected? Can anyone supply me with an email address of someone who would make the changes?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jack

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I am sure some here will shortly post that this style manual or that discourages the use of italics and such. That's fine, but I'm with you. I like to use formatting, too. If I ever decide to submit for formal publication, I'll worry about it then. In the meantime...

Formatting can sometimes be touchy. Laurel was patient enough to explain some of it to me. Provided the story is not massive, PM me for my email; I'll have a look.

In general, I write in Word, insert HTML as needed, copy and paste. Some of the things I need to keep an eye on include:

Literotica uses bold with the preferred tag 'strong'. It uses italic, using 'em' and underline using 'u'.

If you are double-formatting a bit, eg centre and italic, the HTML tags have to be in order. For instance (using the wrong symbols), {center}{em}para{em}{center} will work, but {em}{center}para{em}{center} will not.

The tag 'br' inserts a single line space.

Formatting often drops when it comes to another page. I find it prudent (albeit laborious) to format every paragraph. In other words, if I have three paragraphs in a row needing italics, all of them would have to start off with {em} and each of them would have to end with </em}.

No doubt there are better ways, but that works.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Hello, fellow Literoticans,

A story that I submitted as a Word doc. (because it had a necessary use of italics) has just published, and the formatting is WRONG. Instead of two paragraphs of italics (relating a back story), sentences in the paragraphs start with italics and finish without. I'm certain anyone reading the story would be thoroughly confused.

My question is, how do I get this corrected? Can anyone supply me with an email address of someone who would make the changes?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jack

You've probably got a glitch in your italics html somewhere, where you've inadvertently left a < or a /> out. You'll need to find it in your raw draft, fix it, and resubmit as an edit. The site won't do the find and fix for you, it's down to you.

I had this happen to me, where I'd made a mistake which then coincided with the place where Lit did a page break, and the entire second page of the story flipped to italics. That was the time I decided to reduce my use of italics and bold to a minimum - I was finding too many mistakes after submission.

 

[jaF0]

The coding is a mess. There are stray em tags everywhere. This is just a small sample.:


<p>But here we are now on my bed with his dick up my ass. And it feels fantastic.</p><p>How, you may ask, did we get here?</p><p><em>My wife and I are scuba diving in Hawaii and we</em><em>'</em>re underwater with the dive master and he motions us to watch as he picks up a sea urchin and opens it up with his knife. He holds tiny pieces of the tender flesh and suddenly the small colorful fish that have been swimming around us take interest and start picking the meat from his fingertips until it's gone.</p><p><em>Later, on land, he tells us, "</em>Those fish aren't carnivorous. Ordinarily meat isn't part of their diet.<em>" We look puzzled.</em> "They're opportunists," <em>he tells us.</em> "They'll add a little extra protein because it's easy and they can.<em>"</em></p>



This is why I hate Word. The writer has very little control of what is inserted where.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have noticed that some of the formatting falls away, or causes something to have a break where it shouldn't. Does HTM work better than DOC or DOCX?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have noticed that some of the formatting falls away, or causes something to have a break where it shouldn't. Does HTM work better than DOC or DOCX?

Safest bet is to cut and paste into the text box on the submissions page and Preview. That way you can quickly see what it will look like when published, and you can fix it right there. The only thing you can't see is the Lit page break, which you have no control over (FYI, a Lit page is around 3750 words, roughly).

Alternatively, draft and save in a .rtf file and put in your own html. Saving as .doc or .docx invites hassles, because it's harder to see all the code. I got too clever with html a couple of years back, but after half a dozen stories got cocked up for one reason or another, I'm much more judicious in my use now. Too much hassle for not enough added meaning, so I now adhere to the Guttenberg format style - plain text, and let the words carry all the meaning.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Safest bet is to cut and paste into the text box on the submissions page and Preview. That way you can quickly see what it will look like when published, and you can fix it right there. The only thing you can't see is the Lit page break, which you have no control over (FYI, a Lit page is around 3750 words, roughly).

Alternatively, draft and save in a .rtf file and put in your own html. Saving as .doc or .docx invites hassles, because it's harder to see all the code. I got too clever with html a couple of years back, but after half a dozen stories got cocked up for one reason or another, I'm much more judicious in my use now. Too much hassle for not enough added meaning, so I now adhere to the Guttenberg format style - plain text, and let the words carry all the meaning.

^^^^ This. I've noticed recently that submissions as a Word doc can look a bit odd, particularly with Word's auto paragraph spacing. I had put it down to moving to Office 365 on my work PC, but older versions seem to be having similar issues.

I'm cutting and pasting now, with minimal bolding or italics.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hello, fellow Literoticans,

A story that I submitted as a Word doc. (because it had a necessary use of italics) has just published, and the formatting is WRONG. Instead of two paragraphs of italics (relating a back story), sentences in the paragraphs start with italics and finish without. I'm certain anyone reading the story would be thoroughly confused.

My question is, how do I get this corrected? Can anyone supply me with an email address of someone who would make the changes?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jack

Sending a PM to Laurel is the way to go.

I had a quick look at your story, and the problem seems to happen when there are quotes/apostrophes in the text. I'd guess there's a bug in the script that converts Word to formatted HTML. For future stories, doing your own conversion and then previewing the story may save trouble, but if this is a bug that's going to affect other stories, I expect Laurel would want to know about it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And what is this EM, STRONG tags?

I use the old style and the script that changes them, there is a script that does that as CENTER has been done away with in HTML5, converts everything just fine for me.

I do tend to tag each paragraph if I'm using italics.

I do use a lot of B CENTER tags.

I also copy and paste the text in my Word Doc to the submission form.

For that you need to set up Word paragraph correctly.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

And what is this EM, STRONG tags?

I went to Laurel with a formatting problem and she was kind enough to give me some hints. I used to use i and b for italics and bold, but she suggested using em for italics and strong for bold.

 

[Bramblethorn]

And what is this EM, STRONG tags?

For most readers, <em> will display exactly the same as <i>. The distinction is that <i> is about text styling ("make these letters slant") whereas <em> is about meaning ("emphasise this text by whatever method is appropriate in context"). For English text, that usually means italicising it. But for reader software, it might mean reading that word louder or lower, for a platform that doesn't support bold it might mean underlining it, etc. etc.

The <strong> vs. <b> distinction works in the same way: <b> means making the letters visually heavier i.e. bolding them, <strong> means giving the text strong emphasis, which is often but not always done by bolding it.

The average reader will never notice whether you're using <i> or <em>, <b> or <strong>, but if you want the material to be interpreted correctly on other systems it's better to use <em> when you mean "emphasise", saving <i> only for cases where there's some specific need to use italics rather than whatever the platform might use for emphasis. Similarly for <b> vs. <strong>.

 

[jaF0]

^^^ Coolidgeness.

Never quite heard (read?) it that way.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The average reader will never notice whether you're using <i> or <em>, <b> or <strong>, but if you want the material to be interpreted correctly on other systems it's better to use <em> when you mean "emphasise", saving <i> only for cases where there's some specific need to use italics rather than whatever the platform might use for emphasis. Similarly for <b> vs. <strong>.

Very useful information, Bramble, thanks. So a text vocal reader will handle em and strong differently?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Very useful information, Bramble, thanks. So a text vocal reader will handle em and strong differently?

That's the idea, though I don't have any first-hand experience with text readers so I can't say for sure how universally it's implemented. See https://support.siteimprove.com/hc/...ibility-Bold-vs-Strong-and-Italic-vs-Emphasis for a bit more discussion.

Thinking about it some more, this might be a useful illustration:

I shouldn't be thinking about her that way, she was my boss... but she had a certain je ne sais quoi that was hard to ignore.

In that example, boss is italicised to put stress on that word, whereas je ne sais quoi is italicised because that's a convention for writing foreign words and phrases within English. If I was reading it aloud, I would stress the "boss" but I wouldn't do the same for "je ne sais quoi". So, not an expert here, but I think in that situation the correct way to code it would be <em> for "boss" and <i> for "je ne sais quoi", unless there's some better tag out there that I don't know of.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I went to Laurel with a formatting problem and she was kind enough to give me some hints. I used to use i and b for italics and bold, but she suggested using em for italics and strong for bold.

For most readers, <em> will display exactly the same as <i>. The distinction is that <i> is about text styling ("make these letters slant") whereas <em> is about meaning ("emphasise this text by whatever method is appropriate in context"). For English text, that usually means italicising it. But for reader software, it might mean reading that word louder or lower, for a platform that doesn't support bold it might mean underlining it, etc. etc.

The <strong> vs. <b> distinction works in the same way: <b> means making the letters visually heavier i.e. bolding them, <strong> means giving the text strong emphasis, which is often but not always done by bolding it.

The average reader will never notice whether you're using <i> or <em>, <b> or <strong>, but if you want the material to be interpreted correctly on other systems it's better to use <em> when you mean "emphasise", saving <i> only for cases where there's some specific need to use italics rather than whatever the platform might use for emphasis. Similarly for <b> vs. <strong>.

Ah, Thank you both. Just goes to show, you learn something new everyday.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I went to Laurel with a formatting problem and she was kind enough to give me some hints. I used to use i and b for italics and bold, but she suggested using em for italics and strong for bold.

I usually use the <i> and <b> tags, plus the <br> tag and sometimes the <a href> tag if I want to link to another story (we're not supposed to link to outside sites, I believe). There are a couple of others that work here but I rarely use them.

If it looks good in the drafts mode, then it should look the same in the final output. That's been my experience, anyway, for more than three years. I catch any formatting mistakes in the draft and fix them there.

By the way, I usually copy and paste a Word plain text file into the submission box. I think a regular Word doc should work just as well; I seem to remember doing those a long time ago.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Here are what have worked for me when last I tried them...

<i> - italics
<b> - bold
<u> - underline
<center> - this is converted to the new tag <p align="center"></p> but don't try to use that it won't be accepted. The p construct also adds a linefeed after the line it is modifying, so if you only want one line after that item, start the next line you write, right after the line that has the <center> tag.
<blockquote> - will indent text by 5 space on both ends
<br> - none breaking space

and now...

<em> - italic in for text, "emphasize this text by whatever method is appropriate in context"
<strong> - bold text, in speech emphasis should be given to the word(s)

Any other html tags will be flagged and you work sent back to you.

 

[gunhilltrain]

There are a few others that I've tried as experiments that did work. The <tt> and <kbd> tags will make the text look like the output from a typewriter. Might be useful in the rare case where you are quoting a document (a letter?) inside the story.

<s> for strikethrough works, but I don't know of a case where that is necessary. <mark> will put a yellow background behind each line, but that doesn't seem like it would ever be used either.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There are a few others that I've tried as experiments that did work. The <tt> and <kbd> tags will make the text look like the output from a typewriter. Might be useful in the rare case where you are quoting a document (a letter?) inside the story.

My current work in progress features a whole bunch of typed conversations, so that's actually really useful to know.

Per this link, <tt> isn't supported in HTML5 so <kbd> might be a better choice for forwards compatibility.

<s> for strikethrough works, but I don't know of a case where that is necessary. <mark> will put a yellow background behind each line, but that doesn't seem like it would ever be used either.

Main use for strikethrough would be representing written text, e.g. "Welcome to Doomtown, Population <s>30 27 26 21 17 16 15 12 9</s> 8".

 

[KeithD]

There are a few others that I've tried as experiments that did work. The <tt> and <kbd> tags will make the text look like the output from a typewriter. Might be useful in the rare case where you are quoting a document (a letter?) inside the story.

Can you cite a Literotica story that has permitted and shown this? I thought it wouldn't be permitted.

 

[jaF0]

Main use for strikethrough would be representing written text, e.g. "Welcome to Doomtown, Population <s>30 27 26 21 17 16 15 12 9</s> 8".

Strikethrough puts a line through as if you've drawn a line through a word and changed it.

The BBCode for i doesn't work here on the board though, so it may or may not work on the story side.

 

[MetaBob]

Hello, fellow Literoticans,

A story that I submitted as a Word doc. (because it had a necessary use of italics) has just published, and the formatting is WRONG. Instead of two paragraphs of italics (relating a back story), sentences in the paragraphs start with italics and finish without. I'm certain anyone reading the story would be thoroughly confused.

My question is, how do I get this corrected? Can anyone supply me with an email address of someone who would make the changes?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jack

I don't use MS Word. Ever, if I can help it, though I once used it to write more than one complete novel.

Instead, I use plain-text. Italics, bold, underlines, as well as a couple other things, are easily indicated using HTML tags in plain-text. Works well, every time. Here's a primer, though keep in mind that not all tags will be supported on this site, though I can certainly vouch for bold and italic. Heck, I just used both in the previous sentence.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Can you cite a Literotica story that has permitted and shown this? I thought it wouldn't be permitted.

I can't; it's just speculation. The one story I had that might have justified it had a wife leaving hand-written for her husband. Maybe I didn't know about it then, but I didn't think to use it.

I don't know why Literotica would care. I was under the impression that HTML tags worked "automatically" on a text, but maybe I've missed something.

Another one I have used is <a href> to link to other stories on the site, mostly my own. I know Literotica is a stickler for not linking to outside sites from within a story. Don't they allow it from the forum, except to competing sites?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I don't use MS Word. Ever, if I can help it, though I once used it to write more than one complete novel.

Instead, I use plain-text. Italics, bold, underlines, as well as a couple other things, are easily indicated using HTML tags in plain-text. Works well, every time. Here's a primer, though keep in mind that not all tags will be supported on this site, though I can certainly vouch for bold and italic. Heck, I just used both in the previous sentence.

Ah, but you didn't use html tags you used vbasic tags.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My current work in progress features a whole bunch of typed conversations, so that's actually really useful to know.

Per this link, <tt> isn't supported in HTML5 so <kbd> might be a better choice for forwards compatibility.

Main use for strikethrough would be representing written text, e.g. "Welcome to Doomtown, Population <s>30 27 26 21 17 16 15 12 9</s> 8".

Yes, <tt> has been "down-graded" or whatever the term is. I don't have the technical knowledge to know how HTML-5 is utilized by Literotica.

That's a pretty good example of how strikethrough might be used.