Found a cool tool for formatting submissions!

[Demiurging]

Never mind, Nice90sguy had a much better solution.

MS Word has the ability to add italic, bold tags in angle brackets using search/replace.

You need to search for font type italic in your doc, and replace with <i>^&</i>

The ^& is the "find what" text, i.e. the words that were italicsied.

It's a text converter that I found online "any2bb dot com", that should work well to prep a txt document for copy/pasting straight into the submissions box. You will still have to convert the brackets, but find and replace I think would make short work of the problem. I just tested it with one of mine around seven thousand words and it didn't throw up any errors.

I'm going to keep looking for more like it, since it's a little bare-bones, but it darn near solves a problem.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It's a text converter that I found online "any2bb dot com", that should work well to prep a txt document for copy/pasting straight into the submissions box. You will still have to convert the brackets, but find and replace I think would make short work of the problem. I just tested it with one of mine around seven thousand words and it didn't throw up any errors.

I'm going to keep looking for more like it, since it's a little bare-bones, but it darn near solves a problem.

What problems were you having that made you seek out this "solution"?

 

[Demiurging]

Takes out the extra effort of putting in the tags myself, means I can just use italics and such as normal and just convert it before submitting it here. Is this something that's had a commonly-known solution for a long time and I'm just late to the party?

 

[lovecraft68]

Takes out the extra effort of putting in the tags myself, means I can just use italics and such as normal and just convert it before submitting it here. Is this something that's had a commonly-known solution for a long time and I'm just late to the party?

So it eliminates the need for HTML?

 

[nice90sguy]

MS Word has the ability to add italic, bold tags in angle brackets using search/replace.

You need to search for font type italic in your doc, and replace with <i>^&</i>

The ^& is the "find what" text, i.e. the words that were italicsied.

 

[Demiurging]

MS Word has the ability to add italic, bold tags in angle brackets using search/replace.

You need to search for font type italic in your doc, and replace with <i>^&</i>

The ^& is the "find what" text, i.e. the words that were italicsied

This was the answer, thank you so much! It even worked with my offbrand word processor.

Too bad, looks like I wasted my time earlier, but the age-old technique of posting the wrong answer seems to work as well as ever

 

[Duleigh]

I don't understand what the issue is here, italicized, bolded, and underlined text in a .doc file come out italicized, bolded, and underlined in the story that the reader sees without all the work of adding HTML codes

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I don't understand what the issue is here, italicized, bolded, and underlined text in a .doc file come out italicized, bolded, and underlined in the story that the reader sees without all the work of adding HTML codes

I'm right there with you.

I have heard some say that using the "Cut-and-paste" approach on the submissions page gets stories posted sooner, but having tried both, I haven't witnessed it myself.

I also find the review process tedious due to me typically submitting longer stories. Writing and formatting in Word and then submitting as a .doc file meets all my needs, including embedding hyperlinks within the text of the story.

 

[Duleigh]

I also find the review process tedious due to me typically submitting longer stories. Writing and formatting in Word and then submitting as a .doc file meets all my needs, including embedding hyperlinks within the text of the story.

Mine are longer also, but a tool I just noticed in Word is the Voice option where Word reads your document aloud starting at the insertion point. It truly is a great tool and it makes the review process so much easier and much more accurate. I just wish the voice option in word was as complex and functional as the voice option in MS Edge.

 

[nice90sguy]

I don't understand what the issue is here, italicized, bolded, and underlined text in a .doc file come out italicized, bolded, and underlined in the story that the reader sees without all the work of adding HTML codes

That's true. Not so sure about <hr></hr> though, (hate using rows of dashes).

As I've learned through repeated rejection, the big no-no is to mix formatted text with markup. Either plain text with markup, or let literotica's preprocessor do all the work, and submit a formatted doc.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I do all my writing on Google Drive. For two reasons. One: I despise Microsoft, and refuse to give them my money. (I do have OpenOffice/LibreOffice, but sometimes the conversion over to .doc messes things up.) Two: Sometimes I have an idea for my story, and I want to write it down right away. But I don't have my laptop, only my phone, or perhaps someone else's computer handy. Google Drive allows me access where ever I am.

As a result, when I submit, I usually copy/paste. And because of that, I simply type out the <em></em> tags for italics, and things of that nature as I am writing. I used to code websites all the time, by hand. So writing tags for me is second nature. All I needed to know was what tags would be recognized, and now I just incorporate them into my story as I go.

To be fair, I only discovered that recently, and only two story has been written that way, which has not yet been published, but it went very well during writing.

 

[Duleigh]

That's true. Not so sure about <hr></hr> though, (hate using rows of dashes).

Use a row of about 15 - 20 underscore (Shifted dash) and then center it, it'll look great. Be careful though, Word will convert that to a full width line that will not carry over. Hit Ctrl z to undo that

I do all my writing on Google Drive. For two reasons. One: I despise Microsoft, and refuse to give them my money Two: Sometimes I have an idea for my story, and I want to write it down right away. But I don't have my laptop, only my phone, or perhaps someone else's computer handy. Google Drive allows me access where ever I am.

OK, #1 is a whole lot like saying, "I hate Hitler, so I'll go with Stalin" If you don't want to give your money to Big Evil (which you are doing every time you look at a Google/Chrome inspired ad on the internet from your preferences they are monitoring through use of Google Docs) here's a list of actual options

And for #2 Microsoft office is free, online, available anywhere you can access the internet with almost any device, no download required with free storage and your use won't inspire a slew of ads they cater to you by monitoring your every move on the internet. So reason number two is also completely invalid.

 

[GrantBricksly]

Use a row of about 15 - 20 underscore (Shifted dash) and then center it, it'll look great. Be careful though, Word will convert that to a full width line that will not carry over. Hit Ctrl z to undo that

OK, #1 is a whole lot like saying, "I hate Hitler, so I'll go with Stalin" If you don't want to give your money to Big Evil (which you are doing every time you look at a Google/Chrome inspired ad on the internet from your preferences they are monitoring through use of Google Docs) here's a list of actual options

And for #2 Microsoft office is free, online, available anywhere you can access the internet with almost any device, no download required with free storage and your use won't inspire a slew of ads they cater to you by monitoring your every move on the internet. So reason number two is also completely invalid.

Fair enough. I have just never been a fan of Microsoft. In all honesty, it's more Windows itself that I do not like, than their other programs. But I have been a Linux user for decades, so Windows is not a problem for me anymore.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Saving my stories in RTF and posting that file to Lit works fine for me.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Mine are longer also, but a tool I just noticed in Word is the Voice option where Word reads your document aloud starting at the insertion point. It truly is a great tool and it makes the review process so much easier and much more accurate. I just wish the voice option in word was as complex and functional as the voice option in MS Edge.

I recommend that everyone use a text-to-speech reader as part of their editing process. If they don't have Word, there are online versions, although many of these limit the number of words per session so you have to cut and paste multiple sections to get through most stories.

I've been playing around with Amazon Polly and it has the benefit of offering different voices and reading patterns which can help make the process more tolerable than the basic robotic voices in Word.

 

[alohadave]

Mine are longer also, but a tool I just noticed in Word is the Voice option where Word reads your document aloud starting at the insertion point. It truly is a great tool and it makes the review process so much easier and much more accurate. I just wish the voice option in word was as complex and functional as the voice option in MS Edge.

Note that this feature is in version 2019 or later. Earlier versions do not have it.

Ask me how long I searched through menus looking for it in my 2016 version.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Note that this feature is in version 2019 or later. Earlier versions do not have it.

Ask me how long I searched through menus looking for it in my 2016 version.

How long did you search your menus for the test to speech?

 

[Duleigh]

Fair enough. I have just never been a fan of Microsoft. In all honesty, it's more Windows itself that I do not like, than their other programs. But I have been a Linux user for decades, so Windows is not a problem for me anymore.

I know where you're coming from, for years I had to bounce between Linux, Unix, Windows XP, Windows 7 (or 10), VMware, and whatever IOS was fashionable at the time because each vendor had their own software requirements and I had to figure out how to get them all to talk to each other. Four monitors, a dozen windows open, and some daffy VP asking, "Got any bandwidth available?"

"Let me put you on hold for a moment sir," and go get coffee. It was the only way to save his life.

I miss windows 7. It ran for crap, but it booted quick, and it looked awesome compared to this amateurish rubbish we have now

 

[MillieDynamite]

I miss windows 7. It ran for crap, but it booted quick, and it looked awesome compared to this amateurish rubbish we have now

There might be an app for that. I have one that makes win 11 runs look like XP. I think it's XP. The one that looked & worked great before win ten came out totally crapish.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I know where you're coming from, for years I had to bounce between Linux, Unix, Windows XP, Windows 7 (or 10), VMware, and whatever IOS was fashionable at the time because each vendor had their own software requirements and I had to figure out how to get them all to talk to each other. Four monitors, a dozen windows open, and some daffy VP asking, "Got any bandwidth available?"

"Let me put you on hold for a moment sir," and go get coffee. It was the only way to save his life.

I miss windows 7. It ran for crap, but it booted quick, and it looked awesome compared to this amateurish rubbish we have now

yea, I haven't run windows regularly since XP. But if we are talking about missing things.....I miss windows 3.0 (yes, I know I am dating myself here...) That was back before windows became the monstrosity it is today. It was not an Operating system, it was merely a Platform. DOS was the way of the world back then, and it was wonderful...lol (God I feel old.....)

 

[MillieDynamite]

yea, I haven't run windows regularly since XP. But if we are talking about missing things.....I miss windows 3.0 (yes, I know I am dating myself here...) That was back before windows became the monstrosity it is today. It was not an Operating system, it was merely a Platform. DOS was the way of the world back then, and it was wonderful...lol (God I feel old.....)

And what is DOS?

 

[GrantBricksly]

DOS is what PCs ran on before Windows existed, back in the 1980s.....Disc Operating System.

 

[Duleigh]

DOS is what PCs ran on before Windows existed, back in the 1980s.....Disc Operating System.

And what is DOS?

Young-un's! I started on weird homemade versions of Basic - VIC Basic on the VIC20 and the Commodore 64, and TS Basic on the Timex Sinclair T/S1000. It wasn't an operating system, it was a programming language, there really wasn't an operating system available yet, so when DOS came out it was an amazing leap forward, and my entry into the world of windows was Windows 1.4 which I think only the military had at the time.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Young-un's! I started on weird homemade versions of Basic - VIC Basic on the VIC20 and the Commodore 64, and TS Basic on the Timex Sinclair T/S1000. It wasn't an operating system, it was a programming language, there really wasn't an operating system available yet, so when DOS came out it was an amazing leap forward, and my entry into the world of windows was Windows 1.4 which I think only the military had at the time.

I asked my daddy, and he said it is the Disk Operating System, which is old, so old it's antique, like him.

 

[Duleigh]

Sounds like your daddy has reached the age where a man's knowledge evolves into wisdom. It takes us a while, but it takes our kids longer to realize it.