Is anyone else having issues posting stories or is it just me?

[SadieRose]

I don't mean, as in not getting a story approved, but I post a chapter and it sits on file as pending for days and when I check on it there's a message to say that the file can't be read. I'm submitting the same files as I've always done, via Windows 7 and Word 2010. Chapter 8 of my latest story was a pain in the backside to submit. Ch. 9 went on with no problems but I submitted ch.10 this week and have the same issue again.
It's getting very frustrating.



Sadie

 

[PennLady]

Did you try just cutting and pasting the text into the submissions box? This is what I usually do and have no problems.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I'm quite surprised to hear you've been able to submit in Word. I've always only been able to submit in RTF. Have you tried RTF?

Also, PennLady has posted ways of doing italics and bold so you can copy and paste your story into the box. (This is much quicker.) I presume the reason you post a document not paste your text into the submission box is that you have a lot of italicised passages?

 

[NaokoSmith]

Did you try just cutting and pasting the text into the submissions box? This is what I usually do and have no problems.

sorry didn't mean to skip you! I mentioned your name so the poster can search for your previous helpful post on the topic. Bit sleepy as it's late over the pond, and about to sign out is why I didn't go and look for it and repost myself.

 

[SadieRose]

I'm quite surprised to hear you've been able to submit in Word. I've always only been able to submit in RTF. Have you tried RTF?

Also, PennLady has posted ways of doing italics and bold so you can copy and paste your story into the box. (This is much quicker.) I presume the reason you post a document not paste your text into the submission box is that you have a lot of italicised passages?

Yep, I usually submit them as an RTF but I use Word 2010 as my editing package, is what I meant. Sorry. Basically... what I mean to say is that I've submitted 79 pieces of work to Litty and only two of them have given me this problem, which leads me to think it's a software issue. Just wondered if anyone else was having any similar issues. I'm usually pretty good with anything IT related but I can't figure out why this is happening.

S

 

[SadieRose]

Did you try just cutting and pasting the text into the submissions box? This is what I usually do and have no problems.

I usually upload an RTF ... it takes two or three days (five tops) but it's never been an issue before.

S

 

[NaokoSmith]

I usually upload an RTF ... it takes two or three days (five tops) but it's never been an issue before.

S

I've sometimes had documents returned with glitches. Like typing three #'s leads to some weird line cutting up the page and wrecks the posting of the story. It might be something like that?

The box is a lot quicker way to submit.

 

[SadieRose]

I've sometimes had documents returned with glitches. Like typing three #'s leads to some weird line cutting up the page and wrecks the posting of the story. It might be something like that?

The box is a lot quicker way to submit.

Nope, I'm not getting it returned with a glitch, it's just not getting processed. It never happened before about February of this year. The only thing I can think of that we're doing differently is that we've been writing in Google Docs and uploading the files from there. But I usually edit them in Word before I submit them, so it shouldn't make any difference. I can't figure out what's going wrong. When I had problems with Chapter 8 I tried the cut and paste in the end, even though it meant losing the formatting but I still couldn't submit it. In the end I PM-ed Laurel and it got sorted but no one ever got back to me or told me what the issue was, so I'm not the wiser. When Chapter 9 went straight on, I just figured that it was a glitch at their end. But now it's doing the same thing with Chapter 10. *scratches head*
I just wondered if anyone else had come up against the same problem.

S

 

[Darkniciad]

Think there's some work going on behind the scenes with the text processor.

( Hoping it's laying the groundwork for point-n-click editing, as I'm constantly having to post editing instructions )

There was a bug that cropped up for me very recently in which lines of italic text preceded or followed by a comma caused unexpected line breaks. It made thought dialogue presented with italics ( the method I prefer ) virtually impossible.

In my last two submissions after reporting it, that behavior seems to have vanished. However, when I preview anything with italics now, I'm seeing an extra space after everything in italics. It remains to be seen around Tuesday whether this appears in the final posting.

 

[sr71plt]

No, I haven't been having a story posting problem. I've only done the "cut and paste in the submissions box" process.

 

[SadieRose]

Think there's some work going on behind the scenes with the text processor.

( Hoping it's laying the groundwork for point-n-click editing, as I'm constantly having to post editing instructions )

There was a bug that cropped up for me very recently in which lines of italic text preceded or followed by a comma caused unexpected line breaks. It made thought dialogue presented with italics ( the method I prefer ) virtually impossible.

In my last two submissions after reporting it, that behavior seems to have vanished. However, when I preview anything with italics now, I'm seeing an extra space after everything in italics. It remains to be seen around Tuesday whether this appears in the final posting.

Hmm... Interesting. I know a few authors have mentioned that there are upgrades going on with a view to the site going into Cloud, so I did wonder if that was causing problems. I'm aware that there are issues as well with the formatting that Google use, so I do wonder if that's causing problems too. I've reformatted and resubmitted the chapter so I'll see what happens in the next few days and take it from there.
If anyone has any pointers in the interim please post them here or e-mail me.
Thanks.

Sadie

 

[SadieRose]

No, I haven't been having a story posting problem. I've only done the "cut and paste in the submissions box" process.

I think I'm going to have to figure out how to preserve the formatting and start doing it that way. It was much easier to just upload the files though. <---*lazy*

S

 

[PennLady]

I think I'm going to have to figure out how to preserve the formatting and start doing it that way. It was much easier to just upload the files though. <---*lazy*

S

How much formatting are you talking? Lit has about the simplest formatting I've seen. If you're talking text formatting, like italics, that's easily done with HTML tags.

I will say, too, that for the last several months or year, people have noted longer-than-usual posting times. Such as five or even seven days instead of three, especially during contest times.

 

[sr71plt]

My latest one that wasn't in a themed contest took five days to post (and wasn't in submission during a contest).

 

[Darkniciad]

Hmm... Interesting. I know a few authors have mentioned that there are upgrades going on with a view to the site going into Cloud, so I did wonder if that was causing problems. I'm aware that there are issues as well with the formatting that Google use, so I do wonder if that's causing problems too. I've reformatted and resubmitted the chapter so I'll see what happens in the next few days and take it from there.
If anyone has any pointers in the interim please post them here or e-mail me.
Thanks.

Sadie

There are a lot of bugs cropping up in close succession that we've never seen before. That's about all we can say for sure.

Submitting via cut-n-paste certainly bypasses a lot of the headaches in the text processor. It's always seemed finicky with accepting uploaded documents ( other than plain .txt, which is almost identical to cut-n-paste )

Surround anything you want in italics with the tags like this: <I>italic text</I>

Most text editors have the ability to search for formatting in the document. Search for italics, and every time it stops, put in the tags. Not too time consuming. Probably a good idea to save it as a formatted copy after you're done, just in case something happens, so you don't have to do it again from the original document.

The other available tags are used in the same way.

<b>bold text</b>
<center>Centered Text</center>
<blockquote>Blockquote Text ( sex off from both margins )</blockquote>

My latest one that wasn't in a themed contest took five days to post (and wasn't in submission during a contest).

Every chapter of Lowborn has taken 4 days to post, as did the two RR stories before it. Then the last two weeks, my second twice-weekly posting of Lowborn has gone up in 3 days.

 

[sr71plt]

<blockquote>Blockquote Text ( sex off from both margins )</blockquote>

I've always wanted to sex off from both margins. Never knew how it was done, though.

 

[damppanties]

I've always wanted to sex off from both margins. Never knew how it was done, though.

Boo. I really resisted remarking on that but I see all that restraint was in vain.

 

[TxRad]

When using Word 2010, make sure and save as a .doc file and not a .docx file. The latter screws everything up.

 

[Darkniciad]

Fucking new IE's autocorrect!

Now I not only have to pay attention to my own mistakes, but some damn program's stupidity as well

 

[glynndah]

<blockquote>Blockquote Text ( sex off from both margins )</blockquote>

You can do that? I wish I'd've been paying attention in those meetings.

 

[Darkniciad]

You can do that? I wish I'd've been paying attention in those meetings.

I use it quite a bit, now that it's been fixed. It used to cause the font size and face to change for the remainder of the page when used a couple of years ago.

I've used it for flashbacks, the nature documentary asides of "Documentary: Cougar", and quite often to set off the rhyming spells that are used in Witchcraft in my fantasy world.

Great for setting things that have a fair bit of text off without using italics.

Unless that's another crack about IE autocorrecting me, in which case

 

[glynndah]

I use it quite a bit, now that it's been fixed. It used to cause the font size and face to change for the remainder of the page when used a couple of years ago.

I've used it for flashbacks, the nature documentary asides of "Documentary: Cougar", and quite often to set off the rhyming spells that are used in Witchcraft in my fantasy world.

Great for setting things that have a fair bit of text off without using italics.

Unless that's another crack about IE autocorrecting me, in which case

I'll never tell. However, there is a story I'm working on where this little trick could come in very handy.

 

[damppanties]

I'll never tell. However, there is a story I'm working on where this little trick could come in very handy.

I'd never have pegged you as an 'off the walls sex' kind of person.

 

[SadieRose]

I've always wanted to sex off from both margins. Never knew how it was done, though.

Heheh... awesome! There's probably a story in there somewhere. I'm sure if there is, you can write it.

Some interesting suggestions from other folks too. Thankies for those, especially the one about not saving as .docx, I think it does that automatically. Altho this last one was saved as a .rtf

I resubmitted it the other night anyway, will give it until the end of the week and see how it lands and if it doesn't work I will try the cut and paste route and manually format. *le sigh*

Thank you all.
xxxx Sadie