Losing paragraphs at page breaks

[BlackShanglan]

This is making me crazy (er). I've tried to submit a story, and when I look at the preview breaks, paragraphs of the story are missing. Sometimes multiple paragraphs. I had the same problem with Pope's Diary, but fortunately only once, and it was sorted after I PM'd Laurel. But with this one it's all over the place, and I couldn't find any way to get them to show up.

In the end, I gave up and submitted the story as a Word file with a note stating that I could not get it to page properly. But is there any way for me to fix this myself?

Shanglan

 

[neonlyte]

BS

I always copy and paste as a word file, never had any problem apart from an occassional paragraph break.

Conversely copying and pasting word files to posts is throwing up all sorts of wierd characters. Don't know where the problem is but I'm beginning to think it's with Lit. possibly something to do with all the foreign language pages, and needing various Character Encoding formats.

 

[cantdog]

If I paste, I paste only text. Text with the <i> codes written right out in it. Text with only simple straight-up-and-down quotes and apostrophes.

Word documents are full of printer codes, that's how they work. Hyphens are a complex coding mechanism, not a character. Paste text. Always preview.

As for Shang's problem, I suspect some problem with the site. I've never had paragraphs elided before.

cantdog

 

[English Lady]

I alwayscut and paste too and never had any problems. If you can do that

*strokes and a mint*

 

[Guest]

I always submit mine as a Word .doc file.

 

[impressive]

I had the opposite problem -- a paragraph repeated at the top of the next page. Not quite as damaging as an omission, but possibly annoying to the reader.

 

[neonlyte]

I had the opposite problem -- a paragraph repeated at the top of the next page. Not quite as damaging as an omission, but possibly annoying to the reader.

I thought you were doing that deliberately! I thought it was neat.

 

[impressive]

I thought you were doing that deliberately! I thought it was neat.

Crap! Yeah, one's repeated between pages 1 & 2 in "Topping Love" -- but one's OMITTED between pages 2 & 3. *sigh*

Off to resubmit with a NOTE re the problem.

 

[Weird Harold]

Conversely copying and pasting word files to posts is throwing up all sorts of wierd characters.

You need to turn off Smart Quotes and replace them with "sraight quotes.

Word also uses some other special charcters that don't convert to HTML format -- check for Ellipses, Em-dashs, soft-hyphens, Trademark symbols, Copyright symbols, fractions and other "special characters" that Word supports but HTML/ASCII text doesn't.

The easiest way to strip them from a Word DOC file is to Save As a TXT file and check it in Notepad for missing or mis-translated characters before submitting.

I don't know what causes the missing or duplicated paragraphs, but stray paragraph breaks or manual line breaks that aren't visible in MS Word often cause problems with the conversion from DOC format to HTML format.

I have written a How To Essay that will help find problems with special characters and other formating problems:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=57781

 

[shereads]

You need to turn off Smart Quotes and replace them with "sraight quotes.

I have written a How To Essay that will help find problems with special characters and other formating problems:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=57781

Another bookmark in case I ever again give into the impulse to submit a story. These how-to articles will make the Thread Archive worthwhile.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Many thanks. I am trying not to go critical in my concerns over whether the story will be posted anyway; it needs all the help it can get.

Alas, reducing it to text-only and opening with and pasting from Notepad still left it with paragraphs missing - although different paragraphs this time. I gave up and submitted it in Word. I guess I will just have to hope - on both accounts.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

An update: some things I have learned thus far.

1) Multiple spaces at the end of a paragraph before a carriage return seem to be a problem. Turning on the various viewing codes let me see these; consultation with the residence computer wrangler taught me how to do an edit/replace on them. In Word, at least, you can find/replace by entering spaces for the spaces and ^p for the carriage return. Search for <space><space>^p and replace with <space>^p.

2) Using color highlighting in drafts (in order to mark sections that needed revision) left some of the carriage return codes marked with the color, although this was not visible until I turned on the option to view various codes. Having them marked a color evidently (according to the wrangler) adds codes that may confuse the Lit engine. The way to fix this is *not* to select all and change them to black, but to select all and change them to "automatic." Changing them to black would just replicate the color-code problem everywhere. In Word, you can search with no text in the box and the format color chosen as red (or whatever color was used) and replace with no text and the format color chosen as "automatic."

3) When checking the preview page, remember to refresh every page, every time - at least if your browser does what mine does, which is to cache everything and throw up images of the pages from fifteen minutes ago instead of now.

4) Know when to give up. It's still repeating half a page of material at one point, but that beats the heck out of omitting five paragraphs.

Shanglan

 

[English Lady]

Sounds like you've been busy shanglan *pat pat* I am exhausted just reading your post.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Sounds like you've been busy shanglan *pat pat* I am exhausted just reading your post.

Honestly, I've not been a pleasant horsey to be near as I have been swearing at the damned screen for two hours. All possible thanks to the computer wrangler.

And thank you for the pats.

Shanglan

 

[English Lady]

*smiles* I love having acomputer geek for a hubby.I pass on all swearing at the screen duties to him.

Aww and I can't believe you'd ever be anything but pleasant *stroke, pat, stroke*

 

[neonlyte]

You need to turn off Smart Quotes and replace them with "straight quotes.
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=57781

Thank's Harold, I'll take a look.

The problem is actually occuring with apostrophies and didn't happen until very recently.

There are some posts (by others) on my screen littered with ? and even ¿ where apostrophies should be. Never happened a month ago.

 

[cantdog]

Default is the Smart ones. This includes apostropes, curled to left and right or inverted and ortho, depending on placement.

Open up the menu item and you'll be able to tell the program to lay off. Mine give me phi and @ symbols until I turn off the automatic Smart Quotes functions. Some programs actually scatter little strings of nonsense symbols in there.

The How-to article covers it.

 

[neonlyte]

Thanks cdog

Just gonna test paste the piece that screwed up:

Well - that was interesting!

Corrected all the problems with 'quotes'

and fucked up all the paragraph spacing!

Think I'll re-set Word and start over.

OK: Reset Word according to recommendations. Got rid of gibberish, still some problem with paragraph settings. The piece below is pasted straight from word as Word.doc

How different is the hero from the villain?
If Kere'nyi states 'Heroes appear before us as IF they really existed', then do villains really exist in context?
Or if heroes write history? Which we are subject too, and must believe it? Should we not also look at the alternate history, of the defeated?

Common philosophy equates Hero = victor, Villain = defeated, this is to deny ideology. It suits the victor to paint History in the victor's colours, the Hero suitably emblazoned. Only by the destruction of the ideology of the defeated is the Hero assured of his mantle. Suicide bombers are Hero's within the ideology of the culture they inhabit. The postal bomb campaigns of 1940's pre-Israel ideologists paved, in part, the way to establish a nation state of Israel, in the process elevating Villain to Hero. Much the same can be witnessed in the current status of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness in Northern Ireland, a dispute with roots that flounder in an almost mythological stasis.

The closer we view History, the easier it is to separate Hero and Villain, they exist within the current ideological frame of reference of the observer, one persons Hero is another persons Villain. Destroy the ideology, and the victor's historians will name the Hero.

Ideology thus separates into two components: Moral and Cultural.

Each opposing faction will claim the 'moral high ground' founded in (but not exclusively) Religion, Economics, Philosophical, and the Cultural ideologies of the faction largely oblivious to the moral construct of the individual in the community. Individual morality requires adherence to personal beliefs and values. State imposed morality has dispersed objectives any of which can be formulated to press home the advantage, and to which the general mass of the population is expected to adhere or conform. It is the induction to take up arms and go to war. The 'moral majority' imposes the frame of reference under which the state is free to operate.

State imposed morality crosses cultural boundaries forming coalitions with other nation states who find elements within the construct of Religion or Economics or Philosophy to allow the coalition to gel.

Cultural values are beliefs and characteristics that define a group of people usually, but not exclusively, within a single nation state. Nation states can and do have more than one set of cultural values usually in the form of minor and major groupings, the minor groupings are subservient to the 'moral majority' up until the point at which cultural values change.

Cultural values reflect Historical and Contemporary ideologies; who controls the means of communicating ideology, (through selected history or contemporary opinion) gains control of the cultural frame of reference. Paint your Hero's: it's of no import if the battle is lost.

History, other than recent history, has limited cultural frame of reference. Historians interpret culture from relics (manuscripts, records, books, maps, paintings), generally written or owned by the victor. There is no historical moral frame of reference other than the view perceived by the beholder conditioned by their individual morality and State imposed moral values, this includes all aspect of Religious profundity.

That historians write pre-modern cultural histories is a vanity largely exclusive to their kind. We cannot know the Historical morals of an individual or nation state or the cultural values of a Historical community other than by reference to 'relics' that may in themselves be tainted in their existing at all, or by viewing the relics through the screen of our own moral and cultural values.

A precise example is Snorri Sturluson's Edda - The Icelandic Saga's - the Viking nation's history told in story form, written 300 years after the Vikings ceased their exploits by a Norwegian living in Iceland one hundred years after the last Viking state converted to Christianity. This is not a work of history. It is a work of fiction based upon a history that was never recorded, other than in Morality tales passed through genealogical lines; yet it imposes a set of cultural values set in train by the word – Viking, whose status incidentally can be regarded as having been transposed from Villain to Hero.

How does an ordinary person like you or I defeat Nazi Germany, past, so more pointedly, current American political ideology? How, if government is doing something wrong, do you or I stand up and say it?
If the majority says, for example, going into Iran and taking it over in the guise of democracy . . . how different is this from the 1940s? Do WE believe our government? What do we do if we do not?
How do WE as ordinary, every day beings DEFEAT the government? The ideology?

Most political associations are governed by doctrine, a set of rules or principles that formulate opinion within the association. In seeking election, they obtain a mandate, usually for a fixed term or until such time as their mandate becomes untenable, enabling them foist their doctrine upon the whole of the population.

The concept of political ideology falls since ideology is perceptive and reactive, political doctrine is forward looking and proactive. Political associations never campaign on a policy of 'turning the clock back'.

In the case of Germany, the political doctrine of the Nazi Party utilised the collective demoralisation of a cowed and receptive populace largely morally and economically bankrupt after the First World War. In this scenario, the imposition of Hero's and Villain's was all too simple to achieve. Control of the organs of state, media and propaganda, facilitates the imposition of State imposed morality to a point at which it becomes impervious to individual morality. The conjuring trick is to deflect moral criticism and transform moralists from Hero to Villain. The conventional mechanism is by creating wealth, the Nazi Party created wealth by building armaments, enriching industrialists and employed individuals, the logical next step was to use the strength in armaments to spread the political doctrine of the Nazi Party.

Cultural values within the populace shift and align with perception. Success through strength engenders support reinforcing the 'moral high ground' of the nation state. Picking the right target is crucial in ramping populous support and reinforcing collective ideology. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, until challenged by a greater collective ideology.

An individual is powerless to stop the nation state; it requires a collective will. Simultaneously an individual is given the authority to achieve the highest status by extending the political doctrine to new levels. Finding solutions to the problems of the nation state empowers the individual, whether the problems be new weaponry or designing efficient gas chambers. The individual rises to Hero status within the political association.

A difference between the rise of the Nazi Party and now is the control of the organs of state, media and propaganda. Indoctrination on a nation scale is difficult to achieve without mandate. Mandate can take many forms.

It is conceivable that tactical nuclear weapons would have been used against Iraq and or Iran if there had been clear unequivocal evidence of their planning 9/11 BEFORE the attack. In such a scenario, threat and counter threat would have played their hand; retaliation would have the 'moral high ground' - the mandate -
regardless of cultural ideology.

It is equally conceivable that continued terrorist atrocities will provide a mandate to warrant intervention in Iran. The current political doctrine ruling the United States of America appears ready to assume the mandate, the question is economic, is the prize worth the price.

I would answer yes it is worth the price. It takes too long to explain and doesn't answer your question, but there is a point at which even failure makes it worthwhile.

I should add here it is not my desire or wish for the USA to invade Iran under any pretext.

It is in isolation that political doctrine is fermented. In this sense, there are similarities between pre-WW2 Germany and USA. Despite its role in the world, the United States is increasingly an isolated state, a condition compounded by cultural complexity. It retains and fosters myriad cultural ideologies that perpetually cause political doctrine to reach for bigger solutions. History tends to the view that nation states need enemies to function efficiently, Hero's and Villain's. A Hero might have got there already.

 

[NoJo]

I notice the repeated/missing paragraphs in preview too. I'm 99% certain it's a bug in the preview feature, and won't affect the final output.

If I hit "refresh" on a long story I submitted recently, it paginated slightly differently each time, sometimes 3, sometimes 4 pages. But the final thing came out fine.

 

[Lisa Denton]

I notice the repeated/missing paragraphs in preview too. I'm 99% certain it's a bug in the preview feature, and won't affect the final output.

If I hit "refresh" on a long story I submitted recently, it paginated slightly differently each time, sometimes 3, sometimes 4 pages. But the final thing came out fine.

Paginated? Is that a real word or did you make it up?

Shanglan, I tried to tell somebody that there was missin paragraphs at a page break in their story and they would change sometimes fuckin up the story, and sometimes mysteriously re-appearin.

The person was nice and replied they looked at it and it was fine. I think they thought I was nuts or something. I don't drink and never snort coke, sometimes I snort coffee or ice tea but that is when I read something real funny, not on purpose.

Anywho, I think there could be a bug in the Lit program, lil gremlins runnin amok. Sometimes these problems would be real easy for Manu to fix, if he knew there WAS a problem.

If you tell them nicely and say you dunno if its your problem or theirs, you at least give them a chance to look and see if they have a problem.

You can't expect your readers to do it, they would prolly just give you a bad vote cause it didn't make sense at the page break.

 

[NoJo]

Paginated? Is that a real word or did you make it up?

Why, does it get you hot? Does it??

 

[Lisa Denton]

Why, does it get you hot? Does it??

Maybe thats it. I thought my water broke and wondered how that could happen when I'm not pregnant.

 

[NoJo]

Maybe thats it. I thought my water broke and wondered how that could happen when I'm not pregnant.

That post sure beats saying "paginated". Phew.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I notice the repeated/missing paragraphs in preview too. I'm 99% certain it's a bug in the preview feature, and won't affect the final output.

If I hit "refresh" on a long story I submitted recently, it paginated slightly differently each time, sometimes 3, sometimes 4 pages. But the final thing came out fine.

Actually, I only started looking after seeing a posted copy come out with a paragraph missing. Until that point I'd never really bothered with the preview.


Lisa, delighted to assuage your confusion. But of course it could not possibly have been you confused. You see the world with such stunning clarity.

*nuzzle*

Shanglan

 

[Lisa Denton]

Actually, I only started looking after seeing a posted copy come out with a paragraph missing. Until that point I'd never really bothered with the preview.


Lisa, delighted to assuage your confusion. But of course it could not possibly have been you confused. You see the world with such stunning clarity.

*nuzzle*

Shanglan

"Huh?"