MSWord and HTML

[acup]

So, question on something I have never done... yet.

I've been having some issues with Lit page breaks in the middle of HTML encoding. So this last story, I just submitted a Word doc instead of text with the HTML coding. I don't get to see the preview, but I guess I can deal with it.

Now comes the fun part. As far as I can tell, Word does not have an equivalent to <blockquote.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So, question on something I have never done... yet.

I've been having some issues with Lit page breaks in the middle of HTML encoding. So this last story, I just submitted a Word doc instead of text with the HTML coding. I don't get to see the preview, but I guess I can deal with it.

Now comes the fun part. As far as I can tell, Word does not have an equivalent to <blockquote.

Keep your formatting simple for Lit helps. Sure, the site supports some html, but when it goes wrong, as you've found, it can spectacularly wrong.

Also, the site has a house formatting style which over-rides much of the individual formatting many writers want. Concentrate on the words and let the site sort out presentation, is my suggestion.

 

[acup]

WOW, just realized my post got cut off half way through. Is there a 'fix' to do <blockquote> in Word beyond margin changes, and does Lit recognize HTML codes within a doc?

My biggest is that it doesn't carry over between Lit pages, and center keeps changing.

 

[ElectricBlue]

WOW, just realized my post got cut off half way through. Is there a 'fix' to do <blockquote> in Word beyond margin changes, and does Lit recognize HTML codes within a doc?

My biggest is that it doesn't carry over between Lit pages, and center keeps changing.

Html doesn't carry over the Lit page turn, and you never can predict where ithe page will turn - that's the fundamental problem.

So if you do use html, you have to close at the end of each para - when you get up around the 3750 plus/minus word count, which is the standard Lit page length.

The site doesn't like block, nor does it particularly like centering. It tolerates both on occasion, but you have to ask nicely. As I say, best to keep html to a minimum - I've got half a dozen stories with html glitches that I couldn't be bothered fixing (which shows how unnecessary it was in the first place).

 

[gunhilltrain]

You usually can just write the HTML code in Word. Most of the simple ones work okay; you probably only need a handful of those at most in any particular story. Italics, bold, and links (to other parts of the site only are allowed) are the most common. The <br> tag is helpful once in a while.

Blockquote doesn't seem to work on this site; I've never had an occasion to use it anyway. Centering works, although margins are otherwise not easily changed as far as I can tell. Any HTML glitches will show up in preview mode and should be easy to spot. The most common one is not closing italics properly, and you'll see many paragraphs that are in italics but shouldn't be. Finding the start of the error is not that hard to do.

Lit page breaks are hard to predict. Usually, if a bit winds up on an additional page it's not a big deal. I just had one of those; note page 2.

Text

It doesn't bother me, however.

 

[acup]

I've never had a problem with blockquote, what is br? Even though it's not 'supposed to' strikethrough has never failed me yet.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

HTML shouldn't be used to change more that one or two lines of your text. I you feel the need to have text in italics for more than a paragraph, then close and reopen the HTML for each paragraph. Lit usually won't split Paragraphs between pages. The same goes for Blockquote. And the equivalent in Word is Indent which is part of the paragraph options. Any other, Center, etc. should also be closed at the end of the paragraph and reopened for the next.

Also, try to keep your paragraphs short, two or three sentences at the most.

And don't for get, most readers now use the Lit Android App to read stories, which strips out all of the HTML before it displays the text and depending on the font size the reader picks, changes the number of characters per page. So, all that time you spend on formatting just disappears for most readers who are just interested in reading those words and probably don't even notice a change to Italics or Indenting.

</br> is a way to get things to break into paragraphs without use a paragraph mark or return.

IE. <center><i>Just like the white winged dove</br>Sings a song, sounds like she's singing</br>Ooo, ooo, ooo"</i></center>

as apposed to...

<center><i>Just like the white winged dove
Sings a song, sounds like she's singing
Ooo, ooo, ooo"</i></center>


It would look like this...

"Just like the white winged dove
Sings a song, sounds like she's singing
Ooo, ooo, ooo"
​

Instead of like this...

"Just like the white winged dove

Sings a song, sounds like she's singing

Ooo, ooo, ooo"​

Although the space between the lines wouldn't be that big but bigger than the first.

​

 

[acup]

Zeb,

Didn't think of indent, will give that a shot, thanks.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've never had a problem with blockquote, what is br? Even though it's not 'supposed to' strikethrough has never failed me yet.

I have a test file in my drafts folder I use to try out various techniques. Strikethrough works fine, but I haven't had an occasion to use it. I still can't get blockquote to work.

I suppose that issue with the Android App makes it all moot anyway. Personally, I wouldn't want to read that much on a smartphone screen.

 

[yowser]

Good advice from the crew. Short limited html is the way to go. If you paste in a text file (rtf is fine too) with html tags, at least you get to see what the output looks like, and can correct any screwy breaks or non-closed tags before you submit, saving you some aggravation when it all doesn't go right.

It would be handier to do a little more display-wise, but really the focus on the site is for content, good stories. Good luck.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Good advice from the crew. Short limited html is the way to go. If you paste in a text file (rtf is fine too) with html tags, at least you get to see what the output looks like, and can correct any screwy breaks or non-closed tags before you submit, saving you some aggravation when it all doesn't go right.

It would be handier to do a little more display-wise, but really the focus on the site is for content, good stories. Good luck.

Interesting that you don't need the Doctype declaration or any of the usual HTML markings - the tags work anyway in the text. I'm not techie enough to explain why that is so - it's not a true HTML document I suppose?

When I did learn a little HTML a while ago, it was only for use in websites. It wasn't until I got here that I saw it used for text.

 

[acup]

Up until my last couple of posts, I did strictly txt with encoded html so I could see a preview. Uploading a docx does not let you preview anything. And yes, I do have a test document for previewing.

And contrary to what it 'should' be, just because it looks good in the preview doesn't mean it will load correctly. For me, the one I seem to be having the most problem with is centering, either <c> or <center>. These problems havee seemed to surface in the last year or so with all the upgrades, but that could be coincidental. So, I'm switching to a docx upload, and if I find a problem, then I'll just have to submit the replacement document. Been there done that, just wish I didn't have to worry about it.

 

[acup]

LOL, Point me in the right direction...

Did a search, and on the page layout tab of Word, there is left and right indent... WHO KNEW! I rarely blockquote more than a paragraph, but the double indent SHOULD do the trick. Will have to give it a try on a test page.

 

[ElectricBlue]

LOL, Point me in the right direction...

Did a search, and on the page layout tab of Word, there is left and right indent... WHO KNEW! I rarely blockquote more than a paragraph, but the double indent SHOULD do the trick. Will have to give it a try on a test page.

It's possible the site editor will strip out your indents, because you're going against the "house" style.

What's the literary purpose of all this formatting? You're not publishing a book - a lot of this seems to be print oriented, text on a page, not text on-line.

 

[acup]

For me, setting certain things aside. Something that should be a note or a quote or something. It's not something i use very often, just one of those things that is not in Word that I have done for almost a decade in HTML on Lit.

I realize they have to keep it down to a dull roar to keep it from going wild, but a little standard formatting shouldn't be a problem unless the app can't handle it.

And I will second the ( NOT ) reading of stories on the app. Even with my glasses there is no way I'm going to read anything more than a page or two on my phone screen. It's nice, but not realistic in my book.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Good advice from the crew. Short limited html is the way to go. If you paste in a text file (rtf is fine too) with html tags, at least you get to see what the output looks like, and can correct any screwy breaks or non-closed tags before you submit, saving you some aggravation when it all doesn't go right.

It would be handier to do a little more display-wise, but really the focus on the site is for content, good stories. Good luck.

Unfortunately, the preview doesn't do page breaks, so it will look fine in preview but when published, page breaks could screw everything up.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Up until my last couple of posts, I did strictly txt with encoded html so I could see a preview. Uploading a docx does not let you preview anything. And yes, I do have a test document for previewing.

And contrary to what it 'should' be, just because it looks good in the preview doesn't mean it will load correctly. For me, the one I seem to be having the most problem with is centering, either <c> or <center>. These problems havee seemed to surface in the last year or so with all the upgrades, but that could be coincidental. So, I'm switching to a docx upload, and if I find a problem, then I'll just have to submit the replacement document. Been there done that, just wish I didn't have to worry about it.

<center></center> is the proper tag. Although for HTML 5 it has been demoted, done away with, the process that Lit uses to save your text converts the center tags to p align tags.

They don't except anything but a center tag. Also, that p align tag does add a linefeed to the line it's on. So if you use center tag with some characters to do a scene break start the next line right after the your scene break.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And one other thing to remember... Lit's Cascading Style Sheets-CSS will control all of what a reader sees. Cascading Style Sheets control the web page style and there isn't anything you can do to change that. The CSS is what limits the text width on the page in the browser, etc.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

For me, setting certain things aside. Something that should be a note or a quote or something. It's not something i use very often, just one of those things that is not in Word that I have done for almost a decade in HTML on Lit.

I realize they have to keep it down to a dull roar to keep it from going wild, but a little standard formatting shouldn't be a problem unless the app can't handle it.

And I will second the ( NOT ) reading of stories on the app. Even with my glasses there is no way I'm going to read anything more than a page or two on my phone screen. It's nice, but not realistic in my book.

But on a 10" tablet it's just fine and I can laydown and read.

 

[gunhilltrain]

For me, setting certain things aside. Something that should be a note or a quote or something. It's not something i use very often, just one of those things that is not in Word that I have done for almost a decade in HTML on Lit.

I realize they have to keep it down to a dull roar to keep it from going wild, but a little standard formatting shouldn't be a problem unless the app can't handle it.

And I will second the ( NOT ) reading of stories on the app. Even with my glasses there is no way I'm going to read anything more than a page or two on my phone screen. It's nice, but not realistic in my book.

If you really want to show, say, a note or letter from somebody, you might try the <kbd> stag (formerly <tt> which makes the text, supposedly, look like the output from a typewriter (basically, it changes the font). Of course, it's just an approximation of what you may have intended the note to look like. I had maybe one occasion when I could have used it, but I didn't know about it then. Of course, I don't know if it would have appeared in the final output.

Literotica seems to forbid quoting song lyrics or poems - copyright issues - which, on the one site that allows it, can be handled with the <br> tag (to show the line breaks that T.S. Eliot or Stevie Nicks or whoever intended them to appear) and possibly italics. But on Lit it's a moot issue.

 

[acup]

On a slightly different tangent.

One thing I miss about the old web page was the pending post 'header'. This is purely personal, and had no real bearing on anything. But the old page had a change of color on the pending text. If it changed, you knew it had been approved and was waiting on the next update to actually load to the web site. I want to say it went from black to blue, but it could have been the pother way around.

 

[RachelPost]

All I know is I don't like MS Word. I prefer using LibraOffice. It lacks some of the bells and whistles of MS. But I don't have to keep paying to use it. I don't care to "lease" my software.

 

[acup]

Same here. I have an older version of 2012 Office that is paid for and I have the installation files. All too many of the 'new' software packages you have to rent and they make it sound like it's no big deal. My accounting program was the same way until I made them answer the question directly, no beating around the bush. Come to find out that I didn't have to buy the monthly, I just had to hunt for the direct purchase option... at one third the overall price! Compared to a one year subscription no less!

 

[Bramblethorn]

You can still buy Word/Office as a one-time purchase, and if you're planning on using the same device for a couple of years it may be cheaper.

Free options are good too, but for some of my work I do need specifically MS Office.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

All I know is I don't like MS Word. I prefer using LibraOffice. It lacks some of the bells and whistles of MS. But I don't have to keep paying to use it. I don't care to "lease" my software.

So, you must have been sucked into the Office 365 bullshit.

I paid $20 for my copy of Office 2007. It was given to me by my employer as they used Office and wanted you to be able to work at home. LOL. I'm now retired and still using it. I even have the install disk.