Optimal formatting options?

[Bryan_C]

Hi,

New author here (1 published story), and I have a question about how to implement formatting the way I'd like.

My original document is written in LibreOffice Writer, saved as .docx for uploading, and while the formatting is okay (probably not worth changing in the current version), some things didn't come across the way I wanted. I'd hoped the upload process would translate well, but it didn't entirely.

I can use raw HTML tags (<b> </b> etc.) if need be, though that's clunky in the original, but if it's the only way I'll live. If there's an easier approach though that'd be great.

Specifically - bold and italic text doesn't show. Left/right alignment appears to be preserved. (I want to use both italics and alternating left/right alignment to represent text message exchanges.)

I also used three asterisks, centered, tab-separated to represent a break or change of scene; these are now left-aligned and separated with spaces, which is not visually the effect I was going for. (Maybe there's a better way to represent that sort of break.)

Multiple line breaks are compressed into one. (I used two preceding a "Chapter x" header, which also used to be bold) for a bit more visual separation.

Tips and suggestions, or at least confirmation that I must just embed HTML tags manually?

Thanks!

 

[AStrangeDesire]

In terms of document format, I use LibreOffice but save in RTF, and both bold and italics are definitely preserved.

My centre alignment for section breaks seems to stay as well (though the Lit has had some issues with that).

Not sure about the line breaks.

Hope that helps

 

[Writer61]

Good resource: https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-format-a-story-with-html

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

A while back, I wrote a little HTML + Java Script app to do this for me. Happy to share.

https://waxphilosophic.sdf.org/LitMark/

Click on the ? icon to get a little tutorial on how to go from LibreOffice to a subset of HTML tags that work with Lit.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi,

New author here (1 published story), and I have a question about how to implement formatting the way I'd like.

My original document is written in LibreOffice Writer, saved as .docx for uploading, and while the formatting is okay (probably not worth changing in the current version), some things didn't come across the way I wanted. I'd hoped the upload process would translate well, but it didn't entirely.

I can use raw HTML tags (<b> </b> etc.) if need be, though that's clunky in the original, but if it's the only way I'll live. If there's an easier approach though that'd be great.

Specifically - bold and italic text doesn't show. Left/right alignment appears to be preserved. (I want to use both italics and alternating left/right alignment to represent text message exchanges.)

I also used three asterisks, centered, tab-separated to represent a break or change of scene; these are now left-aligned and separated with spaces, which is not visually the effect I was going for. (Maybe there's a better way to represent that sort of break.)

Multiple line breaks are compressed into one. (I used two preceding a "Chapter x" header, which also used to be bold) for a bit more visual separation.

Tips and suggestions, or at least confirmation that I must just embed HTML tags manually?

Thanks!

Please note that there is a current site bug which leads to most centered text (but not all ) turning invisible when you navigate from page 1 to page 2 (and all subsequent pages). If you refresh the page after it first loads, everything is fine.

This happens regardless of whether your centered text was uploaded from Word, LO, or other word processor, or entered as raw HTML (and it doesn’t matter if you use <p> <div> or the ancient <center>).

This bug appears to have been recently resolved for some desktop browsers, but still exists for most mobile browsers. I just checked my latest story and on Chrome / iOS it still glitches.

Welcome to Literotica

 

[CalBishForNow]

Writer61 beat me to linking to the guide.

What I've found is that I can do simple formatting in .docx documents, or submit it with HTML tags, but not both. My first 20 or so stories were submitted as Word documents with bold and italics sprinkled through the text and it generally worked fine. I was never inclined to do section breaks other than words set off with bold text. (Headings, in Word styles, but as long as they were bold in the .docx file, they'd render as bold in the Lit page.) If I want something more complicated, more on this in a minute, then I'd write it in Word, add the appropriate HTML tags when I was nearly done, and copy and paste the whole text of it into the text editor. But putting the HTML tags in a Word document and submitting it as a file attachment would get it sent back with an error message.

Specifically - bold and italic text doesn't show. Left/right alignment appears to be preserved. (I want to use both italics and alternating left/right alignment to represent text message exchanges.)

Yeah, text message exchanges was the more complicated thing. What I do is, when I want a back-and-forth text conversation, I use the blockquote tag and the keyboard font tag, and left-justify and right-justify the sender and receiver as appropriate. In the Word document it looks like this:

And on the Lit page it looks like this:

You could probably skip the blockquote tags or kbd tags or both if you want, that was just my preference.

 

[Bryan_C]

In terms of document format, I use LibreOffice but save in RTF, and both bold and italics are definitely preserved.

My centre alignment for section breaks seems to stay as well (though the Lit has had some issues with that).

Not sure about the line breaks.

Hope that helps

Thanks! That's probably the easiest if it works. I probably can't embed HTML in the RTF document either though, if I want to upload it? I'd be fine using <hr> for a section break instead, but if that doesn't work I might fall back to just "-------------------" if it means I can still upload the RTF doc.

We'll see how part 2 looks... (eventually).

 

[TheLobster]

You could probably skip the blockquote tags or kbd tags or both if you want, that was just my preference.

Interesting. I did it similarly for some of my stories (most notably this one), but I didn’t use blockquote. I wonder how the difference looks in practice; which one of your stories would be good to have a look at for reference?

 

[CalBishForNow]

Interesting. I did it similarly for some of my stories (most notably this one), but I didn’t use blockquote. I wonder how the difference looks in practice; which one of your stories would be good to have a look at for reference?

Those screenshots are from Part 14 of my Using the Hall Pass series. The fourth Lit page to be specific. Part 15 also has some text conversations, and it's a shorter work overall and has the conversations in the first 1100 words, so it's a better example in that sense. I also put normal dialogue tags and a little narration between the text messages, which I think made sense at the time but I'm sure opinions may vary.

The problem with using Part 15 as an example is, I screwed up the tags in Part 15. I forgot to close one of the keyboard font tags. Lit seems to be inconsistent about whether a new paragraph closes special formatting or not, so I can look at that page and it'll look good after first opening the page, and then I can refresh it and I'll have 4-5 paragraphs in keyboard font, or vice versa. I can't blame Lit for the mistake, after I noticed it I went back to the Word document and sure enough, I submitted it with a missing tag. I guess Lit displaying the page correctly half the time is better than not at all.

Whoops! Let this be a cautionary tale about using HTML.

 

[TheLobster]

Those screenshots are from Part 14 of my Using the Hall Pass series. (…)

Oh, I like that. The extra indentation makes the messages stand out more. I think I’ll try with the blockquote the next time I’m writing a story with text messages.

Thanks!

 

[TheStungest]

I use <em></em> for italics and <hr> for a chapter break. I write using Google docs (on my mobile, because I'm a masochist) but I submit as plain text, because then I have complete control over the submission (maybe I'm a sadist as well!)

 

[FrancesScott]

Good resource: https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-format-a-story-with-html

Thank you for linking to my essay!

 

[PennameWombat]

Hi,

New author here (1 published story), and I have a question about how to implement formatting the way I'd like.

My original document is written in LibreOffice Writer, saved as .docx for uploading, and while the formatting is okay (probably not worth changing in the current version), some things didn't come across the way I wanted. I'd hoped the upload process would translate well, but it didn't entirely.

I can use raw HTML tags (<b> </b> etc.) if need be, though that's clunky in the original, but if it's the only way I'll live. If there's an easier approach though that'd be great.

If you're submitting a .doc or .docx file, do not embed HTML tags. Simply use LibreOffice to set the desired text to bold or to italics. That's always worked fine for me, I use LibreOffice to format the submitted file. Same with Headers, Set the header to H1, H2, whatever, with spacing set by styles.

The one issue I don't have an answer for is centering the asterisks. I don't get them centered, but I don't worry about it too much.

I've also used both numbered and unnumbered lists, simply built them using the LibreOffice styles, and they've displayed correctly.

I've never used a section break, as given the reflowing style Lit displays with, I don't expect it would be worthwhile. I have used H1/H2 combinations to show "Section" and "Subsection", then subsequent H2 until the next H1.

 

[dirk2024]

Interesting. I did it similarly for some of my stories (most notably this one), but I didn’t use blockquote. I wonder how the difference looks in practice; which one of your stories would be good to have a look at for reference?

Here is how it looked in my story, The Witches of Eldritch Hollow.

 

[Bryan_C]

If you're submitting a .doc or .docx file, do not embed HTML tags. Simply use LibreOffice to set the desired text to bold or to italics.

Did that - didn't come through. I'll try the suggestion of using RTF for the upload format instead and see if that works better.

 

[Writer61]

I will add that I write in Word and limit myself to bold, italics, and an occasional centred tilde, using built-in functionality.

The draft is transferred to a Google Doc to share with my beta readers, and from there, the final version, as an RTF, is uploaded.