Posting troubles?

[sweeteuphoria]

Has anyone here ever had difficulties having a story post correctly? I assisted with the editing of a story by michchick98 and when it posted entire sections had been deleted. Has this happened to you or anyone you know of? It's very irritating because the majority of her stories rate in the high 4's but this one is getting feedback she's not happy with and I dont blame her. She has already resubmitted the story, this will be the third time.

If someone has any information I can pass along to her about this I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
sweeteuphoria

Her link so you can see what I'm talking about...
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=342504

Thanks again!

 

[Weird Harold]

Has anyone here ever had difficulties having a story post correctly? I assisted with the editing of a story by michchick98 and when it posted entire sections had been deleted. Has this happened to you or anyone you know of?

Is she submitting the chapters as RTF files? If she is, then that is likely the problem; I see a lot of this kind of complaint in the forums from people uploading Rich Text Format files.

Another possible problem is the "scene change marker" she uses: ~~~~~~~~~.

I don't know that a long string of Tilda's has the same effect as a long string of Asterisks, but long strings of repeated characters aren't something that most scripts/'bots are designed to deal with. Long strings of asterisks apparently cause some strange problems that have no discernable/logical other cause.

Three tildas(~), astrisks(*), hashmarks (#) or Percents (%) are usually the form of ellipsis used for scene changes or time lapses, but an Ellipsis -- three (and ONLY three) repeated punctuation marks -- would be the proper punctuation to indicae the narration has left somehing out or skipped ahead in time.

 

[sweeteuphoria]

thanks W H. yes she does submit in rtf, but always has. her stories have to be edited by a person because she uses italics for a characters thoughts and " " for a character speaking. I will let her read your comment though. I have noticed in some other stories there has been trouble with text. for instance one of MagicaPractica's font changes as you get into the story. I've seen that several times before in other stories. But what we can't figure out is why sections of text had been removed, but the " that started the first sentence of that paragraph is still there, or the first letter of a word then the remainder of the text is gone.

thanks
sweet

 

[Boxlicker101]

Three years ago I copied and pasted an entry in the Valentine's Day contest. I'm sure I copied the entire thing, but the last page didn't paste. At the time, I believe we didn't have the option to make corrections on the submissions page. Somebody told me about it, and I quickly got it corrected.

 

[Weird Harold]

thanks W H. yes she does submit in rtf, but always has. her stories have to be edited by a person because she uses italics for a characters thoughts and " " for a character speaking.

There's nothing inherently wrong with submitting in RTF format, but there is a LOT of "garbage" in an RTF file unless you take special measures to eliminate them. The more a file has been edited, the more "garbage" gets added to the RTF file.

To see what I'm talking about, change the files extension from RTF to TXT and open the file in Notepad so youcan see the formatting codes -- I'll bet that there is a formatting string just after that stray " and before the dialogue that followed it.

For example:

This paragraph in MSWord (with a few tracked changes that didn't C&P)...

Heather wiped the sweat off her damp face with a small white towel while accompanying her work out partner back to the locker room. Having been her exercise buddy for the past year, Ashley knew her well. and She understood her Heather's need for encouragement, thus congratulating her on a good set. [Not a very clearly stated beginning.]

...looks like this in the RF file it was taken from:

\par
\par Heather wiped the sweat off her damp face with a small white towel while accompanying her work}{\deleted\fs24\revauthdel1\revdttmdel-1505417002\cgrid0 }{\fs24\cgrid0 out partner back to the
locker room. Having been her exercise buddy for the past year, Ashley knew her well}{\fs24\revised\revauth1\revdttm-1505417002\cgrid0 . }{\fs24\cgrid0 }{\deleted\fs24\revauthdel1\revdttmdel-1505417002\cgrid0 and }{
\fs24\revised\revauth1\revdttm-1505417002\cgrid0 She }{\fs24\cgrid0 understood }{\deleted\fs24\revauthdel1\revdttmdel-1505417002\cgrid0 her }{\fs24\revised\revauth1\revdttm-1505417002\cgrid0 Heather's }{\fs24\cgrid0
need for encouragement, thus congratulating her on a good set. }{\fs24\revised\revauth1\revdttm-1505417004\cgrid0 [}{\fs24\revised\revauth1\revdttm-2042260313\cgrid0 Not}{\fs24\revised\revauth1\revdttm-1505417004\cgrid0 a very clearly stated beginning.]
}{\fs24\cgrid0
\par
\par }

Note the differences just in the red text which is an editorial comment I added to the original along with the tracked changes which didn't C&P in the first version but show as RTF encoding in the second.

I would expect that file to cause problems for the conversion script.

This example is from a "clean" RTF file which I know did NOT cause any problems in posting:

{\f100\fs32\kerning28\cgrid0 ...
\par
\par }{\f100\kerning28\cgrid0 ...
\par
\par ...
\par
\par ...

I put "clean" in quotes because that file has just over 2,500 characters worth of intializing and other RTF encoding prior to the actual story text with just the /par tags cluttering things up.

(actual story text removed because that one isn't mine.)

 

[sweeteuphoria]

There's nothing inherently wrong with submitting in RTF format, but there is a LOT of "garbage" in an RTF file unless you take special measures to eliminate them. The more a file has been edited, the more "garbage" gets added to the RTF file.

So how do we go about getting the"garbage" out?

 

[rgraham666]

Seriously, your best bet for a clean entry is to copy and paste to the text box on the submissions page.

You will have to put in HTML tags for special formatting; <i> and </i> for italics, <b> and </b> for bold, <u> and </u> for underlining, <center> and </center> for centering. Those are the only ones I use. Also you'll have to put carriage returns between each paragraph.

I set up a separate file for formatting and make any changes on that before cutting and pasting. Make sure you preview!

It's a little extra work, but worth the effort.

 

[Weird Harold]

So how do we go about getting the"garbage" out?

I'm sure that there there are more efficient ways, but the only way I've found is to save/export to a plain text file -- which erases ALL formatting -- and then redo any italics, bold, or other formatting you want reproduced on Lit.

It's roughly the same amount of work as is required to manually add the HTML tags to do a C&P or Plain Text file upload.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Seriously, your best bet for a clean entry is to copy and paste to the text box on the submissions page.

You will have to put in HTML tags for special formatting; <i> and </i> for italics, <b> and </b> for bold, <u> and </u> for underlining, <center> and </center> for centering. Those are the only ones I use. Also you'll have to put carriage returns between each paragraph.

I set up a separate file for formatting and make any changes on that before cutting and pasting. Make sure you preview!

It's a little extra work, but worth the effort.

That's my technique as well. You must be extra-careful to put the end tags (</i>, etc.) in!

 

[jomar]

I'm having trouble posting posts! My browser and interweb connection have hangovers or something.

 

[Weird Harold]

I'm having trouble posting posts! My browser and interweb connection have hangovers or something.

I suspect it's LIt tha thas the hangover -- from the database crash yesterday. thngs are just a bit slower for me since then.