Quick formatting question

[Global Carol]

It's been years since I've published any stories here. I have one that's getting close to the proofing stage and I wanted to see the changes to the site. I put in some plain text (about 40,000 words) and when the Preview displayed it, there was no spacing between paragraphs.

As I recall from (many) years past, the site would automatically leave one blank line between paragraphs. I don't want to insert a blank line if the system will also insert a blank line between each paragraph.

I have no problem inserting a blank line myself between each paragraph in the text, but I don't want the story to have double spacing between each paragraph. Would anyone know what will happen when a story is published?

Thank you so much in advance for your gracious assistance.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I've never had that happen. My previews are always spaced just as I spaced them and my published versions always look like my previews.

Perhaps if you pasted your story into a plain text editor, then if your spacing looks correct, copy it from the text editor into the lit submission box and see if the preview looks any different.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's been years since I've published any stories here. I have one that's getting close to the proofing stage and I wanted to see the changes to the site. I put in some plain text (about 40,000 words) and when the Preview displayed it, there was no spacing between paragraphs.

As I recall from (many) years past, the site would automatically leave one blank line between paragraphs. I don't want to insert a blank line if the system will also insert a blank line between each paragraph.

I have no problem inserting a blank line myself between each paragraph in the text, but I don't want the story to have double spacing between each paragraph. Would anyone know what will happen when a story is published?

Thank you so much in advance for your gracious assistance.

What you see in the Preview is what you get when it's published.

You need to add two Returns at the end of each paragraph. That's my typing default for Lit - I've been copy pasting into the Form for five years, and don't upload anything else.

 

[alohadave]

Add the line between the paragraphs.

When you submit, you'll get a chance to review it before the final submission. If there is any formatting errors, you'll see them there.

 

[mildlyaroused]

Add a line yourself. For reference, my spacing looks like this once I've prepared it for Lit. It publishes normally, with one line between every paragraph.

 

[Katie_Mae]

In my experience, what you see in the preview when it comes to line spacing is not always what you get.
If you don't add an extra line, then one will be added in on publishing. If you add ten extra lines, it will be reduced to just one space on publishing.



I recently had a poem that on preview the formatting looked fine (no spaces between lines and one space between each stanza) on the preview but when it published it changed to all double spaced (every line). The reason I didn't use special formatting when I submitted was because it looked fine on preview.


So... add an extra line or don't. Once published it will have just the one line space between paragraphs.

 

[THBGato]

Do you copy and paste into the editor, or attach a file?

I always attach a file (either .rtf or .docx) and it always comes out exactly the way I formatted it (with the exception of extra lines between lines of poetry, but I can live with that. Prose is unaffected.)

 

[StillStunned]

If you copy and paste from Word, do a Find & Replace for ^p (one hard return) to ^p^p (two hard returns).

 

[TheLobster]

Lit does not add any extra lines between paragraphs, contrary to what everyone says here. You can verify this by inspecting the paragraphs in the browser; it’s all just <p> tags with your text, without any extra <p/> or <br> in between.

I believe the confusion comes from what constitutes a paragraph when you submit a story. If you attach a file, like RTF or Word document, then it’s simply whatever those formats consider a paragraph.

If you use the text box, however, then there is some rather janky and largely undocumented algorithm that breaks the text into paragraphs. You can insert the <p> tags yourself, which is useful when you’d like to change text alignment, but normally you just leave one blank line between paragraphs if left alignment is fine.

Always check if it comes out good in the preview. It’s pretty reliable, although it does trip and show a false positive if you include any poetry or other verse. (For that, keep the whole section as one physical line and add manual <br> tags where you want the line breaks to be).

 

[SimonDoom]

The system does not incorporate automatic spacing. So if your original text inserts an extra space after each paragraph, when you insert the text in the text box all of that automatic spacing will be eliminated. The way to do it is, first, to set up paragraph spacing so there are no automatic spaces, and then to add the space manually with an extra return after each paragraph.

I have done what you've done, and I had to go through the document in the text box and manually insert all the extra paragraph returns.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

<br> for an additional break can be used in multiples.

Much of the confusion may lie in what program the story was originally written in. For instance, if write a couple of paras on my iPad, then copy and paste to here, I wind up with double spaces between paras. As has been noted, look at Preview to see what will go up.

 

[Dearelliot]

I have that problem when I copy and paste from Wordpad.
I'm thinking of copying and pasting my story to Libre office then to Literotica.

 

[Jorunn]

I got this customized email scribed upon clay tablets from the highest source herself relating to a poem I placed into Chasing Fairies, one of my earliest stories.

Hello,

Thanks for sharing your work, and I hope you are well.

Hello! If you want to create single spaced lines (as in poetry) you will need to replace the single line return with <br>.
-
For example:
Do you see me, red deer doe?
The essence of wildness dances in your eyes.
The way you slip softly through the shade
you are grace incarnate.
Serenity follows, gentleness surrounds you,
purity of your spirit connects you with the earth.
Queen of the Forest, I am pleased you are here.
-
should be formatted as:
Do you see me, red deer doe?<br>The essence of wildness dances in your eyes.<br>The way you slip softly through the shade<br>you are grace incarnate.<br>Serenity follows, gentleness surrounds you,<br>purity of your spirit connects you with the earth.<br>Queen of the Forest, I am pleased you are here.
-
PLEASE NOTE that you remove the hard return and replace it with a <br> anywhere you want a single space between the lines. If you do not remove the hard return, you will end up with an extra line return instead.

If you have any other questions, please let us know!

Thanks again, and take care.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I just upload Word docs. I've never had a formatting problem. 74 stories over 5.5 years...

 

[Global Carol]

Wow! I was not expecting such a wealth of helpful responses. Thanks to all of you.

At first I was concerned that the number of words may have been a contributing factor, but it probably was not. Learning from you that there'll be an opportunity to say yea or nay before the final step was reassuring.

Still have some more to write so it's uncertain when it'll be ready to go to print. But I think I have all the information I need now.

Thank you to everyone who took the time and effort to provide assistance.