Regarding story submissions

[EldridgeinOO]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know what the following means on a rejected story?

"Impossible to display this story. Download this file, convert it and upload again."

I'd love to do so, but the file I download is exactly the same as the one I submitted. What do I need to convert it to?

I've written to both memberhelp and submit email addies but have not gotten a response. Does anyone know?

(My apologies if this is in the wrong forum...)

Thanks

Eldridge

 

[sr71plt]

Probably need more information on exactly what you did in what format to help you do anything different.

I just cut and paste a Word Times New Roman 12-point block of text with flush left indents and an extra line return between paragraphs into the text block and it's worked fine for over 300 successive times.

 

[S-Des]

You can also copy and paste the story directly, which is what I always do. It loses formatting, so you have to put in html tags if you have italicized or bold sections, but I like it better that way. After you submit, it gives you a chance for one final read of your story in Lit's format, which has allowed me to catch numerous small things that show up on Lit, but not in Word.

PM if you need any details on html tags.

Good luck.

 

[Darkniciad]

It sounds like you're using some document format that the moderators can't open.

As SR71 suggested, try copying the text from whatever text editor you are using, and then paste it into the "story text" box of the submission form.

Another possibility is to try saving the story as plain text (.txt)

In either case, you may have to add the html tags if you use any italics/etc.

 

[TxRad]

What file format did you download? Word doc or maybe open office. Something else?

 

[EldridgeinOO]

It's a simple Word document, though it's from an archaic version of Word. I would assume newer versions of Office should be able to open it?

Oh and thanks everyone, I appreciate the quick replies

 

[Darkniciad]

It's a simple Word document, though it's from an archaic version of Word. I would assume newer versions of Office should be able to open it?

Oh and thanks everyone, I appreciate the quick replies

Not necessarily, and it may corrupt the text in the process. You wouldn't be able to tell, because you're using the version of Word that created it. It will look fine to you.

 

[TxRad]

It's a simple Word document, though it's from an archaic version of Word. I would assume newer versions of Office should be able to open it?

Oh and thanks everyone, I appreciate the quick replies

Try saving it as a dos txt file with formating. You should end up with an .asc file. Change the asc to Txt by using rename. That way at least your line spacing remains.

 

[EldridgeinOO]

I'll start submitting the story according to the suggestions placed here. Thanks all for your help

 

[slyc_willie]

A simple and easy way: download OpenOffice, write the story, then save it as a MicrosoftWord (.doc) 97/2000/XP file. You don't have to mess with formatting or keeping your paragraphs separated by an extra return.

The posting time might take an extra couple of days or so, but if you use a lot of italics (like I do), it's worth it.

Every story I have ever had posted on Lit has been submitted this way.

 

[EldridgeinOO]

I've tried submitting it through the text box this time, though having to put a hard return in everywhere by hand is pretty tiresome.

We'll see how it goes this time.

Thanks all

 

[Weird Harold]

I've tried submitting it through the text box this time, though having to put a hard return in everywhere by hand is pretty tiresome.

Every version of MS Word I've ever used has the ability to find and replace "special caharacters" including paragraph breaks and manual line breaks.

Lit's formatting scripts expcet two paragrah breaks (two ASCII 'CRLF' pairs) between paragraphs and no forced reaks within a paragraph.

If you search for '^p' and replace with '^p^p' in most versions of Word, you'll get the paragraph breaks Lit looks for -- (and expose any inadvertant breaks in mid-paragraph.)

Also, the file/Save As function in MS Word should include a choice between Plain Text and "Text with fixed line length;" the latter puts a hard break where your margin wraps each line.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Any word document created in an older version is unreadable by word 2007 unless you download the conversion utility from microsoft. The conversion happens on the fly so there are no hassles. So if the Lit crew are using word 2007 and haven't downloaded the conversion utility they might assume the file is corrupt.

 

[michchick98]

A simple and easy way: download OpenOffice, write the story, then save it as a MicrosoftWord (.doc) 97/2000/XP file. You don't have to mess with formatting or keeping your paragraphs separated by an extra return.

The posting time might take an extra couple of days or so, but if you use a lot of italics (like I do), it's worth it.

Every story I have ever had posted on Lit has been submitted this way.

I used to do it that way too, but Lit screwed up two or three chapters of one of my stories. There was one chapter that took nearly two weeks to finally get straightened out because it was missing parts and the chapter itself made no sense. I started doing the copy and paste thing and added HTML tags for bold/italic, etc. I've never had a problem since.


To EldridgeinOO: Look through the Writers' Resources page. There are a couple of good articles about using HTML tags in your stories. I also made a pretty easy to follow How-To about the same thing:

Basic Text Formatting 101