Submitting As a Word doc

[wastelandwriter]

So I notice the new(ish?) submissions page says Lit now accepts submissions in Word doc, but it may take longer to post.

Has anyone had experience with this? I write my stuff in Word and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to not have to cut & paste the text and then manually insert my italics tags anymore.

 

[ElectricBlue]

As I understand it, the fastest submit times happen when you prepare good quality raw text files, correctly formatted (and with minimal formatting), for example .rtf

.txt doesn't load for some reason in the new dash - I shifted to .rtf, no problems.

If you submit Word, the site editor has to strip the formatting out of it and run bots to properly prepare html, so whilst you might save yourself the "hassle" of preparing good copy, you've just handed the problem along to the site editor, which delays both you AND (more importantly) those who DO take the time to prepare good copy.

Please think about it that way - and take the time to prepare good copy. Everybody then benefits.

If you don't choose to do that and stick with .doc, then you need to accept the extra delay. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[Voboy]

I've only ever submitted in Word. Publication times have ranged from less than 24 hours all the way up to several days.

It's not an issue.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've only ever submitted in Word. Publication times have ranged from less than 24 hours all the way up to several days.

It's not an issue.

Ok, I stand corrected.

 

[Handley_Page]

So I notice the new(ish?) submissions page says Lit now accepts submissions in Word doc, but it may take longer to post.

Has anyone had experience with this? I write my stuff in Word and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to not have to cut & paste the text and then manually insert my italics tags anymore.

save the file as an RTF and try that.

 

[rdodger]

I think back ten years ago I submitted in a Word file and wasn't happy with the results. I'm not sure what happens in the post-processing. Now I just copy out of my Word file and paste into the textbox. It seems to work just fine.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

My first story here - and by far my longest - was submitted as word. They screwed up the formatting in translation - deleting spaces at the edges of italics. Now I use .rtf and hand code the html tags.

You can write a macro in word to insert tags automatically, and back when I used word I did that. Which raises the question, why can't Lit automate it? It would add about 0.2 seconds to the process. Given that they are literally in the business of accepting documents for publication, you'd think they'd have automated filters for everything back to wordstar.

But they don't and I don't trust them to do it right anyway. Hand code your tags and you get what you expect.

 

[rdodger]

I think describing them as "in the business of accepting documents for publication" really distorts what the site admins do.

Their business is publishing stories. The choice to support file upload, requiring some degree of effort different from that needed when text is pasted in, may make things simpler for authors but is certainly not the site admins principal or only job.

Your experience, however, is certainly informative and good to know as a case example.

 

[sr71plt]

Nearly a thousand stories cut and pasted from Word into the text box, with manual coding of the few italics needed while still in Word text, and scanning through the result in preview--and no formatting problems encountered.

 

[PervOtaku]

I used to do .rtf, recently I've been pasting the text into the box with added html tags for the formatting. Seems to work fine.

I suspect simple (i.e. closer to plaintext) is better here.