Uploading A Story To The New Control Panel

[beachbum1958]

Some advice please, as I haven't done this so far, preferring instead to jump onto the old control panel and submit from there, but that's apparently no longer available (at least I can't load it anymore) so it's probably about time to embrace change.

So my question is, when I upload the story text to the new CP, do I just copy-paste/upload the MSWord file the story was created as, and will the italics and bold headings copy over, or do I upload it as a plain text file and go in and insert the html tags to give the italics and headings? Some coherent advice from those in the know would be more than welcome at this point!

Cheers,

Will

 

[NotWise]

So my question is, when I upload the story text to the new CP, do I just copy-paste/upload the MSWord file the story was created as, and will the italics and bold headings copy over, or do I upload it as a plain text file and go in and insert the html tags to give the italics and headings? Some coherent advice from those in the know would be more than welcome at this point!

I think you can upload it the way you did before.

I save my word processor files as text files and upload the text files, but others simply cut and paste into the upload window.

 

[oggbashan]

I think you can upload it the way you did before.

I save my word processor files as text files and upload the text files, but others simply cut and paste into the upload window.

I copy and paste from Word and then add italics, bold etc by hand.

 

[beachbum1958]

Thanks NW, still not making any headway; it's still not clear from pasting the Word document into the text box if the italics etc. have carried through the process, and trying to upload it as a UTF8 .txt file then hitting 'preview' displays the story text with every single punctuation mark replaced with a '?' in a black diamond; what am I doing wrong, and how can I upload/paste the file so the italics and headings remain in place, or does that just not happen anymore?

Confused Luddite here, someone please bail me out...

edit: just saw your post, Ogg, worth a try, is that done by adding <i> text </i> or <b>text</b>where the italics and headings should be in the pasted Word document?

Will

 

[KeithD]

I copy and paste from Word and then add italics, bold etc by hand.

I add the coding for the italics before cutting and pasting into the text box.

 

[NotWise]

Thanks NW, still not making any headway; it's still not clear from pasting the Word document into the text box if the italics etc. have carried through the process, and trying to upload it as a UTF8 .txt file then hitting 'preview' displays the story text with every single punctuation mark replaced with a '?' in a black diamond; what am I doing wrong, and how can I upload/paste the file so the italics and headings remain in place, or does that just not happen anymore?

Confused Luddite here, someone please bail me out...

edit: just saw your post, Ogg, worth a try, is that done by adding <i> text </i> or <b>text</b>where the italics and headings should be in the pasted Word document?

Will

The fonts will not carry through unless you're using the html tags. I haven't tried uploading stories as rtf files. I think in that case the fonts are supposed to carry through. I also haven't tried uploading a doc file.

 

[oggbashan]

T
Confused Luddite here, someone please bail me out...

edit: just saw your post, Ogg, worth a try, is that done by adding <i> text </i> or <b>text</b>where the italics and headings should be in the pasted Word document?

Will

Yes. And preview to check.

 

[KeithD]

You should be using italics and bolding (and nothing else) at a bare minimum anyway. You're inviting problems otherwise and the site style is minimization of formatting.

 

[beachbum1958]

Thanks everyone, this has been a sharp learning curve for me, I think I accidentally created and deleted about 5 weirdly different draft versions just fumbling my way through this, so thank you all.

Will

 

[Manu]

Sorry for the changes and any trouble they are causing you.

If you were attaching the file before, you should be able to attach it in the new interface. Can you see the attachment form field and does it work for you?

The new interface should allow both attachments (Doc, RTF, TXT, etc.) and the usual pasting/writing in the form field method.

If the new interface doesn't let you do something that the old one let you do, please let me know and I will try to figure out what's happening.

Thank you for the help with tracking down any issues.

 

[oggbashan]

I just tried uploading an incomplete draft with by select all, copy and paste from Word, manually adding some bold and italics, before previewing.

It worked perfectly before I backed out without saving.

 

[gordo12]

I upload the MS word and now Libre Office Doc file as is. Bold and italics are maintained. I can't imagine starting with a text file and adding the tags. Too much work.

 

[oggbashan]

I upload the MS word and now Libre Office Doc file as is. Bold and italics are maintained. I can't imagine starting with a text file and adding the tags. Too much work.

Copy and paste produces plain text in the box. Unless you use too many italics and bold it doesn't take much to produce them. With the trial I just did it took less than a minute to add all I needed.

 

[oggbashan]

Despite NOT saving as a draft, my test was saved.

I had to delete it manually.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The new interface should allow both attachments (Doc, RTF, TXT, etc.) and the usual pasting/writing in the form field method.

For a while there I was uploading .rtf files with embedded html code for italics (using the new CP and submitting the file as an attachment), but then I had four or five submissions where the html code didn't convert in the published version, and in one case it glitched completely and changed the rest of a page to italics. But it was inconsistent, sometimes html worked, but in another submission, it didn't. Which made me wonder, is there some other processing Laurel needs to do, where there's html involved?

As a consequence, I no longer use html at all, as it seems to be unreliable and inconsistent. It's not a big deal for me, but it would be nice to use italics occasionally, like I used to do.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I too only copy & paste into the new form which you get to via the icon at the top of the new control panel.

And I generally add the HTML tags in the word document.

The only time I submitted a word doc was a long time ago for an illustrated story.

Don't worry about the font, Lit controls the font the story is published in.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

For a while there I was uploading .rtf files with embedded html code for italics (using the new CP and submitting the file as an attachment), but then I had four or five submissions where the html code didn't convert in the published version, and in one case it glitched completely and changed the rest of a page to italics. But it was inconsistent, sometimes html worked, but in another submission, it didn't. Which made me wonder, is there some other processing Laurel needs to do, where there's html involved?

As a consequence, I no longer use html at all, as it seems to be unreliable and inconsistent. It's not a big deal for me, but it would be nice to use italics occasionally, like I used to do.

It would be insane if she did them by hand. I think she has a conversion program that reads the formatting of the .rtf, .doc, etc. files then publish them. So embedding tag in the text would be useless. But don't quote me on this.

 

[beachbum1958]

Sorry for the changes and any trouble they are causing you.

If you were attaching the file before, you should be able to attach it in the new interface. Can you see the attachment form field and does it work for you?

The new interface should allow both attachments (Doc, RTF, TXT, etc.) and the usual pasting/writing in the form field method.

If the new interface doesn't let you do something that the old one let you do, please let me know and I will try to figure out what's happening.

Thank you for the help with tracking down any issues.

Thanks, Manu, when I initially uploaded the file as a .txt file I couldn't see anything to say whether or not the italics in the original file were still there, which is maybe where the confusion set in. I did do it the way Ogg suggested, it worked, but it was a little tedious working through the text, remembering where I wanted italics (I decided to forego the bold headings, it just seemed like too much of a rod for my own back) and manually inserting them, so, if the tags work as part of a Word document, as KeithD suggests, in future I'll just be adding them in when I create the .doc file and copy/paste the whole thing at once. Submitting the thing took a little working-out, I couldn't find a 'submit' button at first, then I hit 'preview', and there it was, so all good now.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It would be insane if she did them by hand. I think she has a conversion program that reads the formatting of the .rtf, .doc, etc. files then publish them. So embedding tag in the text would be useless. But don't quote me on this.

By embedding in the text I mean using <i> and </i> as advised by the html experts. As I say, sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, there was no logic. And yes, they were always in proper pairs, that was always a "find text" edit thing. It just got to be more of a hassle than it was worth, so I don't bother now.

 

[DeathAndTaxes]

A quick way to get the HTML into your Word doc, for those who would like to paste the story text directly into the submission form (rather than attaching a doc):

1) Open up Find & Replace in Word.

2) With your cursor in the Find field: [press CRTL+i]
Don't type any other text in the Find field. This will find all italicized text in the doc.

3) In the Replace field, enter this character string: <i>^&</i>

4) Click REPLACE ALL and it will put the italics HTML around all italicized text.

I would assume the same for bold, though I don't use bold in my stories other than maybe "Author's Note" at the beginning. Anyway, I have been doing it this way for some time now, and it always works. Hope that's useful to someone!

 

[NotWise]

A quick way to get the HTML into your Word doc, for those who would like to paste the story text directly into the submission form (rather than attaching a doc):

That's pretty slick, but I just put the html around italicized (or bold) text when I decide to make them italicized (or bold). That way there's no going back to fix it.

 

[DeathAndTaxes]

That's pretty slick, but I just put the html around italicized (or bold) text when I decide to make them italicized (or bold). That way there's no going back to fix it.

That's probably a good idea, too, I just know seeing all the little brackets in my working draft would make me all twitchy! Hehe. I'm a spazz

 

[Zeb_Carter]

By embedding in the text I mean using <i> and </i> as advised by the html experts. As I say, sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, there was no logic. And yes, they were always in proper pairs, that was always a "find text" edit thing. It just got to be more of a hassle than it was worth, so I don't bother now.

I understood what you meant. It to add the tag pairs to the word doc, but then I copy and paste when I submit the story.

Now when I submit a story to Smashwords, I format the text the way I want it and Smashword converts the .doc file to an .epub among others. Their conversion program reads the format of the text in the .doc file and format accordingly in the .epub and the others.

I would assume that Laurel does the same type of automated conversion process and has it insert html tags where it finds .doc formatting. Now maybe, I'm not an html expert, double tags cancel each other out. <i><i> </i></i> That's if you formatted the text like you want it to be then put the tags around it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That's pretty slick, but I just put the html around italicized (or bold) text when I decide to make them italicized (or bold). That way there's no going back to fix it.

Yes, that's what I was doing, until I found it didn't always work. It did work, then it occasionally worked, and then it spectacularly glitched, to the extent I submitted an edit in one chapter because I'd used italics quite a bit, put in a note to the Ed, and it still fell over. I gave up after that, figuring plain text was good enough for Guttenberg, it's good enough for me .

 

[NotWise]

Yes, that's what I was doing, until I found it didn't always work. It did work, then it occasionally worked, and then it spectacularly glitched, to the extent I submitted an edit in one chapter because I'd used italics quite a bit, put in a note to the Ed, and it still fell over. I gave up after that, figuring plain text was good enough for Guttenberg, it's good enough for me .

I've never had a problem with the HTML tags for italic or bold. For about the last half of my stories (more or less) I've saved the story as text and viewed it in a simple mock-up of the Lit view. I do that mostly as a final edit. If there are problems with the tags, then I'll see them before I send the story to Laurel.

Lit has never created a problem that wasn't in the file to start with.