How to format for uploads

[Sgt_G]

I just wanted to pick the brains of how other people upload stories and other long posts written off-line.

Here's how I do it:

1) Write the story in WORD. Do all the spelling/grammar checks. Optional: Copy the new segment to a blank WORD document.
1a) Using the display hidden marks, I verify that I am using two paragraph marks (the little backwards "P" with a double bar) and a tab mark between paragraphs.
1b) Using the Find/Replace feature, change these to three paragraph marks. This is: ^p^t becomes ^p^p^p
2) Open a blank NOTEPAD document. Copy/paste the segment to be uploaded from WORD to NOTEPAD.
3) Open the web page, find the topic, and click the Post Reply button. Copy/paste from NOTEPAD to the Post box.
4) Manually go thru and set any special formatting, such as centering the ~~~ between scenes, marking things italic or bold, etc.

By going to NOTEPAD first, it strips out all the WORD font codes. But if I don't have three paragraph marks, HTML format won't leave a blank line between paragraphs.

Clunky, but it works. Anybody have a better / faster way of doing it???

 

[CeJay]

I copy stories into a blank Word document and then run search and replace for all my tabs to change to manual line breaks. Then I ran a search for italics and add the BBScode manually.

I copy straight from Word to the BBS. I used to have trouble with the font codes but not anymore. But I can't remember why not.

 

[JarodRussell]

I wonder why people don't print and upload PDFs. Would make it look like properly formatted excerpts from a real book.

 

[jespah]

Why not, in the Word doc, replace words you always italicize with the code, e. g. Enterprise is replaced with

[i]Enterprise[/ i]

.

I tend to do that. Word to notepad, then some copy/replace action as above, then look over in notedpad, then put into reply box and hit preview post and look it all over again.

As for loading up a PDF file, is it possible to zoom in on it? That would be my sole concern, e. g. my eyes aren't what they used to be, and sometimes I want a larger font. I bet that's true of others.

 

[Sgt_G]

Why not? *blink blink* Well, duh, because that would be the SMART way of doing things.

You know, back in the Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS days, I would have written a nice little macro to do all that stuff with one command. I've never messed with macros under MS-Word.


How do you upload a PDF to this board???

 

[CeJay]

I don't think you can. You can certainly host them somewhere else and link to them and some writers (including yours truly) do that.

The problem with PDFs as jespah pointed out, is that they are basically static images and the font size can't be changed. Unless they're formatted in such a way that makes them easy to read on a screen, they're not all that useful other than to print them. The best solution of course are ebooks, especially if you have a Kindle, tablet or some other e-reader. But even if you don't, there are plenty of apps to allow to read ebooks on your computer.

The advantage to posting stories online, of course, if the opportunity to receive quick feedback or even encourage discussions on the stories being posted.

 

[Sgt_G]

Reviving an old topic just to ask: Has any of the above changed with the new and improved BBS software now in use? How do you all upload fiction and other text written off-line in Word?