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<  The Ministry of Magic  ~  Formatting Problem (I guess)

Cat Feral
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:37 am Reply with quote
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Northern California
Hi. I've been trying to post Chapter One of a story and I'm running into some problems.

The biggest one is that when I hit the "Preview" and look at what I've entered, all the apostrophes have been changed to question marks -- and any letters after the apostrophe in the word seem to be lost.

(I'm also strugging to find the extra bold mark I must have put in somewhere since about the last third of the story is appearing to be ALL in bold when it should continue to be bold only in selected sections. Is there an easy way to find that?)

I've been trying to read through all the directions to see if you've got something on these problems but my brain has begun to go "Piiiiinnggg!" Embarassed

Are there instructions on this that you can point me to? Do you think I'd have better luck sending it to you as an e-mail attachment? And if so, what e-address would be best to use?

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phoenix
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:36 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 54 Location: California
I'm guessing you are using Microsoft Word. Depending on the settings you have in the program, it can cause problems. Somehow I have managed to magic settings that behave with the internet, but I know a lot of people that haven't figured that out.

As I have no idea how I managed this, I would suggest using the 'save as' feature, save the file as *.txt file close it and then open it in either Wordpad or Notepad and then copy that text. (If you open the folder that has the story and right click it, "Open with" is an option so it should make it easy to find the right program) It should strip out all the odd Word formatting and just give you clean text. The one thing to watch out for is that if you use Notepad and have smartquotes on in Word, any quotes you add in while using Notepad will be straight quotes. I can't speak for Wordpad.

I checked my Word Option (Click "Tools" - "Options") and on the "Save" tab, I have the "Allow fast saves" unchecked. From what I recall, having this checked can cause formatting errors when posting text to the internet. This may work and is less time consuming than saving and opening in another program. FYI, I have Word 2000, so if you have a different version I can't guarantee the results.

As for the bold, if you hit "Ctrl+f" and in the find window type <b> and then just keep doing find next, you should run upon it. Or you can just scroll to the part of the story where you think you should be ending the bold. More often than not, I have forgotten a 'slash' in the coding.

Good luck Smile

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Metamuse
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 3:05 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 475 Location: USA
Phoenix is right I would imagine based on what you are telling us. Follow her advice.

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Cat Feral
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:31 am Reply with quote
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Northern California
Quote:
(If you open the folder that has the story and right click it, "Open with" is an option so it should make it easy to find the right program)

I really must get a new mouse -- the kind where you can right-click or left-click. Until then, is there another way to get the "Open with" option?

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phoenix
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:52 am Reply with quote
Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 54 Location: California
If you open the "My documents" folder, or whatever folder you have the file stored in, you can highlight it with your mouse. Then go up to the main menu bar, select "File" and then "Open with" is one of the choices. This works in Windows XP and I assume would work with the older versions. I think NT/2000 work the same way from what I recall from work and I know 98 isn't much different.

Hope it helps. Smile

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Cat Feral
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:48 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Northern California
Thank you! Very Happy

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