PLEH!!!

[roxy]

Can anyone explain to me how to post stuff at SSA so that my stories will look less like a baby chimpanzee posted for me? No matter what I do, it always looks wonky and semi-literate and I swear, I can *not* figure out the ital business there. *pout*

And by the way, happy Saturday.
I'm cleaning house, finally putting away Christmas stuff, and dusting--oy, so much dusting.

I did get to watch Avatar and Zuko is breaking my heart, big stupid monkey. *wipes tear* How could he? I knew it would be that way, but how could he? *sniff*
Back to dusting.

*sings* Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home....

Comments

[danceswithgary]

I just took a look at the last fic you posted and I'm not sure what the issue is? Then again, maybe my posts look wonky and semi-literate. I do know they don't want you to post html, just plain text and italics are set by * before and after, *** gives a hard line and _ is bold. That's the most I've used. I've gotten into using . . . and white space to indicate a break in location/time in a story.

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

I can't ever get the italics to work right for me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I've really cut down a lot on my italics use, just because of that. I forget which story it was, but one of them is so screwed up from italics crap, it's unpleasant to read. Gee, I didn't know_ was bold! wow--worlds open up. *G*

[danceswithgary]

Eeek. I just checked the FAQ's and _ is to underline. Go figure. :-/

I'm posting the pieces of the FAQ I found helpful"

How Should I Format My Story Before I Upload It?

The Automated Posting Interface is the backbone of this archive. It basically does two things: it converts text files to HTML files (web pages).

However, for the Posting Interface to work correctly, authors need to do a few things first.

1. Save As Text.

When you have finished writing your story, save a copy as a plain text file. Almost every word processor has two ways to save a file: Save, and Save As. If you choose Save As, you will see an option such as "Save as what file type?" or "Type of File" or "Save as Type?" Among your choices will be Text, Text Only, ASCII Dos Text, or something of that nature. Any one of those will usually work.

2. How To Create Emphasis.

Since plain text files do not have any special formatting, you have to use a few special tricks to indicate emphasis. To get the Posting Interface to italicize a word, surround it in *asterisks*. (This only works if there is no punctuation inside the asterisks. "*Lex*!" will be turned into italic text. *"Lex!"* will not.)

Likewise, to underline a word, surround it with _underscores_. The Posting Interface will convert *this* to this and _this_ to this.

3. Scene Breaks

To create a horizontal line-break between sections, hit return, then type a line of asterisks (at least three,) then hit return again. In your text file it will look like this:

***

Unfortunately, it can not deal with accented characters. This causes problems when archiving files that are created on Word. Word tries to be a "helpful" editor. It places accent marks on words that require them, words like naivet�. Unfortunately, the archiving software does not recognize the accented characters and so it drops them.

So in a story, when you describe Clark as being naïve, he ends up being nave when archived, because Word adds an umlaut over the i and the Posting Interface does not understand that. Other words this commonly happens with are cliché, naïvet�, façade and café. If you happen to want to write a sentence where "Clark spouts clichés in order to maintain his façade of being naïve, while ordering from the café" You will instead get a sentence where "Clark spouts clichs in order to maintain his faade of being nave, while ordering from the caf" This will confuse the heck out of your readers.

In order to prevent this, go to the autocorrect portion of Word. There you will find a list of words that will automatically be changed as you type them. Scroll down to the words with the accents, highlight them and then delete them. From then on, you should have no problem with the posting interface. (You also won't get fancy accent marks for anything else you may write.)

Why don't my quotes or apostrophes show up?

Word uses what are called curly quotes or smart quotes. For text to HTML conversion you need to use what are known as straight quotes as the archiving software does not convert curly quotes to straight quotes accurately. Before you save your document as text (http://smallville.slashdom.net/faq-4.htm) , you need to make sure curly quotes are turned off in Word.

To turn this function off go to the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options, and then click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. Under Replace as you type, clear the "straight quotes" with "smart quotes" check box.

You can find and replace all instances of single or double curly quotes with straight quotes in your document. To do this, clear the "straight quotes" with "smart quotes" check box on the AutoFormat As You Type tab. On the Edit menu, click Replace. In both the Find what and Replace with boxes, type ' or ", and then click Find Next or Replace All. To replace all straight quotes with curly quotes, select the "straight quotes" with "smart quotes" check box, and repeat the find and replace procedure.

If you really hate how the story looks after you post it, contact the archivists. They are way cool and will delete the story so you can try again. Not that anything like that. *blinks innocently*

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Wheew! Thanks...I thought I understood that bit, but I was doing the italic thing wrong.

[kirana]

It's . . . hard? And painful? xx I don't even wanna think about posting So Cold. ;_;

No tabs, otherwise they really screw up the formatting and the paragraph stays all on one line.

No tabs plus numbers, because then it's a list and looks weird.

Italics. The bane of everyone's existence. xx Begin asterix at beginning of sentence, end at first piece of punctuation, start again after (but not right after), and, generally, increase the size of your fic by a few characters and make it look really, really . . . fuzzy before you upload it. Italics begin and end with a letter, not a space. It's like opening and closing tags in HTML. But worse, because the tags at least can differ and, therefore, making it easier to find, but the asterixes are all the same.

Example:
*Begin asterix at beginning of sentence*, *end at first piece of punctuation*, *start again after* (*but not right after*), *and*, *generally*, *increase the size of your fic by a few characters and make it look really*, *really* . . . *fuzzy before you upload it*.

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

AAAAAH! I *see*! That's what was making it hard for me--wow! Not enough asterixes! *kisses all over you*

That's a whole lot of work! Omigosh--Mariposa is a sea of italics--I'll be asterixing forever!

So, by increase the size, do you mean like going from 10 to 12 pnt?

[kirana]

No, it will increases the size of the file by increasing the sheer number of characters. ^^ I'm not sure, but I think each character is a byte? It's been a while since I was last in any computer-type courses. xx And don't forget that apostrophes are punctuation, too. xx

It's really, really painful. ;_;

*is kissed* Yay, kisses! ^^

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, again--I see! And of course I forgot about apostrophes! Thanks!
*sigh*
it is! \*whines*
Hugs!

[danceswithgary]

I compose in Word because I need the spellchecker and thesaurus and always just use the asterisks, never try to use html in my journal because I know it's going to end up on SSA. The most important change for me was turning off smart quotes and accents in Word. I always wondered why I would cut/paste a story from SSA into Notepad to save and it would be really weird as a .txt file until I figured out what was happening.

[lastscorpion.livejournal.com]

Everybody's told you everything that I always mess up on, except that apostrophes count as punctuation marks when you want italics. For instance:

don't

has to be done as

*don*'*t*

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Hokey smokes! Insane!
thanks! *G*

[dawnybee.livejournal.com]

And by the way, happy Saturday.
Happy Saturday!

I'm cleaning house, finally putting away Christmas stuff, and dusting--oy, so much dusting.
Et tu? I have to clean, but I don't wanna ::stomps feet::

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

HATE cleaning! So much!!!

[ladydreamer.livejournal.com]

I'm doing a little cleaning today too. Bleach ahoy!

If they're converting to HTML, why don't they just USE html? The basic tags for posting a fic aren't hard. *not looking forward to converting html fic to whatever they've got*

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Ha! I escaped--no more cleaning today!

I'm trying now to convert a fic to a shape to post at SSA. This is all beyond my ridiculous level of knowledge, I tell ya. *shakes head*

[kirana]

I think the latest version of Automatic Archive allows HTML to be used, but . . . SSA hasn't upgraded. ^^'

converting is a pain. ;_;

[cjandre.livejournal.com]

I did get to watch Avatar and Zuko is breaking my heart, big stupid monkey. *wipes tear* How could he? I knew it would be that way, but how could he? *sniff*

My nine year old daughter? She laughs at my Zuko pain! I'm dying, and crying over how he can break his uncle's heart AND give up what was obviously a budding love with Katara (Yes, I'm sitting there watching him and Katara, and thinking - okay - for this, I will do het!) and my daughter laughs at my pain.

She likes Sokka.

*sigh*

I get no sympathy in my house.

She'd laugh harder if I told her I thought Zuko and Aang defnitely had possibilities.

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know! My child was all "Mom, it's a cartoon."--the same kid (20) who cries at Scrubs, and Peanuts cartoons. She did ask me with the lemon sucking expression,if "they" write stories about those two (Aang and Zuko). She asked me the same question about Scrubs and seemed insulted when I told her as far as I know there wasn't any. *snorfle*

PS Is there Avatar fic?

[cjandre.livejournal.com]

And by fic, I mean stories that don't read as if they were written by a fifteen year old with fascination for mary-suing.

Dare I hope for slashy future fic where Aang is old enough to DO something about all that unresolved tension with Zuko? Hmmm?

I mean - we have multiple instances of canonical cross-dressing. THERE SHOULD BE SLASHY FUTURE FIC!!! Or at least some very interesting play between Sokka and the Kiyoshi Island girls. -Warriors! I meant warriors, of course! *snicker*

Re: PS Is there Avatar fic?

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

LOL! When I find it you'll be the first to know! There has to be--it's too perfect not to be!
Or at least some very interesting play between Sokka and the Kiyoshi Island girls. -Warriors! I meant warriors, of course!
OMG! Yes! It would be such a hoot--and steamy too. Oh where oh where can we find someone brilliant and talented and able to juggle steamy and humorous, someone with the abilty to write snark and tender...gee...*koffs, looks about pointedly in some certain someone's general direction, koffkoff*

[ender24]

just here to *KICKS* SSA FOR YOU************
damn italics and the whole stuff that gary wrote!!
how the hell do i ever convince people to archive there anyway, if they are making it so complicated?!?!

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

*nods* And even with all the help, I still managed to screw it up! *cries*