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I've just discovered my recent Chapter 7 post is sans single quotes. Fixing requires reading the entire story as HTML... *whimper*
If anyone can suggest the preferred way to get text (containing italics) from RoughDraft (MS rich text) into "Create Content", I would appreciated it; as my way seems to require multiple editing passes.
update: Some partial search-and-replace fixes have been done, but I know there's more to do. I'll give it another pass tonight.
another update: I think I've got them all. Ouch. :)
Comments
Find / Replace?
Find: Â’
Replace with: '
In general, when using a word processor of any kind, if you can, disable "Smart" quotes - they may look pretty but they don't translate well to any other kind of software.
You really don't want to do it the way I did "Born in a Watery Grave" - which, because it used fancy colours and styles, was the only content I've done in a word processor - normally my rubbish is created entirely in a text editor.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Do a Google
I've got several tools on my Mac that have buttons for removing smart quotes. I'm sure such things exist for PCs also. It may take a clever Google search to find them but it's probably worth it.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
the old ways are best
Here's what I used to do. It works for me because I have access to different editors, your mileage may vary. It's not the ONLY way that works, just the particular incantation that works for me:
I use Word to create a document, formatting and style isn't important.
For italics, encase them in [ and ], like so: She didn't [want] to do as she was told.
You can also set them in italics for ease of reading while you edit, but that is optional, and irrelevant to the final product.
When I'm ready to publish, I select and copy the entire document into a programming editor (Notepad++). It's just plain text at this point, the italics are lost, only the [ and ] remain.
I do a global search and replace for \n (newline) and change it to \n\n (this double spaces the paragraphs)
I do a global search and replace for [ and change it to , ditto for ] and
I paste in the custom HTML for my header and trailer.
I select the whole thing and copy it from the editor into the Top Shelf Fiction editor, not WYSIWYG.
You can see why I'm looking for an easier way :)
too many steps
Why the need to go to a text editor? In Word or Open Office you can set the save as to rtf. , rather than doc. which avoids most of the MS stuff. Options you can remove smart quotes by default among other things. I don't use WYSIWYG and I use italics for thought so I need to go into the BC editor to add those back manually and tweak a bit of spacing but that's it. I add some html stuff for fonts/colour in the header/teaser, that's just a cut and paste and tweak thing. Even I seldom stuff it up, note the seldom but that's usually inattention on my part. Keep it simple.
Kristina
Converting RTF to HTML
Converting RTF to HTML pretty much requires opening the RTF file in a word processor and then saving as HTML. If you use Word, it's still a horrible mess. Open Office is a lot better, but still requires a fair bit of cleanup/
Which is why I often just compose using an HTML editor.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Shouldn't be necessary
"I do a global search and replace for \n (newline) and change it to \n\n (this double spaces the paragraphs)"
You really shouldn't do this. Every browser under the sun already knows what \n does and provides a gap between paragraphs automatically. Adding extra linefeeds just makes big spaces between paragraphs and wastes valuable screen real estate. We're not all reading these on humunguous widescreen displays.
Penny
uhm....
Why don't you people use a WYSIWYG html editor?
It will eliminate all but removing the crap in the headers. If you have a good editor you shouldn't get all kinds of issues with extraneous tags in the body of the document.
Nobody.
ps. "Kompozer" seems a nice free editor.
I do, I do, I DO
...use a WYSIWYG editor. If my document was pure text, transferring to Top Shelf would be a no-brainer.
The complexity occurs when I want to use italics. That's all I ask. No font changes or colors. Just italics.
That makes it not-simple.
If you expect me to write five- or ten-thousand word chapters into the web site editor, over the course of a couple of weeks, THAT I will not do. That's just asking for trouble. So I write them out THERE, and bring them in HERE.