Dear Authors,
Unfortunatly I do not have the skill to write stories. I am satisfied with reading all the nice things that other persons write. Since I started my transition I have read a lot and really learned much of the things that made me the woman I am now. To some of the persons that are entring the long way to the full transition, I give the advice to find some stories on the net and see which problems the persosn in the stories have to meet and then figure out how those new-bees can avoid some of them.
Now to my question to all authors:
As I live in the part of the world where the DIN-A4 is standard for printing, I have to adjust many stories to fit my format. It is some job to do that in those long series like "The Tuck Saga" and some here too. That has given me some habits of how I like to format the text. But at the same time I feel like I am trepassing on the thing the author once thought of when the text was written.
I would like to start a discussion on how you all writers look upon this. Would it be offending to use anuther type than what was used in the published text? When I see text that is clearly a thought I like to use italic to differ it from a spoken line. Would that be an accepted change of the typography?
And so on...
Please drop a note and lets have a discusion about this here!
All the best and thanks to all authors whose work have happen to be stored on my private harddisks.
Ginnie
/Manager in MSN/People of Gender/
Comments
Frankly, Scarlet, I Don't Give A Damn
What you do on your private copy is no cercern of mine. You could do to them the things you said or even trasnlate them into different languages for all I care. What I hope for is that you read them and enjoy them and think or both.
Just as an aside, the book version of this title is longer and better.
shalimar
Not up to the authors, is it?
The "printable page" links are not controlled by the authors, as far as I know,
and I think that how the pages are printed is something governed by the
site software, not by author's preference.
Maybe you can set that in your own browser's print preferences?
DIN A4
I didn't know what you were talking about, I'd never heard about DIN A4. I Googled it: It is a European paper size (8.26" x 11.69") for typewriter letter paper, it isn't a printing standard
This is very close to the North American size (8.5" x 11") letter paper. I can't see how this could be a problem. Maybe the lines would end in a slightly different place when printed out, but that wouldn't affect readability. You can adjust anything you want with your word processor if you must print out stories, that's your business, not the author's. Is it really necessary to print stories out to read them?
I think you are being overly picky about how you read text.
Mr. Ram
A4
The paper sizes denoted by A0; A1 etc are universal standards used all over the world except the USA. They have the useful property of each being able to be produced simply by halving the bigger size. It is to ISO 216 and has the ratio 1: root 2 (1:1.414)
The biggest sheet is A0 (841mm × 1189mm) and folding it in half makes A1 which has exactly the same side ratios. So A4 is exactly 1/16 of A0, but still has the same proportions. A bit of simple geometry will show why it results in apparently odd units.
More about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_sizes
Geoff
quick formatting
I'd think the easiest way to do this would be to highlight the whole test (not page) then move it into a word processor program. I do that often when I'm reading to change fonts and sizes.
As for worrying about the author's feelings on changing formats, it's my opinion they don't have any say in the matter; once the story is posted it belongs to the reader as much as the writer, and the writer can no longer control even what the reader thinks it is about (she had her chance to be clear). Of course, some writers may want to experiment with all kinds of things and, if that is the case, you might want to explore what she is doing, but you still have no obligation to her intentions really. (Excuse me now, I have to go fend of attacks from e e cummings' ghost.)
A4 rules
It is a curious fact that, because of the history of PC software, almost everyone outside the North Americas has heard of letter paper (and few in NA have heard of A sizes). Many of those outside NA are sick to the back teeth of letter. The A sizes are the international standard paper sizes (ISO 216), but too much software defaults to letter size. All too often it is not possible to to choose that a program default (blank pages in WPs or DTPs for example) is A4 display or printing, and when it is possible, some programs appear to default back at random. A well know "reader" actually used to reset the default paper size for my main printer! Open Source software is generally better behaved than commercial offerings.
By volume** produced, only around one-third of letter/A4 is actually letter; vitually the whole world other than than North America uses A4. That's why I have junked my last US-branded printer and am now 100% on European and Far-East makes. Their printer drivers usually manage to resist extenal changes and accordingly reduce page-fit problems and unwanted scaling.
I also reformat stories to A4. I keep some favourite stories on my hard drive, and where these are kept as text (as opposed to html) it is matched to A4. I paste the text into a WP (Open Officer Writer) with the page size set to A4 and with the margins, faces and styles that I like in place (unless the author uses a specific face, when I would retain her choice).
The appearance of the page is part of the pleasure for me; and should I wish to print all or part of it, it is already matched to my printer and paper. I'll correct obvious typos (they detract from my reading pleasure), but I maintain the authors' conventions for thoughts, direct and indirect speech, foriegn languages, "jump cuts", cutaways, chapter headings, section breaks ... IMHO all those belong to the author. The only such thing I sometimes change is to break up very long (>150 words say) paragraphs, because I find them difficult to read (Someone else commented on this not so long ago?). But unlike Ginnie, I don't usually second-guess the author in such things as thoughts of speech.
If that's overly picky, them I'm overly picky.
Xi
**I did this execise a year or so back. I took GDP as a proxy for paper usage, and set the letter "zone" as US, Canada and Mexico. Where I had no information I ignored countries completely, but the overall GDP total ignored was less than f any single EU country (of those in the EU at that that time, of course)
The formatting is really up to you.
The web site itself only provides viewable text for a web browser. Other than possibly font typefaces and other text effects the web site does NOT control any of the text formatting as far as page size and length goes.
As an example, simply call up any story then change the width of your web browser window. You'll see the text flow around as you adjust the horizontal window size. This is also true of the printer-friendly page available for each story.
If you want a story formatted a certain way then copy the text and paste it from your web browser into your word processing program to control how the story prints out. Remember, a web browser is set up to display the site on your screen NOT to force the page to a certain format when you use it to print out the page.
Perhaps the lone compromise is to use a PDF file. It is designed to control what a page will look like when printed and most web browsers will display the page as it should look on paper. Unfortunately, with the diverse paper sizes available in different areas, a PDF file designed for US paper sizes may not look right on sizes in other areas. Using a PDF file means, however, that the formatting is fixed and readers can't alter it if they need a larger font for easier reading.
As for text effects (italics, bold, etc.) while there are some standards for generating them in a web browser, their actual use varies between different author's writing styles.
I think you're pretty safe in changing the formatting of a story to make it more readable when printed as long as you don;t change any of the author's words other than possible spelling errors.
As a writer myself I do not feel that a reader's re-formatting of my story violates anything as long as the words are as I wrote them. I understand the need for others to re-format my stories when they print or view them especially those readers with vision problems that may need a larger font than the story was posted in.
Bob Arnold
Thanks for the commentaries
With Bob's notes I think I can keep on as I have done earlier. And know that it will not cause anyone to really be agry with my methode. I am really somewhat opposed to use to many fonts in the writing. Some of this happened when other programmelanguages was presented that allowed many fancy fonts on the net. But as the plain Times New Roman (r) sometimes feels too simple to be used when the stories can describe so many more ways that we communicate now, I have felt the need of making differences between spoken lines and those that are presented on a computer-screene in the stories. By using somewhat different fonts the different comunications gets more evident. Until I hear a big roar I will continue doing it my way.
Again many thanks for your ideas and commentaries
Ginnie
GinnieG
Content from PDFs
If a PDF isn't locked against copying, it is possible to acquire the text from it. I don't usually do this myself, because I feel that the PDF represents how the author wants the story presented; but I have done it in order to save to my HDD a story I really liked, but where the incidence of typos was too great for my reading comfort.
You just highlight and copy the text. You may need to turn the "text select" tool on first. (If you can't, then the document is probably locked.) I suggest using the [copy] button of the Reader program, as this is more reliable; and if the button is 'greyed out' then you can tell at once that the PDF is copy-locked. If you drop the copied text into a WP, the chances are that most of the formatting will be preserved, though this is not guaranteed.
There are hacks to get around PDF locking, but that would be two steps too far for me in this context. It really would feel like trampling on the author's turf. In the case of the occasional locked PDFs I encounter through work, and from which I need the text for work purposes, I use the services of a friend who has the tools.
If that sounds a bit hypocritical, I should point out that the latter PDFs are always legislation - UK or European. My view is that, as a taxpayer, I have contributed to the cost of their production; and through my activities in my professional society I have often contributed personally in kind as well. I would not begin to consider claiming that sort of ownership in stories posted here. In any case I believe all legislation should be available for copying under "fair use".
Xi
din-a4
If your willing to read a story I've written I don't care how you copy it for your enjoyment.If bold italic or a din-a4 format suits your fancy and helps you enjoy the story thats great.But if your doing that to print and burn it thats a lot of work.Lol Amy