Writing formatting

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Writing formatting

Postby analist_vorister » Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:29 am

Does anyone know how I should format my vore stories for max readability with Word documents? I've been uploading stories, and for some reason they are partly off-screen to the right, with a large left-margin. My older stories, which I wrote with the same program, don't. If anyone is really Word-savvy, I would love some help. I don't want to put anyone off with bad formatting.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby MarinLaFey » Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:56 am

I'm really starting to think Eka's should get it's own text editor. I haven't been able to upload a good looking story since I've a Chromebook. All my stories automatically center for some reason.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby IvesBentonEaton » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:22 pm

I use OpenOffice and save my documents in Word 97/2000/XP format. That is about as universal a word processing format as there is and I have never had any formatting problems for stories. Some more complex formatting didn't come out quite right but that probably should be avoided anyway.

IMPORTANT: Whatever word processor you use, you should go to its settings and make sure it displays document properties before saving so you can tell it not to include user data. You probably don't want your real name attached to any document you upload to Eka's. In OpenOffice, this is done by clicking Tools on the top menu bar, then clicking Options in the submenu. In the Options dialog box, select General under Load/Save in the tree view on the left, and check "Edit document properties before saving" under the Save section on the right. Click OK.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby hernextmeal » Tue Sep 04, 2018 7:25 pm

UTF-8 plain text is going to work the best, as it doesn't have any formatting. Unfortunately Word and Notepad on Windows default to saving files as ANSI which causes problems with certain characters.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby pendingdelet205h2n9 » Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:19 pm

I write all my stories in wordpad on Windows 10, and I used to have all sorts of problems no matter the format I saved it as.

Recently I've been saving them as .rtf files, and then using an online converter to change them to .doc

For whatever reason this is the only way I can find to have them consistently keep their original formatting.

I feel like what works is different for everyone though.

Having a built in text editor on Eka's would be nice...

Although i realize even something basic would likely be a ton of work to implement.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby IvesBentonEaton » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:05 pm

Actually, I prefer not to have a built in text editor on Eka's. OpenOffice or Microsoft Word, as long as you save documents to Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP format, works just fine and the G4 gallery used by Eka's supports all the formatting one could—or should—use for a story. It's much easier to use for composing a story than any other solution of which I've heard so far. And OpenOffice is completely free and works on a variety of platforms.

If I were composing a story directly on Eka's and lost power, I would probably lose the story as well. My stories tend to be too long to compose in online editors other than maybe Google Docs, and I wouldn't want to use that anyway for a variety of reasons.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby ryanshowseason3 » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:17 pm

IvesBentonEaton wrote:If I were composing a story directly on Eka's and lost power, I would probably lose the story as well. My stories tend to be too long to compose in online editors other than maybe Google Docs.


Seconded. I think the majority of stories worth a damn will take longer than one sitting to write, proofread etc. And losing progress over a crashed browser sounds like a bad deal.

Also there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Open office is free and works on many platforms and gets the job done with the XP .doc format. I don't see a compelling reason to use dev time on a feature that only benefits writers who write two paragraph stories.

I use open office as well. The formatting works with ekas system. I even do a more complicated things like font changes embedded images, links, bold, italics, underline and text alignment. Never had a problem besides dead links and browsers not opening the images correctly and using the frame. That's not open office's fault though.

To come up with an in browser alternative that supports all that? Pass, unless there's some drop in freeware.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby analist_vorister » Thu Sep 06, 2018 12:30 pm

Thank you guys for the input. I've taken the popular position, and I've download OpenOffice. I will now be using it when I upload my stories to Eka's. :)
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby immortalsane » Tue Nov 06, 2018 12:29 pm

MarinLaFey wrote:I'm really starting to think Eka's should get it's own text editor. I haven't been able to upload a good looking story since I've a Chromebook. All my stories automatically center for some reason.


I had a similar problem with Chromebooks, but i found and online converter that saves to .doc

You have to copy/paste the text and then dl the file, not save it, and large text block have to be copypasted in chinks, but it gets the job done.

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Re: Writing formatting

Postby Reaverbot » Thu Nov 22, 2018 3:27 pm

I've never been able to get my stories to format correctly outside of RTF. Everything else will play absolute havoc on them. All formatting and line breaks get removed, stuff gets completely center-oriented, and in general stuff just becomes unreadable.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby IvesBentonEaton » Thu Nov 22, 2018 3:57 pm

As I've mentioned before, using OpenOffice (free at this link for multiple platforms) has worked every time for me, except for inserted graphics. Just save the file in Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP format and you're golden. On any document, make sure to check Be sure to check document properties to be sure your user data is not saved with it.

For more detail, see my blog entry here.
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Re: Writing formatting

Postby JackNoName » Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:34 am

Here is a quick guide:
It is mostly a file type issue. I have found that uploading your document as a RTF (Rich Text File) will keep all the formatting you used intact. RTF also centers your file WITHIN the box instead of stretching it outside. It even resizes with the size of your screen and browser. Perfect for desktop and mobile reading. I really wish other writers would do this as I love reading on my tablet, but it becomes just such a hassle to swipe the text from left to right with every sentence.

Here are some results:
- My Old formatting style:
https://aryion.com/g4/view/361080
- My most recent formatting style.
https://aryion.com/g4/view/503190
This most closely resembles reading an actual e-book, which I really enjoy.

This is what I do:
-I set the size of my paper is B5, not A4
-Font set to size 14 (I use Cambria)
-Paragraph spacing set to 1.0
-I remove any negative space with the ruler on the sides (indicated by the grey space on the ruler), as Eka's will not pick recognizes it and I don't like it when the text starts all the way on the edge of the box.
Don't like: http://prntscr.com/m722pv
Do like: http://prntscr.com/m7237c
To do this, using the ruler again, place the start of your text an inch or so from the edges on both the left and right side of the paper. This is indicated by the arrow on the bottom of the ruler.
It should look like this: http://prntscr.com/m721fb
-Lastly, make every new paragraph start an inch away from the previously set start of text. This is indicated by the top arrow of the ruler.
-Save and upload as RTF.
-Pro tips!
Never Ever center your text in the middle of your document! EVER!

I use the most recent version of Word 365, but these settings are so basic I think you'd be able to do them with just about any text editor.

Hope it helps!
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