Best format to upload writing?

[threk]

Hey, not sure if this is the best place for the question but will give it a go.

Just uploaded two stories that I spent a fair amount of time on, and checking on them the next day, they've been riddled with these weird extra spaces sprinkled throughout them in the middle of words and between punctuation as typos that did not exist in the original .docx files.

I don't remember seeing much of this issue in other stories on the site, is this something I just need to try reuploading, or should I be using a format like .rtf or something instead?

Thanks.

[RedNastyFox]

.rtf is the best format to upload text on Eka's. It is displayed correctly both in desktop and in mobile browsers.

[TastyAce]

I've had issues with uploading .docx files in the past, it sucks! >m< Nowadays, I personally use .txt or .pdf to keep the formatting intact.
@RedNastyFoxy, I didn't know .rtf was the best format to upload here! :O Been uploading for two years and didn't know that lol. Why is it the best format? I would love to hear more on it if there's more info there--is it purely b/c it keeps the text's formatting on all devices?
Alternatively (this is a question for everyone), I would love to hear the inverse of this question: what is the WORST format to upload a story on Eka's? I would probably go for .docx because of the formatting hiccups, but if there are others, let's share and help each other out!

[LivesInAStomach]

I use the old .doc instead of .docx, and that always preserves my formatting as long as I don't do anything too crazy.

[SmaxTheDestroyer]

i always adapt my .docx into the old .doc formating... it works fine usually

[Lightness0001]

I personally do .rtf first, then .doc if that's not working. I've also used .pdf on an occasion to preserve some fun formatting, but otherwise those two usually work best.

[ItsSongxing]

.doc (not .docx) has been working for me. One of my uploads even includes embedded images, which I think is the craziest you can get without writing the whole story in Word Art, and they look pretty much fine. .docx and .rtf are generally unpredictable in terms of how they preserve spacing and indents, which makes them look clumsy. .txt doesn't allow for much formatting at all as far as I can tell. .PDF is also consistent, but I find the interface to be pretty clunky and unappealing; plus, it adds an unnecessary extra step for mobile users, because many of them don't have native .PDF support in their browser.

In my experience, .doc also works fine for mobile users, since it actually keeps the story within the bounds of the box. For some stories I see, the text goes just beyond the bounds of the box, so I'd have to scroll left or right for every. Single. Line. But, that isn't a problem with the .doc format that I've noticed.

[ElyBlanche]

.pdf is my preferred format at the moment. People on mobile have to download the file to view it but I prefer its presentation overall. It's always so obnoxious for me when I have to squint at my screen to see the tiny text, or when the text runs off the sides and I need to scroll to the left or right to view it. .pdf carries over the format you had from Google Docs if that's your preferred program for writing.

[ObsidianSnake]

I experienced uploading problems when I was using rich text format documents (.rtf). After trying some of the other supported formats, I'd personally recommend .doc. Eka's HTML converter is the most reliable with it. I would use .pdf as final resort if you went really crazy with custom styles or characters. Keep in mind that .pdf is bloated, has compatibility problems, and can end up with some weird display issues due to the number of readers out there. Give .doc a shot first, upload to scraps, and see if you think it reads well. If your word processor doesn't support .doc classic, or you just don't like the plain-text look, then give .pdf a shot.

[msmyriam]

I use pdf, because of the consistency of formatting and to easily use a footer with page numbers, and my info. I've never heard of anyone having difficulty viewing them, and almost every story of mine is under 100 KB, so file size isn't an issue. That's without doing any weird formatting or including any images, though.

The only weird thing is that, every time I upload a story, I get an error message along the lines of "conversion to HTML failed," but the story actually has been successfully uploaded, which is strange.

[TheDragonBoy]

I use .rtf for all my writing as well. I chose it because it handles all the aspects of text that I want and nothing more- and it works reliably on Eka’s. .docx and .pdf both have pages, while .rtf is just continuous text. Using .rtf means I don’t have to worry about where pages end, and I know the text will adapt and wrap to fit the size of the reader’s display, rather than the size of a fixed page. I only use basic rich text features (bold, italics, underline, sub/superscript, font size, font color, highligh color, embedded images and probably more that I can’t think of are all supported in .rtf), so this format gives me all that I need.
.docx, .pdf and .rtf all have their own problems on this site specifically. .docx has the random spaces issue you’ve discovered, .pdf doesn’t display properly on mobile (it only shows the first page and you need to download to see the rest, though it doesn’t tell you that, it just looks like the story ends suddenly after a few hundred words), and .rtf doesn’t maintain paragraph spacing properly (I end up with large spaces between paragraphs even if I change he line spacing in the upload file to something smaller). Out of those three, the problem with .rtf is the most acceptable to me.
I haven’t really tried old .doc, mostly since I don’t need pages and am satisfied with .rtf.
Oh, and one last note: .docx will capture the name of the user who created the file and readers who download the file will see that name if you don’t manually remove it from the file’s metadata before upload. .rtf doesn’t do that.

[heromc]

Old school .doc works perfect for mobile users. As a reader, I've skipped quite a few stories because the download is a hassle.

You can use LibreOffice Writer to do the conversion. Completely free and super quick

[threk]

.rtf or .doc sound like the way to go then, thank you everyone for the sound advice.

[IvesBentonEaton]

I find that OpenOffice (also free) saving to .doc format is error free. Text formatting, including coloring, is preserved, although you can't get too fancy on embedded graphics. It reads just fine on mobile devices I've tried.

[Nalzindar]

Instead of trying out various formats, the easy fix to the problem regarding the appearance of unwanted space inside words, is as follows:

1) Write your story and save it as a normal Word-document.
2) Make sure that everything is as grammatically correct and don't have anything to correct/add or remove.
3) Copy the finished text over to a new word-document and past it by using "Keep text only" or Ctrl+V
4) On your new document, you can change fonts and text size if you want, but DO NOT correct your grammar.
5) Save it as an ordinary Word document and upload it to Eka's. No unwanted space will ruin your text now.

The reason for why you should use "Keep text only" and copy your story over to a new document is simply because the weird spaces was your grammatical errors! (at least those you tried to correct!). When you use "delete", the uploading program on Eka's somehow mistakes these deleted letters/words for "space" and the result is a break inside your words!
When you copy the text over to a new document by Keep text only, the program "forget" your mistakes and therefore no unwanted space will appear after you upload your story.
I hope this explanation was helpful

[Garz]

I used to always write in RTF format (I use wordpad most of the time when writing), but this results in weird boxes all over like seen on this picture I took of it:

https://aryion.com/g4/view/621798

So now I then copy/paste it into word and make them docs, which seems to fix the problems and keep the formatting... at least mostly, haha.

[Raynebow]

I used to always write in RTF format (I use wordpad most of the time when writing), but this results in weird boxes all over like seen on this picture I took of it:

https://aryion.com/g4/view/621798

So now I then copy/paste it into word and make them docs, which seems to fix the problems and keep the formatting... at least mostly, haha.

Yo! I think I had a similar issue with that before. They're caused by shift entering I think. Or something to do with line spaces other than just straight up entering for ya line spaces. Might cause the gaps to be a little bigger than intended, but ya can sort that out too with the line spacing options!

[Briarheart]

I use the old .doc instead of .docx, and that always preserves my formatting as long as I don't do anything too crazy.

Yeah same. The only real formatting I use is a section break line which shows up fine. I don't use underlining, colour, bolding, italics, or anything like that. Its not so much by choice though - I'm using OpenOffice rather than the paid-for Microsoft Word that supports .docx

I find that OpenOffice (also free) saving to .doc format is error free. Text formatting, including coloring, is preserved, although you can't get too fancy on embedded graphics. It reads just fine on mobile devices I've tried.

Agreed. I strongly recommend using OpenOffice over Wordpad or any other free word processor. I wouldn't recommend trying to embed graphics into a story tbh, its bound to be inaccessible to somebody if you do that.