# File Compatablity



## ruff1298 (Jan 17, 2009)

My first submission to FA turned out rather bad since the submission system can't accept docx, so can anybody help me out and give a (free) program that can allow me to submit my Life as We Know It series without downloading it? Or, if that isn't possible, how to get a RTF word processor.


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## mrredfox (Jan 17, 2009)

in word, just click save as, then choose windows95-xp.doc


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## ruff1298 (Jan 17, 2009)

Does it work on MS 2007?


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## mrredfox (Jan 17, 2009)

ruff1298 said:


> Does it work on MS 2007?


yes, just save it as 97-2003 document, it will still be compatible


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## RailRide (Jan 17, 2009)

What operating system are you using? MS Word is not preloaded on most Windows systems, and any .DOC version higher than Word 6.0 will crash WordPad (which _does_ come with all windows installs) immediatley.

Rich Text Format (RTF) is much closer to cross-platform compatibility. Same answer for the _other_ thread you posted asking for .DOCX support in FA. 

Writers complain already about not getting attention on FA. Uploading stories in anything more exotic than lowest-common-denominator file formats doesn't help their cause.

---PCJ


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## Poetigress (Jan 17, 2009)

RailRide said:


> Writers complain already about not getting attention on FA. Uploading stories in anything more exotic than lowest-common-denominator file formats doesn't help their cause.



Amen.  Especially if it's a fairly short piece (say, under 3,000 words), the best option is to save it as plain text and use BBCode for whatever italics, bold, centering, etc. you need.  (As I've said in a couple other threads now, readers on FA seem more likely to read something that's right in front of them on the screen than they are to open a separate file.)
Next choice would be RTF, and include a decent description of the story so it raises the passer-by's interest.


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## EmoWolf (Jan 17, 2009)

use open office (Free & Awesome), I use it instead of MS Word.
open your document and save it as Windows 97/2000/XP compatible.
Problem solved 
btw, its for Linux/XP/OS X, so you shouldn't have a problem using it.


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## kitreshawn (Jan 18, 2009)

Actually best format to use on FA is plain .txt with no special characters at all.

For really long things, or things where the plain text is posted elsewhere, you can use fancier formats like .doc or .pdf but you need to understand that most people are not going to download anything without a preview of the story they are getting, even if it is just easy to delete.


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## yak (Jan 18, 2009)

kitreshawn said:


> Actually best format to use on FA is plain .txt with no special characters at all.


You can use all the special characters you want, they, and the rest of the story file just have to be in UTF-8


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## dietrc70 (Jan 18, 2009)

Poetigress said:


> Amen.  Especially if it's a fairly short piece (say, under 3,000 words), the best option is to save it as plain text and use BBCode for whatever italics, bold, centering, etc. you need.  (As I've said in a couple other threads now, readers on FA seem more likely to read something that's right in front of them on the screen than they are to open a separate file.)
> Next choice would be RTF, and include a decent description of the story so it raises the passer-by's interest.



Good points, though personally I'm so obsessed with typesetting (nice Opentype fonts with ligatures set up in Adobe Indesign) that PDF would be my choice.  I'd have the first few paragraphs posted in plain text though, since people do need to be able to see something of what they are getting easily.


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## ScottyDM (Jan 19, 2009)

It depends on the author's goals.

If it's a self-indulgent bit of writing and the author doesn't care if anyone else reads it, then post whatever the system will accept. If the file format is too new or obscure for anyone else to read then so much the better.

However for authors who _want_ people to read their work, the name of the game is making it dead simple for your readers. For example when I post something I figure there's only one of me, yet there are (hopefully) thousands of readers. So if it takes me an extra hour of work to save each reader 30 seconds of their time, then I do it. I may be cranky and disliked, but I'm not a self-centered bastard. Power to the people!


It starts with cross-platform compatibility. The most compatible is the web browser. What system doesn't have a web browser? So uploading text with the square-bracket codes will be the easiest on your readers. If you're not sure what square-bracket codes are or how to insert them, this forum uses them. You can see how the codes are inserted into text if you _start_ to do a post, click the "Go Advanced" button, click on the buttons at the top of the text insertion box to insert the tags, try out the "Preview Post" button to see the results, and when you're satisfied with the results copy your text out of the text box and save it in a file then _cancel_ your post. The forum is for discussion, posting samples, asking for feedback, etc. not posting whole stories. I'm not sure which tags are supported in the story submission system, but you should be okay if you stick to the basics such as bold, italic, underline, centered text, etc.

Before moving on, one more note. Rendering HTML in a web browser is kinda weird; it's a special case of how text is displayed. First, extra white space is discarded--stuff like strings of spaces and tabs. So if your original has indented paragraphs the indents will go away. Also you and I have no control over things like line spacing on the FA website. So the best bet is to avoid newlines within a paragraph (it screws up the paragraphs) and then to put doubled newlines between paragraphs. Last night I was reminded of Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing. Note #10:





> 10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
> 
> ... Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them....


Maybe your story has short, inviting, easily digestible paragraphs. But if you don't put extra space between those paragraphs they will _look_ like thick paragraphs of prose with too many words in them, and some readers with skate on by without reading a single word.


The next viable choice, after simply having your story pop open on the reader's view of the FA web page, is some sort of cross-platform downloadable file format. There are two excellent choices: PDF and RTF. PDF is the richer choice, and an author can lock the text select function so the copy part of copy/paste doesn't work. But if you're asking for feedback and critiques, _do not_ lock your text. The downside of PDF is most folks need to find a program to generate it. Adobe sells Acrobat, but holy cow it's expensive! Since Adobe has opened the specs for PDF many others have created PDF writers and several are free. Plus there's a PDF export option for OpenOffice. But if you already have and love your office suite, you probably don't want another office suite.

Something to remember when exporting PDF is that there are different rev levels of PDF. If you go with the very latest version there's the distinct possibility some people won't be able to open the file. And asking your readers to download the latest version of Reader from Adobe is far too much like work for almost everyone, plus the latest rev is not available for all platforms. Also consider that 99.999% of what a story needs is supported perfectly by the older PDF revs. The new stuff is for things like active forms and whatnot.

I've little experience with RTF as I've mostly ignored creating the format, but I can download and read it with no known problems. I suspect the warning about rev levels applies to RTF too.


Finally, DOC files. Be aware that some people won't be able to open the file at all. And that MS has traditionally _not_ published their file specs, so third party tools require a lot of programmer effort to get right. However most of the things that don't work are the fiddly parts of stuff like illustrations, tables, captions, frames, etc. The sorts of things unnecessary in 99.999% of stories. And RailRide mentioned sticking to rev 6 of the DOC format to avoid problems in some versions of MS WordPad.


Forget about DOCX. It doesn't work on FA and it doesn't work on most PCs. Unless, of course, paragraph 2 applies to you.


Scotty


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## dietrc70 (Jan 19, 2009)

Most PDF generators (including Indesign, which is what I use for final publishing) will default to PDF 1.4, which is readable by Acrobat 5 or later.  As Scotty said, you don't need anything later except for rarely-used features like some of the collaboration features.

The main point of publishing to PDF is to control the typesetting.  I often use special characters (like the long s and anglo-saxon thorn) which won't always be rendered correctly unless I can embed the fonts I use.

It's very important to give the reader an easy teaser or summary to see, but I also think that if you have a final product you are proud of, it deserves to be presented as professionally as possible.

I agree with Scotty about seriously considering HTML, and it is probably the best choice most of the time.  I would choose it over DOC or RTF.  You get the benefits of being able to have real margins, spacing, etc., plus it will open instantly in a browser.


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## Raithah (Jan 19, 2009)

To add onto ScottyDM's comment about creating PDFs - for a simple, compatible solution look for free [PDF printers]. I've tried a couple on that list and a few have advertisements (yuck), but the [Open Source Software] solution is likely to solve that.


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