# Are uploading .doc files really a problem?



## Tiarhlu (Jun 27, 2009)

That's how I've always done it on FA. I haven't heard any complaints about it, but from reading around this forum, it seems like everyone's trying to do .txt. 

Any reasoning for that?

I like to use the .doc files so I know that whatever my file looks like in Word, it's going to look like when people download. I like to use paragraphs like in a real book, not the skipped lines without indenting thing that this post is doing. I see that quite often. I like to keep my formatting.


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## Xipoid (Jun 27, 2009)

Encouraging someone to read a story is hard enough. It's almost too much trouble to have to download it to read the thing. People prefer clicking a submission and seeing it right there.


All of the formatting you should need is available in plain text format since FA will read BBCode (what is here on the forums for the most part). The only thing to note is that it will not read tab characters, so you will have to replace those with a few spaces.


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## Xadera (Jun 28, 2009)

Yeah, like Xipoid said, many people don't want to take the extra step to click "Download" and open the file from there. You'll probably get more views that way.

Personally, I hate reading stories that have been uploaded as plain-text. It kinda hurts my eyes to see all that bland text and it's somewhat more difficult to gauge how long the story is going to be, so I'm more likely to just shrug it off and keep browsing elsewhere. .doc and .rtf are much more like reading an actual book. I also like the smart-quotes and auto-ellipses; I think they look good.

On the creation side, I also like the formatting options. Sure the appeal of a story should be the story itself, but if the medium allows for more visual aesthetics, then why not? Plus, I'm too damned lazy to insert BBCode for my italics and stuff. I'll gladly sacrifice some views for appeasing my own laziness rather than the laziness of those who won't download it XD


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## Tiarhlu (Jun 28, 2009)

That's especially a pain when you have a long story. When you've got twenty or more pages with size 10 font, it can take forever to reset all of the paragraphs, add in any code needed for formatting, and anything else you have to do. 

I guess I don't see how clicking "download" and waiting two seconds at worst is a problem. Hell, people wait a lot longer than that to download porn. 

I like my writing to look like an actual novel. I also enjoy being able to open people's stories up in a program like Word or Notepad instead of reading it on FA. 



Xadera said:


> Yeah, like Xipoid said, many people don't want to take the extra step to click "Download" and open the file from there. You'll probably get more views that way.
> 
> Personally, I hate reading stories that have been uploaded as plain-text. It kinda hurts my eyes to see all that bland text and it's somewhat more difficult to gauge how long the story is going to be, so I'm more likely to just shrug it off and keep browsing elsewhere. .doc and .rtf are much more like reading an actual book. I also like the smart-quotes and auto-ellipses; I think they look good.
> 
> On the creation side, I also like the formatting options. Sure the appeal of a story should be the story itself, but if the medium allows for more visual aesthetics, then why not? Plus, I'm too damned lazy to insert BBCode for my italics and stuff. I'll gladly sacrifice some views for appeasing my own laziness rather than the laziness of those who won't download it XD


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## Lamont (Jun 28, 2009)

I guess changing files to .txt is courtesy. I mean, if a person spent time to make life easier for their readers, it would suggest the writer takes pride in his/her work and cares about the audience. Not doing more would suggest to the reader that the writer doesn't care. (i.e. submitting a five line poem as a .doc file)

But I guess this wouldn't apply to stories that are pages and pages long, since that would be overwhelming. So then a .doc, .pdf or .rtf file would be most appropriate for long stories. The readers would understand. Plus, I believe most people who read only .txt file stories expect them to be short which is why it can be assumed that these readers don't bother with downloading the other files mentioned. Perhaps it is because they don't want to read something long, or they think that the writer is just as lazy as they are, so to speak.

Perhaps its just matching the story to its appropriate filetype. Hmm.


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## RailRide (Jun 28, 2009)

Not everyone in the Windows world has Word bundled with their computers. One of my laptops did have it, but the one I use as my primary system does not. Also, .DOC files above Word 6.0 format will simply crash WordPad without an obscure add-on, or downloading some 30MB worth of OpenOffice (which may still have issues with some of Word's formatting).

.RTF is considered more of a "universal" format, but I don't think FA displays it directly as it would text with BBcode tags.

---PCJ


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## AshleyAshes (Jun 28, 2009)

I use RTF, it's a little more universally accepted by text programs.  I use a bit of formatting and when uploading 3000+ words, I just don't think a TXT is good enough.

I've never really had problems getting people to read.  Or, that is, no problem getting what limited audience there would be for non-sexual gay furry drama to read.  ...But that might be helped by the cynical means I advertise my work with, as you can see in my signature.


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## Tiarhlu (Jun 28, 2009)

I think that may be it. For a poem, sure, .txt is fine, but if you have a lengthy document that type is a bit cumbersome. 



Lamont said:


> I guess changing files to .txt is courtesy. I mean, if a person spent time to make life easier for their readers, it would suggest the writer takes pride in his/her work and cares about the audience. Not doing more would suggest to the reader that the writer doesn't care. (i.e. submitting a five line poem as a .doc file)
> 
> But I guess this wouldn't apply to stories that are pages and pages long, since that would be overwhelming. So then a .doc, .pdf or .rtf file would be most appropriate for long stories. The readers would understand. Plus, I believe most people who read only .txt file stories expect them to be short which is why it can be assumed that these readers don't bother with downloading the other files mentioned. Perhaps it is because they don't want to read something long, or they think that the writer is just as lazy as they are, so to speak.
> 
> Perhaps its just matching the story to its appropriate filetype. Hmm.


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## M. LeRenard (Jun 28, 2009)

If you insist on it, it's probably more polite to use .rtf format.  It still keeps most of the knick-knacks, and it can be opened with pretty much any word processing software.
Personally, though, I don't much care for knick-knacks.  Italic and bold I can see as being useful every once in a while, but stuff like smart quotes, colorful text, interesting fonts, whatever... those are just distractors.  What I've been doing lately is just using 6 spaces to make a tab, and then adding the occasional BBCode if I wanted bold or something, but keeping all my documents in .txt.  Keeps it looking nice without anyone having to download the stupid document just to give it a look.
Also, if you do like using .doc, at the very least you could post the first paragraph or so of the document into the description.  That way, people have an idea of what it is, so they can very easily tell if they're going to want to read it or not.


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## Xipoid (Jun 28, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> Personally, though, I don't much care for knick-knacks.  Italic and bold I can see as being useful every once in a while, but stuff like smart quotes, colorful text, interesting fonts, whatever... those are just distractors.  What I've been doing lately is just using 6 spaces to make a tab, and then adding the occasional BBCode if I wanted bold or something, but keeping all my documents in .txt.  Keeps it looking nice without anyone having to download the stupid document just to give it a look.




This is exactly what I do (except I use seven spaces). Though, are smart quotes the curled quote marks? Everyone keeps mentioning those and I have no real idea what they are talking about.


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## M. LeRenard (Jun 28, 2009)

These: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




Rather than just " "
straight up and down, like that.


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## Tiarhlu (Jun 28, 2009)

My quotes are straight up and down, though I noticed when I changed fonts (I always use Arial) that the quotes went curly.

I do post summaries so people will have an idea what the story is about. Like most people I know I'm hesitant to read something if I don't know what I'm getting into, especially if it's long.


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## Tanzenlicht (Jun 28, 2009)

I personally cannot be bothered to download something off of the internet and open it in another program, unless I have reason to think it will be good.  I will grant that is only a very small amount of time and it is lazy of me.  But the vast majority of everything uploaded onto FA is crap and I can't even get a hint from the thumbnail with writing.

I suspect I'm not alone in my wariness of wasting my time downloading crap.  So if you're happy with your pageviews and have a good readership in place, by all means, upload .doc or .rtf.  But if you're wondering why no one is reading your stuff then one reason is probably the format.


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## panzergulo (Jul 4, 2009)

I rarely download anything that isn't straight on the page unless I know it's worth it. Plus, if you must use non-txt format, use .rtf. .doc has interface problems with all OSs and text editors except MS Windows and MS Word. I use mainly Ubuntu and OpenOffice Writer, if the .doc has even a bit more exotic font or formatting, my comp just rapes it and it looks disgusting.

A good storyteller doesn't need any special tricks, what you can achieve with .txt and BBCode should be enough.

Everything else I would like to say is already said. It seems many would agree with me in this case.


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## Nakhi (Jul 4, 2009)

I used to upload the file from Word because I liked my formatting. But, after using .doc files, and switching to .txt I saw an increase in average views from 1 to 2. XD


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## GraemeLion (Jul 6, 2009)

How about two options for long stories?

The first chapter or so in TXT.. than a link to the rest in PDF / DOC/ RTF, etc.  That way, you can satisfy the reader and let him choose whether or not it is worth continuing?


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## yak (Jul 7, 2009)

If you choose to upload a non-txt file, please consider using RTF.
It's server side parseable, and FA will be able to display their contents on the page in the future even if it's not being able to do that now.


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## VÃ¶lf (Jul 8, 2009)

I had a story I made in Word but transferred to Notepad, and I had to reformat everything. I did use tab, but I guess that was a bad idea, because now the story is so long horizontally it's really just irritating to read. I try to keep them in .txt though, otherwise, as shown here, people just don't want to bother with it.


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## Bladespark (Jul 11, 2009)

I went out and got notepad++ just for the "find and replace" feature, so that I can very easily swap my open office files to .txt format and fix all the fugly characters and such.  Makes things extremely easy.  Although putting the italics back in is always a pain, but eh.  If I can't put forth the effort to format the thing in an easily readable fashion, why on earth should I expect anybody to put out the effort to read it?


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