Fanfiction.net frustration!

[dragoonbigl]

ARGH!!! I swear FF.net messes up my documents when I submit them. I reread my chapters on the site after I submit them and I swear there are all kinds of mistakes present that don't exist in my original! Like I can compare side by side and they're different! i don't just mean formating...I mean missing words and changed words! FRUSTRATING!!!. lol


Anyone else have this problem or am I just losing it?

[RavenStar]

ff.net's document manager removes any symbols that are commonly used in url links (hyphens , dashes, and percentage symbols fall prey to this mostly, but hyphens seem to work in the actual fics, just not the the titles.) and they take out extra spaces when paragraphs are separated by more than one space, and if you have more than one punctuation symbol after the end of a sentence, it'll cut out all but the first punctuation mark. It is annoying, but if you comb through the editing window in the document manager before uploading the chapter you've submitted, you can usually catch these things and fix them.

[surforst]

Have the same problem and here's a few things I've found to fix it.

1. First write document in Word using it's nice grammar/spelling editing tool. Edit till your ready to turn it in.

2. Copy and Paste into Notepad fixing the " and ... that don't paste over from word. Save as a .txt file.

3. Post the story and edit on FF.net. This includes centering, bolding, and using the italic option. Submit when done.

This should take care of most errors.

Other notes on formation.

1. FF.net does not allow extra spaces between paragraphs. Include something else like a word 'KP-Is-Cool" (note: I find that annoying though), dashes and symbols, or Roman Numerals (I use this style as do a few other authors. Learned it from MrDrP after all)

2. Make sure you don't include symbols that FF.net does not read. This includes stuff like '*' for example.


Well hope this helps.

[Commander Argus]

I have to concur with the original poster that uploading a document not only removes symbols, but also DOES sometimes drop letters from words, making it look like a typo that Word missed. I thought they were my mistakes at first until I went back to the original.

I use a row of Xs to divide scenes, then use FF's editor to change it into a line. Frustrating, considering Word can put in lines itself, but that's what's most effective with the interface.

I think one of the largest issues is that they are optimized for "Openoffice" which is a paying advertiser. I personally would never, ever even consider open sources (open sores) ware.

[drakkenfan]

Sometimes it removes the spaces from between words too... putting them 'alltogetherlikethis'.

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

I've had luck trying to find the most generic word problem possible...

[cloudmonet]

Oh no! Now I'm gonna have to read the ff.net versions of all my stories to make sure none of these evil happenstances have occurred. I haven't noticed any. Things like tildas over n's in senor, or acute accents over e's in fiance, come through fine. One problem with word processors I've had is sometimes it looks like there's actually a space between letters when there really isn't one, especially if fractional character widths is turned on. Maybe the disappearing space wasn't really there. I don't know. I just take my Apple Works documents and save as "Word97 for Windows" and they seem to work fine, formatting intact. Maybe fanfiction likes older "Word" document formatting, which is probably the format these open source word processing programs use. ————— these dashes (option/shift/hyphen) come across just fine. Can Word "save as" in its own older file formats? That might solve the problem.

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Update: Okay, I just boosted my browser's print size to make sure I didn't miss anything and read Chapter One of "How Darkness Comes," the fanfic.net version, which was submitted as a .doc file and not edited at all (except to add the lines at the top and bottom of the text), and found no flaws. I suspect it's getting indigestion from a newer Word file format.

I don't know much about Word, never used it, but if you open a word processing or rich text format document with a text editor, there will be a bunch of gobbledygook text at the beginning of the document, the end, and in the case of "Word," in between sentences and paragraphs as well. Kinda the word processor's equivalent of html tags, like <p> or whatever. These are different for every word processor format, and as the word processor gets fancier page-layout capacities, there's new file formats with new hidden gobbledygook. This hidden data is probably what's causing fanfiction.net to misunderstand some files.

[Commander Argus]

It's not so much the word version, but their editor has glitches. For one, half the time I 'save changes' in their editor, the first whole paragraph gets set to bold. Have no idea why, but I have to check carefully before I post the chapter (if you go back and change something, it doesn't show up to the public until they update, whatever that schedule is)

[cloudmonet]

It's not so much the word version, but their editor has glitches. For one, half the time I 'save changes' in their editor, the first whole paragraph gets set to bold.

I suppose you were just trying to bold the title. I had that happen once at Deviant Art.

I try to get everything right in the document, and avoid the editor. It's slow, and different.

Of course, their editor is interfacing with your browser and your computer. I haven't had any problems with the editor, other than it's slow and weird. I'm using firefox and a G3 Mac running OSX 10.3.8, not what most of you guys have. Change any of these variables and who knows what happens?

[surforst]

cloudmonet said:

I don't know much about Word, never used it, but if you open a word processing or rich text format document with a text editor, there will be a bunch of gobbledygook text at the beginning of the document, the end, and in the case of "Word," in between sentences and paragraphs as well. Kinda the word processor's equivalent of html tags, like <p> or whatever. These are different for every word processor format, and as the word processor gets fancier page-layout capacities, there's new file formats with new hidden gobbledygook. This hidden data is probably what's causing fanfiction.net to misunderstand some files.

The stuff will show up as little black squares if you move it over to a .txt document. Just use replace to put in text in place of the black squares after all the text editor will know which black square is which. Trust me when I say putting it in a .txt document first will solve a lot of your guys problems. I'm not just blowing hot air here after all.

[cloudmonet]

Assuming my theory's right, .txt would also work well, because this is also an old format. But then you've gotta redo all the bold, italics, and whatever else their bloody editor! Why go through that if ya don't have to? Older-type .doc files seem to work fine.

[surforst]

cloudmonet said:

Assuming my theory's right, .txt would also work well, because this is also an old format. But then you've gotta redo all the bold, italics, and whatever else their bloody editor! Why go through that if ya don't have to? Older-type .doc files seem to work fine.

Might work but hey I figure why use bold and italics through the story anyway. I only bold the title and italize the quote on top and 'the end' at the bottom. Simple for me but the older .doc might work. All I can say though is Word 2003 doesn't transfer over well. That's why I use .txt. I like my system anyway and it would solve a lot of these guys problems. Well that's my two cents.

[Commander Argus]

I think it comes back to FF trying to frustrate Word users because they push Openoffice on the main page so much. It seems kind of foolish otherwise to make the interface partially incompatible with the most popular word processing software in use.

[RavenStar]

I still use Word 97, and I haven't had any major problems with having to correct italics and bold stuff so much, save correcting a few untransferred bold words at the beginning of the document.

But cloudmonet's right. Get it right in the document first before you upload, and you shouldn't have irritable problems.

[Ezbok58a]

Only problems I've encountered is the dropping of a letter or two from the actual document, as I've read them up there I notice things (like taking 'stuff' and only seeing 'stuf') Other than that no real problems.

[cloudmonet]

I still use Word 97, and I haven't had any major problems with having to correct italics and bold stuff so much, save correcting a few untransferred bold words at the beginning of the document.

I'm saving my Apple Works 6 files as Word 97 for Windows and they work fine. This Open Office uses a file format of similar vintage. Obviously Word 2003 has features the older Word doesn't, which means there's more gobbledygook, maybe to describe fancy line spacing, kerning, or the like. That's the kind of thing that's causing letters to drop out! It's Microsoft's fault! Well, not really. People probably wanted whatever the new features are. But fanfiction's software is adapted to the older, simpler .doc file format. Can you save as "Word 97" documents with Word 2003? That would solve the problem. I can even save as Word 6 with Apple Works (heh heh)

[fazhou]

Yeah, a lot of little frustrating things have happend to me. I didn't like their default paragraph format, and found a way to make paragraph indents so the text would look like it does in printed novels. Unfortunately, since I last posted my stories ff.net has disallowed even those HTML codes, and my stories there are all funky-looking. I haven't had the chance yet to redo all of them.

The other thing is, I wish I could preview and/or edit my reviews, because sometimes the review text gets truncated which can lead to embarrassing errors. For example, in one review I quoted a line from the story followed by my comment.

My review originally was to read:
"Wish I could hold your hand...forever." What a wonderfully touching line!

How it came out was:
"Wish I could hold your hand...forever.

I'll bet that to this day the girl who wrote that story thinks I'm wanting to hold her hand.

[Commander Argus]

Up until I started writing FanFic, I always wrote in the same good old-fashioned way I was taught to type years ago (before word processors!) I've had to relearn the whole thing so it actually works and doesn't have to be reformatted.

The one place that is worse is DA. I really, really hate their formatting. I tried posting some of my original universe work there but gave up and took it back down, partly because half the story went missing and partly because reformatting like that took forever!

[Pim Peccable]

I noticed this problem early on. I just deal with it.
Write in Word.
Upload.
Final Edit.
Submit.

The only real problem I found was when I was using special symbols in this one fic as chapter markers. I had to switch symbols because FF erased the first one I chose.