FFN QuickEdit Woes

[rat]

Okay, not sure if this is the right board to post this in, but I DID check around the entire forum beforehand...

I'm trying to add another chapter to one of my stories, but the QuickEdit thing keeps screwing it up. Last time it was just bold/italics I had to do over, now it's killing random punctuation. I'll type in the missing exclamation points and periods and such through QE, and save, but it won't keep them. I added the chapter just to check and see if what the QE edit showed was what actually ended up on the site, and it was, so I promptly removed the chapter and got stumped.

The file is a Word 6 .doc type document, made in Wordpad on Windows 98SE, and I'm using THAT instead of HTML because FFN just loves to tear up my HTML. Any suggestions on what I should do?

[OptiMoose unable to log in]

First of all, HI and welcome to the board.

I got so frustrated by the Quickedit that I circumvent the problem:

1. Upload a template file, txt format. Mine usually only contain the word "Template"

2. Open the template file you uploaded in the Quick Edit. Copy/Paste the story from your editor into the story space (You might want to delete any words you used for your template).

Make SURE that you don't have any italics, bold or whatever fancy things at the beginning of the file when you copy paste, because when you paste it into QE, it will mess up the entire formatting. It's better to just edit that part when you've copied the rest savely and properly formatted.

3. Hit "save". See if your changes work out. If not, kick QE. ;-P

Some problems are browser related, too. IE sometimes gives you problems when Firefox or Mozilla doesn't, and vice versa.

As I said, this works just fine for me but I don't know if it works for you. Good luck on uploading.

[rat]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I use Firefox. I'll try whatcha said after class. Thanks.

EDIT: Blargh, it's still doing it, and I did everything you said. :< I copied in the plain-text version of it and it looked fine in the preview and design tabs both, but when I hit the Save Changes button it screws it all up just like before. Looks like it's time to try another fanfic site. :P

'Nother Edit: It did it to me with .rtf and .html, too. Always the same result. Oh well, there's always devART...

[Ganheim]

Yea, there's really no (current) cure for the "QuickEdit Woes", though BakaBokken's had a good idea: starting a "clan" of disgruntled authors who want to change things for the better.

I'll stop there, at the risk of the painkiller drugs in my system making me say something stupid.

[Diva Urd]

I found that QuickEdit causes the least amount of problems when you upload an HTML file. Note, however, that the file must be "true" HTML, NOT what Word passes for it. If you upload an HTML saved in Word, it's really just a DOC with another ending (which you can easily see when you rename the resulting file to TXT - browsers can read it, but sadly, Microsoft doesn't exactly conform to W3-Standards and wonks up the code with all kinds of extra clutter).

To get a true HTML, do the following:

1. Find yourself a copy of TXT2Web (it's freeware)
2. Write/Copy your story into the Windows notepad and save it.
3. Use TXT2Web on it.
4. You should now have a file called filename.txt.htm(l). Remove the htm(l) file extension and open up the txt. In case your file extensions are hidden for known file types (default in Windows), go to Control Panel -> Folder Options, select the "View" tag and remove the check mark from "Hide extensions for known file types" under "Advanced Settings", then click "Apply".
5. Use HTML tags to bold, underline and italicize the sections you need, with <b>, <u> and <i> respectively. Remember to close the tags with </[letter]> where the special formatting is supposed to end.
6. Change the file extension back to .htm.
7. Upload and post.

The only thing that gets eaten when I post stuff this way are multiple punctuation marks, for example "?!". Everything else seems to stay intact. It even allows me to use "---" for scene breaks that way, which it never does when I try to upload a .doc.

Hope this helps!