So that your fanfic is readable to everyone,
please follow these rules when composing the work:
1. KEEP IT TO 70 CHARACTERS PER LINE
2. USE A TEXT FORMAT THAT PRESERVES LINE
BREAKS
3. Single space your text
4. Left justify your text (as opposed to
right, center, or full justification)
5. Do not use the TAB key for indents. We
recommend that you use a blank line to separate paragraphs
instead of indenting, but if you prefer to indent, please
use the space bar to create the indentation.
6. Do not use smart quotes (quotation marks
that curve, rather than straight ones that I have here around
the words "smart quotes")
7. Do not use high ASCII characters - those
characters made by using various key combinations, such
as [ALT] and a number for PCs, or [Option] and a letter
for Macs
8. Do not use HTML; all stories on Gossamer
are plain text - no exceptions
9. Do not use bold, italics, or any other
special formatting; most of this formatting will be stripped
by your word processor when you save your story as plain
ASCII text.
10. If you use Eudora, Outlook, IE or Netscape
Mail for e-mail, TURN OFF QUOTED-PRINTABLE.
For your convenience, here are some settings to use and methods
of saving text files for commonly-used word processors. Before
you attempt to save the file in plain text, please make sure
that you save the file in at least two different places. Not
that we think you'll mess it up, but it's better to be safe
than sorry!
Microsoft Word (on a PC)
1. Save your story as you normally would, but do NOT close
the window.
2. Change the page setup so that the lines will wrap at
an appropriate place. I use 1" margins for top, bottom,
and left and 3" for right. Also change the font for
the entire document to a fixed-width font such as "Courier."
This configuration seems to generate files with about 70
characters per line.
3. Choose "Save As" from the File menu.
4. Type a different name for your file (I usually use title.txt)
in the file name box.
5. From the pull down menu below the file name field, select
the "Text Only with Line Breaks (*.txt)" option.
If this option is not available, look for other similar
options such as "Text with Layout" or "MS-DOS
text."
6. Now you can hit the "Save" button and you will
have an ascii version of your file which can be uploaded
via your favorite terminal program.
Microsoft Word (on a Mac)
1. Save your story as you normally would, but do NOT close
the window.
2. Choose "Save As" from the File menu.
3. Type a different name for your file (I usually use title.ascii)
in the document name box.
4. From the pull down menu below the document name window,
select (and this is extremely important) the "Text
with Layout" option. This will be available on properly
installed versions of Microsoft Word 5.0 and 6.0. IT IS
NOT AVAILABLE ON MS Word 5.1!!! for reasons known only to
God and Bill Gates. For Word 5.1, I'm at a loss. I have
not found any other text format than "Text with Layout"
which produces decent, readable ASCII text.
5. Now you can hit the "Save" button and you will
have an ascii text version of your file which can be uploaded
via your favorite terminal program. As SUe noted, it is
wise to chop up a long document into several shorter segments,
labelled "01/05", "02/05", etc.
Word 5.1 on a Mac
How to format ASCII text from Word 5.1/Macintosh to 70
character width...it's possible, it just takes a little
more effort. Here's what you do.
1. Select all the text in the document and convert it to
Monaco 12 point (which every Mac owner has available).
2. Go to the Format menu and select Document.
3. Change the left and right margins to 1 inch.
4. Now, do a Save As and select Text Only With Line Breaks
from the File Type popup menu.
5. Enter a new file name and click Save.
That's it. Complex paragraph formatting like indents will
be lost, but it works.
WordPerfect (tested on 5.1)
Retrieve your story into a document screen in WP as usual.
Then use [CONTROL + F5] (Text In/Out). Choose [1] (Save
As), then [1] again (ASCII). Give it a separate name so
you know that's the ASCII version. When importing it into
your newsreader or whatever, that's the filename you need
to bring in.
WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows
Well, it's really quite easy. Type your heart away, then,
when ready to save, select "file" then "save
as" (or F3). A window box will open and at the very
bottom is "format" and will generally say "Word
Perfect 6.0 (*.wpd; *.wpt; *.doc; *.wp)". Scroll up
until you see "ASCII (DOS) Text (*.*). Select this
one, then hit "ok". This saves the document as
a normal ASCII file, and not a high ASCII file.
Sounds and looks a lot more complicated than it really
is. Anyone familiar with windows will have no problems.
When you finally exit the document, insure that you are
still saved as an ASCII file using the "save as"
command (above) THEN exiting.
BTW, if you don't wish your lines to be all messed up when
posted, do the following: If the ruler bar is not already
present, select "view" then "ruler bar"
and the ruler bar will appear. On the right hand side of
the rule are two little triangles. Move BOTH to 5.5 on the
ruler (this usually works for me) or 5.25. MAKE SURE YOU
ARE AT THE TOP OF YOUR DOCUMENT WHEN YOU DO THIS!!! If not,
half your document will have one set of margins and the
remainder another.
ClarisWorks on a Mac
Perhaps I'm the only person in fandom with a Mac/ClarisWorks
combination, but in case someone else has this combo, this
is what works. (After much trial and error...)
1. In ClarisWorks, select Helvetica as the font. As the
style, select Plain Text. Go into the edit menu and disconnect
Smart Quotes. (Do not use [Option]/anything combinations.)
Type your document and save.
2. Make a new folder and put it on the desktop. (I labeled
mine "ng.")
3. Close your document and drag the icon to the folder to
be copied.
4. Open your newsreader. Click on "Mail to: News"
or whatever your reader uses.
5. Open the document from the desktop folder. Use the mouse
to highlight all of the text. Cut ("command"+X).
6. Click on the mail body and copy. ("command"+V)
7. Put the title in the subject header and send.
Other Programs
If you're using Windows, try using copy-and-paste to paste
your story into Notepad and format it there. If you're using
a Macintosh, try editing your story in Simpletext. (Sorry,
I don't use a Mac so I can't tell you more!) On unix, I
would recommend Pico. If you don't have access to Pico,
Emacs and several other editors can be used as well. Have
fun editing a 30-chapter series in vi. :-)
