Comments | my_tara_tory: Adventures in posting.

my_tara_tory

Adventures in posting.

Mar 20, 2006 14:01

So I tried my first adventure into posting a bit of story. I got to practice the lj cut thingie, too. I did a copy / paste from Word. The LJ spellcheck (which was designed by orcs) didn't like all my apostrophes and so I spent time finding and replacing each one. My ghod, do I have to do that every time I want to post a story? Because it was ( Read more... )

Comments 7

snakeling March 20 2006, 21:14:04 UTC

My guess is that the spellcheck doesn't like curly quotes, and only want straight quotes instead. "Designed by orcs" is quite a fitting description. Personally, I never use it. I trust OpenOffice's spellcheck and my beta to catch the errors and I post it as is (and sometimes I find typos 6 months later).

If you're on Windows, check Semagic. It makes the process much easier, and IIRC their spellcheck is a lot better than LJ's.

swtalmnd March 20 2006, 21:19:18 UTC

You can also do it in word, by turning off Smart Quotes first off, and then right before you post, do a "just to make sure" find and replace of (and yes, this is going to seem stupid) ' with ' -- that'll get rid of all the curly apostrophes and put in browser-friendly normal ones. I'd also do " with " if I were you, and possibly the longer dash (which won't display if I put it in here) with -- and the all-in-one ellipse character with three actual dots ( ... )

djin7 March 20 2006, 22:55:35 UTC

Often the 'spell-check' is upset about smart quotes, but always check the *preview* button, because it's usually fine. Esp. if you've saved your document in html format.
*g*

darththalia March 20 2006, 23:10:27 UTC

What they said. And, because it's not easy to figure out where this stuff needs to be turned off...

In Word, go to Tools -> AutoCorrect Options.

On the AutoCorrect tab, make sure there are no quotes, dashes or ellipses in the "replace as you type" box at the bottom.

On the AutoFormat As You Type and AutoFormat tabs, uncheck the boxes for Smart Quotes and dashes.

I think that should do it.

Wow. Thank you all! my_tara_tory March 21 2006, 03:29:21 UTC

Most the early stuff was done in WordPerfect, which really didn't like being posted. I even switched to Word because of it the dash problem. Not that I still don't have problems. Now all I have to do is remember all this stuff next time.

I remember asking scores of people why my dashes didn't come out right, more specifically, why sometimes they vanished and sometimes they did not. I did learn not to use them so much. Didn't realize I did until they all kept sneaking off on me!

Can't say this LJ stuff isn't educational.

Re: Wow. Thank you all! darththalia March 21 2006, 03:48:32 UTC

The good news is, if you get Word set up right, it'll stay that way, and you'll never have to do it again. Good luck!

Re: Wow. Thank you all! my_tara_tory March 21 2006, 04:37:15 UTC

Not that I have figured it out yet, mind you, but at least I have a starting point. Nice to know that it will be one-stop shopping!