I know there've been complaints before about people not posting straight ASCII
text when they're sending stories to the FFML, so I'm not going to beat that
particular dead horse - if it *is* dead; you still see the occasional
attachment stripped out of posts by Listar when somebody tried to post the
file straight from their word processor.
The reason for this post is my volunteering to preread a story, then being
sent the document in MS Word format. I know Word is one of the standard word
processors these days, but guess what? I don't *have* MS Word, and I'm not
planning to go out and get it - I have a perfectly serviceable word processor
already, namely WordPerfect 7. If I upgrade, it'll be to a more recent version
of WordPerfect.
And unfortunately, there's no program on my computer that will read Word files
properly - WordPad could at least open the file, but with a lot of garbage and
without the proper formatting; WordPerfect couldn't even import it and
convert. I had to ask the author to send me a plain ASCII copy; he sent me an
older version, which I'm working on in the meantime.
Folks, it is *not* hard to save a file as plain, DOS-formatted ASCII text. I
know it can be done with WordPerfect; I assume it can be done with Word and
other major word processors as well. It's really quite simple:
- Click on File, and select Save As ...
- In the save dialog box, select ASCII DOS Text as the save format.
- Pick an appropriate name for the ASCII version of the file.
- Click on OK (or Save, or whatever the button is).
See? Just four simple steps, and it'll save you a lot of trouble when you send
your written work off for somebody else to read. They don't even have to have
the same word processor you do. ^_^ *Any* program can read plain ASCII text.
(And even if "ASCII DOS Text" isn't listed as an option, there should be other
ASCII text formats you can use - I just used that name because that's what I
use in WordPerfect when saving a distribution copy, which will be line-wrapped
appropriately.)
Tim Miller
trmiller@bcpl.net