Traks formatting issues

This is the place to discuss the various Star Traks series and stories.
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Makin' Traks
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Traks formatting issues

Post by borgcrazy »

I just got myself one of those nifty e-reader thingamajigs (the ebook devices that let you take ebooks with you) and I ran into a slight problem with the Traks stories. Some of the stories (nee, entire series of stories) have a strange forced-linebreak happening that causes weird formatting errors on my e-reader. It doesn't make the stories unreadable, but it's annoying. Instead of a paragraph looking like this:
This was not where he'd thought he would end up. Not that
Lazlo hadn't dreamed of the possibility. He'd even taken steps
to make it happen on a couple of occasions, but in the end he'd
faced the reality that command of Waystation would remain firmly
in the hands of Starfleet. That was what had prompted him to
leave in the first place, relocating his battalion of Federation
Marines to the spatial anomaly that had been dubbed the "Space
Lodge" by the Waystation officers that discovered it.
it ends up looking something more like this:
This was not where he'd thought he would end
up. Not that
Lazlo hadn't dreamed of the possibility. He'd even taken
steps
to make it happen on a couple of occasions, but in the
end he'd
faced the reality that command of Waystation would remain
firmly
in the hands of Starfleet. That was what had prompted
him to
leave in the first place, relocating his battalion of Federation
Marines to the spatial anomaly that had been dubbed the
"Space
Lodge" by the Waystation officers that discovered it.
So I was wondering if there are any versions of these stories that existed without the line breaks? If not, I'll just go through my collection and edit them myself, no problem, but if there are and they could be posted somewhere (even as a rar/zip), I'd appreciate it. If I have to do it myself, I'll just make the rar/zip files myself and post them somewhere when I'm done.
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by cmdrajd »

I was afraid that was going to happen at some point due to the method I use to get the stories ready for posting. I write in Word Perfect, adjust the margins, save it as text, and then do the final tweaks in Microsoft Word. There was a reason for it originally, but now I don't remember what it was.

Are you seeing the issue just in the newest story or in all of them? To answer your question, though, they all have line breaks.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by Star Traks »

http://www.logicaltips.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=661

Fix Word Line Break Problems

by Susan Daffron


'...When you paste text into Word sometimes you can end up with odd line breaks. This problem often happens when you are copying and pasting from an email, for example. Instead of coming in as a complete line like this:

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back."

The text is broken up like this:

"The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy
dog's back."

In other words, although the margins may be set to stretch across the page, the text does not. Many people will laboriously fix the problem line by line, but it's a tedious process.

The problem has to do with extra line breaks, not the margins. In some cases, you can use Word's Autoformat to reformat the lines. Highlight the text and choose Format|Autoformat. However, depending on where the text was copied from, this approach doesn't always work.

If you turn on paragraph markers, you can tell what is causing the text to break. Choose Tools|Options and in the View tab, click Paragraphs and Tabs. If the lines have line breaks at the end of each line, you'll see little left pointed arrows. If they are paragraph breaks, you'll see the pilcrow character, which looks like a backwards P.

To get rid of the breaks, you can do a find and replace. If the markers are showing line breaks at the end of each line, you can find them by putting ^l (a lowercase letter L) in the Find What box. If they are paragraph markers, put ^p in the Find What box.

In the Replace box, simply type a space and then click Find Next. As you go through the document, you will remove the unwanted breaks. The text will span the entire width of the page...'

Hope it works !!!
Distant Origin 3.23 Saurian Professor Gegen: It wasn't an invasion. We were on a field expedition to learn more about your species. We meant no harm. I'm a molecular paleontologist.
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Makin' Traks
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by borgcrazy »

Except for the last season or two of BorgSpace, all the stories do it, unfortunately.
The good news is, the hints in Star Traks' post, in particular the Word Autoformat tip, seem to work. At least, it worked for "Hard Corps"... I'll find out after work if the same holds true for the others.
Head Traks Guy
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Location: Baltimore, MD

Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by cmdrajd »

Thanks, Star Traks. I'm glad that tip is working.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
Makin' Traks
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by borgcrazy »

Autoformat kinda worked for "Joegonots!" but the Find and Replace trick fixed the rest of the story which will make the rest of them easier. When I finish each series, I'll zip them and probably put the zips on the Traks Yahoo group so others can use them if needed.
Head Traks Guy
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by cmdrajd »

That would be fantastic. I can take the files and add a second download option for each story for people who prefer them without the line breaks.

I'm working on something new now, and I may try posting those stories a different way to avoid the problem. I'll have to see how it looks. If anything, I could just do the with and without line breaks for it as well.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by Meneks »

Dang, and since I do not have an e-reader (nor plan on getting one anytime soon...I like actual books too much), I cannot look at the formatting issues myself.

Hmm...maybe someone at work has one I can borrow.
Currently working on -
Star Traks: BorgSpace - Book 3, Part 1 - "Invocation of the Birds - Ruffled Vulture, Dusty Pheonix"

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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by Donald »

Damm, I wish I'd thought of that.

I copied each story, then formatted in Word, changed each weird line break manually, and saved them as RTF files before uploading to the reader.

Which meant I read the stories as i edited. can someone pass the Dunce's hat, and I'll go stand in the corner?
Power is Nothing without control. That's why I'm not allowed either!
Makin' Traks
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Re: Traks formatting issues

Post by borgcrazy »

Donald wrote:can someone pass the Dunce's hat, and I'll go stand in the corner?
Just as soon as I'm done using it ... and I vacate the corner...
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