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So you want to submit a story to the archive? Woo-hoo! This will guide you through the steps involved in preparing a story file for upload.
First pick the file format of your story:
TXT Format 1. Make sure your story has been saved as TEXT, TEXT ONLY or ASCII DOS TEXT (or whichever similar options your program offers). Don't save it as TEXT ONLY WITH LINE BREAKS. This format is too messy to read. 2. Ensure that a blank line is placed between paragraphs by pressing RETURN or ENTER twice. Every line of text must be flush with the left margin. Indents and tabs must be removed from the document before uploading. 3. There is no need to insert story title or your name or email address in the TXT file. The archive software will automatically put the title in a nice bold header at the beginning for you, along with your name and email address. If you include these in your TXT file, they will appear twice. 4. The archive recognizes the following HTML tags (all others will be stripped out of the document
and ignored). You may use these in your TXT document
to produce formatting in the archived story (e.g., bold, italics,
etc.) These tags are the only way to add formatting to an archived TXT document; the old formatting
tricks you might be familiar with from other archives (e.g., putting asterisks around text to make it
italicized) do not work here.
Most HTML tags are placed immediately before and after the text you want formatted and are enclosed in angle brackets (< >); for example, <I> begins an italicized passage (you can use upper or lower case). The closing tag must have a forward slash (/) in front; for example, </I> concludes the italicized passage. Tags that are used for formatting must have a closing tag; if you forget the closing italics tag, for example, the rest of your document will be italicized. To insert a linebreak or a horizontal rule, however, you do not need a closing tag; simply type <BR> or <HR>. So if you want to produce the following sentence followed by a horizontal rule: You would type the following in your TXT file: E-mail the archivist if you need help with HTML tags. 5. All done? Then complete all the required fields in the Upload form, and preview the results by checking YES for Preview Story and NO for Archive Story and clicking the Submit button. The preview will show exactly what the archived story will look like, including all formatting. Any errors you see in the preview will appear in the archived document. Note that you cannot make corrections to a story once it has been archived! Your only option is to email the archivist to have the uploaded story deleted and then re-upload the corrected version. So make sure you use the Preview function to check the file for errors before uploading. 6. When you are happy with how the story looks, archive the story by filling out the required fields, checking NO for Preview Story and YES for Archive Story, and clicking the Submit button.
HTML Format 1. Make sure your document is a HTML document. Word processor programs such as Word (and other programs like Power Point) permit you to generate HTML files; for example, by choosing the "save as webpage" option. Do not do this! The HTML documents generated by these programs add messy coding, are difficult to read in some browsers, and may not upload correctly to the archive. If you have a Word (or other word processor) file, go to the other format section for help. 2. Make sure your story file contains the following: The archive will NOT automatically insert these for you, as it does for TXT documents. Make sure you do it yourself! 3. HTML documents are uploaded basically as-is, with only a minor amount of clean-up. Thus, you may include CSS stylesheets, javascripts, and image links in your HTML document. However, any internal links in your document (including links and imports of external style sheets and javascripts) must use an absolute URL (the full URL; for example, "http://www.docs.doc.html"). Relative URLs (for example, "../doc.html" or "doc.html") will not work when the document is uploaded to the archive. 4. All done? Then complete all the required fields in the Upload form, and preview the results by checking YES for Preview Story and NO for Archive Story and clicking the Submit button. The preview will show exactly what the archived story will look like, including all formatting. Any errors you see in the preview will appear in the archived document. Note that you cannot make corrections to a story once it has been archived! Your only option is to email the archivist to have the uploaded story deleted and then re-upload the corrected version. So make sure you use the Preview function to check the file for errors before uploading. 6. When you are happy with how the story looks, archive the story by filling out the required fields, checking NO for Preview Story and YES for Archive Story, and clicking the Submit button.
Other Formats (RTF, Word, WordPerfect etc.) 1. Open up your story file in whatever word processor program you're using. 2. Click the drop down File Menu. Choose Save As. 3. Save the story in TXT format. Options such as TEXT, TEXT ONLY or ASCII DOS TEXT should be fine. Don't save it as TEXT ONLY WITH LINE BREAKS! This format is too messy to read. 4. Now go to TXT format for details on how to prepare your file for upload. Note that you may lose some of your original story formatting such as italics, bold and underlined words when you save to TXT format. However, as described in TXT Format section, you may use HTML tags to format your TXT document the way you want.
Clear as mud? Any questions? Feel free to email the archivist at archivist@chromeandgunmetal.com |
