Happy Monday, WG2E-Land!
Time for a D. D. Scott Oopsie Daisy Report.
In other words, here’s a Techno Dunce mistake I made that thanks to my idiocy, you won’t make!
It’s a D. D. Scott “Do Not Try This at Home” kinda thing.
So, y’all know I’ve been working hard getting my next non-fiction book ready to release…
Part of the material I’ve written for that book comes from the blogs I’ve written right here on The WG2E.
Like any Great Techno Dunce would do, I simply copied-and-pasted those blogs into my Word Document for the Ebook version then began re-writing and updating from there.
After sending my 300-page manuscript to my superfab Format Guy Rob Siders of 52 Novels, I got a huge “Houston, we’ve got a problem” email from Rob.
Evidently, using copy-and-paste in that fashion from a WordPress Blog to a Word Document causes MAJOR formatting issues that make it sheer hell on your Format Guys and Gals.
Yep…a total Oopsie Daisy for sure!!!
So guess what?!
Now, I get to re-type the entire book into a brand new Word Document, so that it reads like a normal Ebook instead of all the crazy spacing and hidden format demons of a Blog.
Again, Peeps…
Do Not Try This at Home!
It’s Your Turn, WG2E-Land: Let’s hear some of your Oopsie Daisies in the Indie Epublishing Process…by sharing your goofs, you’ll be helping all of us so we don’t make the same oopsies.
The Best of WG2E Oopsie Daisy Report Wishes — D. D. Scott
Have you tried pasting it into a MS Word Document and using the CLEARING FORMATTING button in the top menu? It’s supposed to clear all the silly formatting.
Then, SELECT ALL and formatting using the styles button. That you should get the document into a basic format. Using the styles buttons is the easy way to change many things with a quick modification to the Style.
If that doesn’t work–because sometimes it doesn’t–try pasting the text into an email. You don’t have to send it, just highlight and copy it right back out of there. This is great for copying text from anywhere on the Internet. I do it all the time. If I paste directly to a Word document, I have to deal with things I can’t change.
Just to note: I won’t have to do this. I write all my blogs in a Word document then simply copy and paste into the WordPress window when posting a new blog. Each year, I pull them all together in a different document and organise them according to topic. I’m so used to it, it seems like the easy way now.
Good luck–try a few things before you have to retype that massive manuscript.
Great tips, Diane, and thanks bunches for sharin’ ‘em! I do think my Format Guy did try all those things and still ended up with trouble.
When I first started out blogging, I used to compose each post in Word, like you’re doing, then copy-and-paste from Word into both Blogger (D. D. Scott-ville) and WordPress (WG2E and now RG2E), but that seemed to be too much extra time for me, and I had weird format issues that way too. So, I learned to compose directly in Blogger and WordPress, which has worked great for me.
But yeah, obviously didn’t work so great going the other way. LOL!
You could also paste it on a new word doc first, then clear the doc before you paste it, that should work.
I’m definitely going to do this for a great deal of the book which is not from blog posts. Thanks bunches, Elizabeth and Diane, for the great scoop!!!
If you copy and paste the whole document into Windows Notepad, that should clear the formatting, then paste it into a pre-formatted Word doc, you should be fine. A LOT easier than retyping!
Thanks for the Notepad shout-out, Valerie!
That does seem to be working for part of it now…
Thanks for the heads up! “Evidently, using copy-and-paste in that fashion from a WordPress Blog to a Word Document causes MAJOR formatting issues that make it sheer hell on your Format Guys and Gals.” I am so sorry that you have to retype it all-ugh:)
U betchya, Lois! At least now, none of you will have to worry about this issue.
My latest oopsie daisy moment came when I was sending out an email to a group. Recently my cordless mouse seems to be acting up. Or maybe it’s my super sensitive touch pad on my laptop. I’ll be typing along, and then all of a sudden, the cursor is in a completely different section of the document! Anyhow, the other week I was typing out a message to an online group, and suddenly, somehow, the button to send the message clicked before I clicked it myself! (Really, I didn’t click it. Honest.) And since I was sending the message out on a website that allows only one message to be sent per moderator per day, I could do nothing about it for 24 hours! At least I’d completed a sentence!
I hear ya on a touch pad with its own mind, Tamara! I’ve got one of those too on my laptop!
D.D., You should be able to cut and paste the whole document into Notepad and save as a .txt file, which will erase all formatting, then open that .txt file in MS Word, reapply all your formatting and save again as a .doc file. It is still a bit of work, but not nearly so much as retyping 300 pages!
Y’all are rockin’ the Notepad tips! Thanks sooo much!!!
Cheers, Vickie!!!
OUCH!
All I can say is I feel your pain!
And it is indeed painful, Anna! But a bit of a bump we can all learn from together!
Oh, D.D., as a fellow Techno-Dunce I feel your pain! Your busy fingers must be howling, but just think of how great the book is gonna be when you’re done!
My fingers are definitely howling, Alicia, but I’m thankful I can share the experience and prevent y’all from being quite the Techno Dunce that I am!
Aghhhhhhh! How annoying! Sorry to hear that
Thanks for the shout-out, Sibel! More wine now please…LOL!!!
Good heads-up!
I don’t use Word in my composition, because it has so many formatting…peculiarities.
The advice to use Notepad is generally good for transitioning from one thing to another, but there is a limit as to the size of the file which might mean you would need to do this in bunches:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/59578
I compose in Sea-Monkey, which is much cleaner…and I have copied and pasted into there from WordPress, and I think it worked okay.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
It’s also free, and has decent formatting capabilities (automatic Active Table of Contents, for example).
I loves me some Sea Monkey. Their email client is very clean, too. It’s an awesome software suite, especially for the price!
Another Sea Monkey fan! Cheers, Greg! Y’all are just sooo damn smart!!!
“Peculiarities” is one word for it, Bufo! LOL!
And thanks bunches for the Sea Monkey Scoop…I’ll definitely look into that!
Thanks for sharing, D.D! Not only does it help the rest of us learn what to avoid, it keeps us all realizing that mistakes are just that… humbling but not something that should make us feel discouraged, let alone stupid.
So here’s my mistake… I had nearly all my eFitzgerald Publishing books enrolled in KDP Select to take advantage of free days, but then I got busy with various projects, and forgot to use some of those days before the time ran out, thereby tying them up exclusively with Kindle without the benefits! (And of course free days aren’t what they used to be. Thousands of downloads leading to higher rankings don’t seem to work any more.) So in order to use up the days for my cousin Frisky Dimplebuns’ book, “Ugly Sexy,” I have it free every day this week. It’s the second of The Frisky Chronicles — all about looking for love online. Short and funny, it’s only about 3,000 words. Take advantage of my “oopsie daisy” by downloading Frisky’s cute read between 6/11 and 6/15:
http://tiny.cc/2ndFrisky
And as soon as the week ends, I’ll put it up on different platforms. At last!
How ’bout I feature it for you on tomorrow’s RG2E, Patrice?! That should get it some attention too!!!
Cheers, my friend!!!
And thanks sooo much for the sweet message! U rock!!!
Aaaaargh! Poor DD. Poor Rob. Oy & double oy!
Speaking of techno-dunces, add me to the list. I put DECADES into Select & set it to go to free the 12th & 13. Instead, it went FREE today–And after I alerted all the FREE sites! So all my organized lists & all that work for pretty much nothing….
Anyway, if anyone has a moment, I’d truly, deeply, madly LOVE a tweet to help bail me — & DECADES — out:
International bestseller DECADES #FREE June 11-12. http://amzn.to/f1mdwf #amreading #womensfiction #romance #chicklit #ebookfreebie
Thanks to all who sit in the corner with me in techno-dunce solidarity!
Ruth, I’ll be glad to tweet for you. Would you mind reciprocating a tweet for me? Thanks;
Amazon bestseller DUNAWAY’S CROSSING only 99c http://amzn.to/KYP9kW @nancybrandon4 #goodreads #99cents
Thanks!
Nancy, Done! My pleasure.
Thank you! Greatly appreciated.
Tweeted, tweet-heart!
Awwww.
Thanks Alicia!
Just tweeted for you, Ruth, and I’ll run this tomorrow on RG2E, along with Patrice’s FREE one too!
Cheers, my friend!!!
I’ll share my extra wine!!!
For you, dollink, champagne! (Maybe Rob could use some too! lol)
Thanks for the RG2E love and sharing the yummy goodness with Patrice!
Ruth raises glass & toasts DD!!!
Done!
So sorry you experienced such a problem! When I converted Dunaway’s Crossing into e-pub format, I copied from word and pasted into Notepad. That erased all the formatting. Then I copied from Notepad into a fresh Word document and proceeded from there. Good luck with your next book!
Thanks bunches, Nancy!
I had no idea till today how many of y’all use NotePad! Cool!
That’s awful, DD. I was going to offer some similar advice from my programming days, a few lifetimes ago. The pasting into a trimmed down word processor or HTML editor like notepad, wordpad, or seamonkey(composer), Komposer, etc., with the TEXT ONLY option is sound advice. I’m gonna bet you’ve already tried this sort of thing, though, and just say that I hate that you’re going through this.
I’m no expert at formatting, but if you need another set of fingers, I’ve got ten, and they’d be glad to lend a hand (ugh! sorry! that was terrible). Just shoot me an email and let me know what you need.
Cheers,
Greg
You’re the best, Greg! Thanks sooo very much, but I’ve been at it all weekend long now and should have it wrapped up in a day or two!
Again…wow…thanks bunches for the offer! U rock!!!
So sorry for the problem…..hope you are able to fix it some way without having to retype ALL of it.
Slowly but surely I’m a gettin’ ‘er done, Jeanne! Thanks sooo much for the sweet shout-out!
I tabbed my entire manuscript of Cancelled.
So when I was all done, ready to publish, I had to go in and manually remove the tabs in 200+ pages of manuscript! Then I had to go in and set all of the paragraph formatting, and then go in and make sure I added back in the special formatting for the texts and emails in the book.
Not fun, so I feel your pain.
I knew the Tab part of it, Elizabeth, but my poor Format Guy Rob. It took me about 6 manuscripts before I knew that too! He’d been fixing all that for me every time! The guy is A-mazing!!!
I should really do a basic format post and add to our beginner’s resources, shouldn’t I?
Adding that to my list right now!!!
I feel sorry for your fingers. My one mistake. When I put my second Angel book up on the sites, I priced it as $99 instead of .99$. Oops. As soon as I done it, I saw my mistake, and got a couple of emails telling me about it. I rectified it asap. I know what to do now. I have had trouble copying and pasting from Word to my blog before, it wouldn’t go, so now I just type in my thoughts straight off.
That’s what I have been doing too, Julie, just typing all the posts directly into my blogs. I’d had the same issues as you in that I couldn’t copy-and-paste into the blogs, but what I dunce I was to think I could then go the opposite direction without consequences.
And oh boy big ol’ Oopsie Daisy on the 99 dollars versus 99 cents Ebook Sales Price. Cheers to catching it right away!!!
Control “v” has worked for me to paste into my blog when a straight copy and paste wouldn’t work, but I use wordpress. Don’t know if it’d work for blogger or not.
Hi DD!
I’m so sorry to hear you’re having formatting issues and now you feel you have to retype everything. Why not use the tips from Mark Coker’s FREE Smashwords guide? At times I need to use the “nuclear option” which gets rid of all formatting – even the formatting I would have liked to keep.
To use the nuclear option, open Notepad on your computer, copy and paste everything into Notepad, save it, close it, reopen with Microsoft Office then save it in DOC format before reopening it again? It gets rid of all formatting instantly. That’s what I do and it works fine. My e-books always pass the stringent Smashwords auto-vetter in order to be included in the premium catalogue.
You can get the FREE guide here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52
It has a Formatting chapter that has helped me many, many times and saved me HOURS of retyping. I hope this will help.
Good luck!
I’m too much of a Techno Dunce to even use the Smashword’s Guide, Catharina, although I do have it. LOL!
But, yes indeed, it does sound like the NotePad Nuclear Option is wonderful!!!
Thanks sooo much for the great scoop!!!
OUCH. That’s gotta hurt, D.D. I hope you can find a shortcut solution that prevents you from retyping the whole book.
Even got out my Hello Kitty Bandages, Kiru!!!
The NotePad option, though, does seem to be doing the trick for some parts of the manuscript.
D.D., first CTRL-A and change the Word format to blocked, with double space between paragraphs. Save with descriptive name then paste that into a text file like Notepad. Save with descriptive name. CTRL-A and take that result and paste into Word where you’ve previously set your format parameters.
That should give you a clean format I think.
I was able to use the Notepad “save” for part of it, Joan! Yayyy!!! And thanks sooo much to all of you who recommended that!
good info for me, thanks you guys; i have one ebook packed with blog stuff, and it’s always been the worst formatted problematic ebook, it’ll soon be non-exclusive and i’m gonna put the files in my mac text editor, then re-format – another good example of the great info on this site, thanks!
U betchya, Adan!
And interesting too for Mac Users…I wonder if there’s trouble like this between WordPress, Blogger and Macs?
On a Mac, to grab a Web page, just use CTRL-A, paste it into TextEdit with CTRL-V, then under Format, click on “Make Plain Text”. That works with simple text only pages, in the same way Notepad does on the Windows PC.
It gets trickier when there’s a lot of divisions on the page, and has the same issues as the PC, since it’s not the OS, but the document software that determines what you can and can’t do for clean up at any give stage. Since at it’s base, the Mac is Unix, however, typically, after getting the first pass clean up by converting the document to plain text in TextEdit, you can use the vi editor to remove any extraneous characters that carry over as part of the web page formatting. Theoretically, you can do the same directly in TextEdit, but I find it iffy with special characters, so generally switch to opening a terminal window and use vi to do the final clean-up. Always make a copy of the file, before editing with vi, however, since CTRL-Z doesn’t work in vi, although “:e!” will restore the document if you haven’t saved it yet.
The drawback with all three — Notepad, TextEdit, or vi, is that, depending to a certain extent on the languages chosen when you set up you’re OS, they have limited understanding of foreign language special characters, so can be clumsy when converting those.
On the Mac, if you’re frequently converting the same type documents and they have the same issues, once you have the document in text format, you can use one of the Unix shell scripting languages to do the final file conversion. I have a korn script that reads in the .xhtml files that Pages drops out, removes Apples’s default formatting and reformats it with our headers and formatting tags so that it’s ready for ebook conversion. Although it sounds complicated, it’s actually easier than having to worry about the formatting while writing and saves from having to worry about whether things like visible tabs are part of the auto indentation or were manually typed in.
The vi visual editor, vim, and korn shell are also available for the PC, but not part of the default distribution, so would need to be downloaded and installed separately.
Holy crap! Sorry you had to deal with that.
Me too, David. Thanks for the shout-out, my friend.