Formatting...help!

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David Campbell
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Formatting...help!

Post by David Campbell » Fri Feb 05, 2016 11:47 am

This is a problem I've raised before, and it's very frustrating. I'm trying to post a homework poem, but it uses spaces in the middle of most lines (a fairly common format in free verse). It looks fine when initially pasted from Word (and other variations I've tried), but as soon as it's checked via Preview everything justifies left and the spaces disappear. This wrecks the poem. I don't want to insert a whole series of ellipses or some other space-filler like asterisks, so does anyone have a solution? I'm not going to post the poem if it can't be set out the way it's written.

David

Neville Briggs
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by Neville Briggs » Fri Feb 05, 2016 1:20 pm

I don't know. Would a line of full stops be too clumsy to fill in the spaces.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

Heather

Re: Formatting...help!

Post by Heather » Fri Feb 05, 2016 4:11 pm

Can you just add the spaces after posting David? Annoying isn't it?

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David Campbell
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by David Campbell » Fri Feb 05, 2016 6:26 pm

Tried that, Heather, but the spaces disappear as soon as you go to Preview or Submit. And the full stops would just be the same as the ellipses, Neville. My Word document will paste perfectly onto the initial screen, but, for some unknown reason, the format is corrupted when it is submitted for general viewing. There must be some way of preserving the original in the transfer process.

It's not a problem with bush verse because there's not much variation in layout, but it's very limiting if you want to experiment with more flexible formats. If anyone's not sure what sort of thing I'm talking about have a look at some of the poems of E. E. Cummings (I Will Wade Out, for example) at: http://hellopoetry.com/e-e-cummings/

Cheers
David

Heather

Re: Formatting...help!

Post by Heather » Fri Feb 05, 2016 6:42 pm

I think I've tried and failed before too.

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Bob Pacey
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by Bob Pacey » Fri Feb 05, 2016 6:48 pm

Asked about this ages ago and not a function that is available . perhaps you could take a picture and post it ?



Gees I'm smart might try that myself .


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Neville Briggs
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by Neville Briggs » Fri Feb 05, 2016 6:53 pm

David it would be a pity if we missed out on your contribution, it would certainly be a worthwhile contribution.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

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Maureen K Clifford
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by Maureen K Clifford » Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:00 pm

so that's what happened to it - it disappeared like a will o the wisp and it was brilliant :lol:

I don't know the answer - I cant get it to do that in the magazine either :cry: I think type it up on a word doc as you want it to appear and then use your snipping tool to cut it and save it and then post the picture of it. At least you know that way it will stay exactly how you want it.
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by manfredvijars » Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:38 pm

What ----- I ---usually do
is put in dashes" -" and colour them from the font colour picker right over here (in the edit mode) ------------------------------------- ===>>>>>>
------------------------------------------ The colour I've just used is,#BFFFFF

----------------------------------------------- Hope this helps ...

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David Campbell
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Re: Formatting...help!

Post by David Campbell » Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:50 am

Ingenious, Manfred...a bit fiddly to do, but it works! I used full stops rather than dashes. The white colour in the bottom right-hand corner (#FFFFFF) is also OK.

Thank you. Poem now posted.

Cheers
David

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