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.odt file support for submissions

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Since I built a .odt file reader for Bookapy's EPUB builder, I ported the code to SOL's submission system.

So as of today, those of you writing in LibreOffice can submit your .odt files directly.

Formatting support is limited to Header styles, bold, italic and superscript.

No embedded images supported.

Replies:   Gordon Johnson
Gordon Johnson 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

*My submissions as .txt are still suffering from extraneous characters added by SOL. Would it improve if I submitted as .adt?

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Gordon Johnson

How do you create your .txt files?

What do you use to write?

Replies:   Gordon Johnson
Gordon Johnson 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Libre Office, using the standard 'save as'

Dominions Son 🚫

@Gordon Johnson

Check the .txt file in a basic text editor (Notepad on Windows).

I submit as .html saved from LO ODT. I ran into an issue with a few submissions of an extraneous newline in the middle of a sentence. It didn't show in the ODT master file in LO, and it didn't show in the .html file if I opened the .html in LO.

However, if I viewed the .html file in my browser, the extra newline was there.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Gordon Johnson

Give it a try. It should fix whatever issue you may be having with .txt files.

What extraneous characters?

Replies:   CoullPert  CoullPert
CoullPert 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Example sent me by a reader:
> > I knew it as ëspud picking week' in England
> >
> > they had the ëtattie-picking holiday'
> >
> > or your name, as ëJohn Meadows party',
> >
> > "UmmÖ I have only spoken with them
> >
> > "Oh. Jane Proudfoot and Deborah ñ Debbie ñ Brown."
> >
> > "I meanÖ what they said about marriage?
> >
> > who brought you here ñ operate a telecomms service
> >
> > chapter-21-reginald-on-rehome
> >
> > going to open a pharmacy ñ perhaps you mentioned
> >
> > "You won ët stay single for long, girls.
> >
> > you taking the ëwives' aspect to the bedroom.
> >
> > "But, butÖ we have only just met,

Michael Loucks 🚫

@CoullPert

What encoding are you using when you save the .txt file? It looks as if the punctuation is being converted to alternate characters. Try exporting in UTF-8 encoding.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)
Updated:

@CoullPert

UmmÖ I have only spoken with them

Any submission format, other than .txt avoids this issue. .docx, .odt, .html and even pasting your text into the form avoids this.

Usually, those are Mac encoded characters that are treated as windows ones.

A couple of months ago I made a change in the processing flow that detects these characters. Is that text from recently, or from text posted long ago?

One puzzling thing though, from every test I've ever conducted with LibreOffice, if you do a 'Save As...' and select .txt, the resulting file is usually encoded in UTF-8 with BOM, and such a file won't have miscoding and won't be mis-processed by our software.

Replies:   Michael Loucks  Gauthier
Michael Loucks 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Usually, those are Mac encoded characters that are treated as windows ones.

I've also seen this if the wrong code page is selected in Windows, but I haven't used Windows for anything important in nearly a decade, so I don't know if that's still a concern.

If he's using a Mac, he should switch to BBEdit if he wants to create text files. The free version will do everything he needs and is how I've written 13,000,000 words in the past eight years. :-)

Gauthier 🚫
Updated:

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

if you do a 'Save As...' and select .txt, the resulting file is usually encoded in UTF-8 with BOM

LibreOffice save as with file type "Text" will use the system encoding, it varies with the system!

Mac and most Linux by default have a default UTF8 encoding (my recollection was without BOM.)

On windows it default to the system ANSI codepage which varies with the system language. In W10 there is a checkbox labeled "Beta" to change that to UTF-8 it is hidden in the Control Panel, Regional Settings Administrative tab: "language for non unicode programs"

So unless you change the system code page, you can't rely on Save as with File type "Text (*.txt)"

Instead, you need to use File type: "Text - Choose Encoding (*.txt)" and check "Edit Filter" then "Save", on the next "ASCII Filter" dialog select UTF-8 and check the BOM option then ok.

Unfortunately it's my experience that upon LO restart, the Filter Settings are lost.

CoullPert 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

In that case I will submit as .odt files.

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