Story formatting lost

[Guest Dime]

Hello admins!

When I look at one of my older stories (this one here: http://ne.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600100178), the first two chapters are displayed in mangled formatting - all lines centered and with huge spaces in-between. When and how did this happen and what is the easiest way for me to undo it?

Another one of my fics appears to have no spacing at all (http://ne.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600100115). I am unsure whether I may have uploaded it that way (it's been a while), but I do not think so; so again, same question as above: is there an easy way to fix this?

(I am using Firefox 25.0.1. )

Many thanks in advance,

Dime

[BronxWench]

Hi,

There are two FAQs which might help:

http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/20135-how-to-fix-the-glitches-that-are-due-to-the-rte/

http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/10217-page-draw-errors/

[Guest Dime]

Hey!

Thanks for the quick answer! I'm still not sure how to proceed, though.

First off, the chapter *used to* be correctly formated, so I don't know what may have caused this, nor how I can be sure to avoid it in the future. There are no long lines of asterisks to mark breaks, nor other large groups of symbols.

Secondly, I cannot open the chapter to edit it - I only get an empty text box, no matter which chapter of which story I select. What is going on there? Am I missing something?

- Dime

[DemonGoddess]

Looking at your story, it would be best if I fixed this one. Once you get the chapter open, you'll end up with a wordwall.

The NORMAL procedure in fixing this, provided the proper breaks were inserted by the word processing program after converting to html, would be to open the chapter, click edit, and that would fix the issue. However, having looked in the database at the data, those line breaks (i.e. ctrl+enter, or enter) created by the wordprocessor originally are NOT there.

The alternative (if you don't want to wait on me, which would be wise, I won't get to it for awhile) would be to edit each chapter, by copy/pasting from your documents for this. Will it bump it up the list? Yes. In this for instance, though it's not a big deal. The important thing would be fixing the chapter.

If you're using IE, that will cause the edit block to not appear, unless you follow the instructions listed here. If that's not it, then you need to logout, then BACK in, using the login boxes located at the upper right corner of your browser screen.

[Guest Dime]

Okay, I'll try and re-familiarize myself with the edit/post system and copy-paste the correct (hopefully) text back into those chapters.

Why is the current text not showing up, though?

As I mentioned above, I'm using Firefox, so the IE issue should not apply.

Logging out and back in via the box in the upper right corner does not help. I still only get the empty box instead of the chapter text to edit (see attachment).

[DemonGoddess]

My guess is that it would be because there is so much extra garbage from the doc to html conversion, that the rte is having trouble finishing the conversion.

[Guest Dime]

Ouch.

Okay, thank you. I'll try and un-clutter the html as much as possible before attempting to upload anything.

- Dime

[DemonGoddess]

We no longer allow html uploads. How you do it now, is you open your document, copy the text IN the document, and paste it into the text window. Depending on what you're using, is which copy option you choose. "Paste from word" works best.

[Guest Dime]

But the text can include html tags (with the listed exceptions), right?

Where do I find the "paste from word" option, though? I see it above this text field here, but I do not seem to have any options whatsoever when trying to edit the chapter (see screenshot, above).

Also, if AFF tells me that the chapter has been edited successfully, at what point should I see a change (such as the new chapter being present and the edit date having changed)? I tried to update the first two chapters last night, was told it was successful, but I see no change. Is it possible that something is broken in the logic?

- Dime

[DemonGoddess]

Looking at it, it did strip a great deal of disallowed format tags. However, that is the problem. The disallowed html formatting is trying to reset certain properties which it's not allowing it to do.

So, I went in and quick fixed and removed most of the garbage tags. You'll notice you are going to have to go through and add the centering where you need to, You'll also have to fix paragraphs where extra line breaks are inserted.

The paste from word option is the 5th icon from the left in the menu bar when you have the chapter open. You'll see a little clipboard graphic with a "w" in the middle.

[Guest Dime]

Thank you!

Whatever you did seems to have solved my problem with the missing edit toolbar. Now that I actually *have* edit options, I have no problems finding the paste from word icon.

[DemonGoddess]

I stripped out the illegal function calls, first and foremost. You're welcome.