Plain text file rejected - "Font Too Small"

[thepaintguru]

I'm having trouble processing this rejection I just got:
"10pt Times New Roman is too small for adequate review of submissions. Our guidelines state that we require 12 pt Times New Roman. Please try saving in another one of our accepted file types because your txt files default to 10pt font. Thank you."

How do I respond to something like this? The font text files are viewed in is set by the text editor program, not by the file itself. Plain text files contain only ASCII character data, no typeface or other style information. I submit plain text files precisely because they don't tend to lead to formatting issues like this. What should I do, just resubmit the article?

[nichewriter]

Hi, try opening your file (Notepad), then go to Format -> Font and then choose Times New Roman 12pt from there. Hit OK and your article should be in the required font type and size. Unless you change the settings, any new text files you create would be in 12pt Times New Roman.

HTH.

[thepaintguru]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_text

Try your trick, then view the file in Notepad on another computer. You'll find that it displays all files in whatever font the user happens to have set it to. All you are doing is changing the interface font.

[nichewriter]

Actually, I have 7 computers networked in the house and when I view plain text files on them, they are either in 12pt Times New Roman or 12pt Courier New -- because I set them that way. I used to submit articles on CC in 3 different formats when CC used to allow multi-format uploading -- .txt, .doc and .rtf

Now I submit articles in .doc. I use OpenOffice Writer and I first save my articles in 12pt Times New Roman in .odt format. Then when I'm done, I save it as .doc (97) and strip out all the formatting. Before I upload to CC, I copy the whole thing in Notepad just to make sure there aren't any weird characters in there. I then copy and paste the whole thing back in OpenOffice and save. I've never had an article get rejected due to formatting issues this way.

Anyway, good luck with your article.

[thepaintguru]

It's just that I'd prefer to submit them as plain text because I feel that makes life easier for customers. All my previous articles (about 7 I think, I'm a newbie here) were submitted in plain text and have gone through fine. Whoever my editor was, the fact that his text editor was showing 10pt font is something over which I have absolutely no control.

Again, I have to assure you (for your tech edification) that there is absolutely no font data stored in a plain text file. If I'm using Windows, I tend to set my Notepad font to Terminal so I can view "High ASCII" code page 437 characters, but were I to open any text file in the world it would also display in the Terminal font because that setting is application specific and not part of the plain text file format. Plain text is nice because HTML also happens to be a plain text based format, so customers can simply paste my text right into their page's source and throw a <DIV> around it with some formatting.

[nichewriter]

Thanks for the assurance. It's very well noted - what do you know, I learned something new today! :o) Like I said, good luck with your article. I hope you get that sorted out.

[Ed]

Most txt. documents I open open in 12pt. Courier, and the same program is used for all articles. I do not read them in Notepad. 10pt Times New Roman is simply too small. I will be happy to adjust something on my end if necessary or possible, but unfortunately I will not be able to review articles that display in 10pt TNR.

Thanks,
Ed

[thepaintguru]

I understand wanting to have a larger font, my eyesight is far from perfect so I tend towards bigger text myself.

Whatever is making the file display too small for you must be on your end. I can't think why it would happen this way, perhaps the program you used had last opened another file that was 10pt. A good bet would be another text editor. In Windows, you could use Notepad (allows you to change the font as nichewriter said), or you could also try EDIT, which is an antiquated program but displays in very large letters if you're in full screen mode. To load EDIT, go into your command prompt, type edit, hit ALT+ENTER, and you're off. I have no clue if it comes with Vista, but my suspicion is that it is still bundled.

In Linux, there are a bunch of choices. I tend to use Gedit or GNU Nano (almost all linux distros have Nano, go into your shell and type nano to launch).

For macs, well, there's TextEdit, which ironically isn't really a text editor. There's also nano, open your terminal and do the same thing as in Linux. Hitting command shift plus will zoom things nice and large.

A word of warning about EDIT and Nano, they're console based, Nano has no mouse support, I don't miss it but many people find it scary. To close nano at any time hit Control/Mod/Command + X.

Anyway I'll try resubmitting in a moment and hope it works out this time.

[Ed]

Hi,

I will investigate further. There has been some talk of having authors paste their documents into a box so that all articles will be consistently formatted, which would make the process easier for everyone. It would also ensure customers get clean, readable articles, which is a concern you and I both share. I'm looking for consistency as much for my own sake as for the customers'. I'll revisit this idea with Support and see if they can toss the idea around once more.

Nichewriter - thanks for your suggestions, too.

Thanks,
Ed

[BarryDavidson]

Ed,

Most text submission boxes have problems when copy/pasting files into them. For instance: A file copy/pasted from Notepad has a tendency to appear as one huge block of text, and files from Word tend to add extra characters for formatting. I have seen some submission boxes with buttons such as an "Import from Word Document" icon and the like. These are usually better for this type of website.

The problem with Notepad is that the "word wrap" formatting command sets itself to the size of box the writer is using. When pasted into an HTML text box, it either blocks it all together or separates the lines in odd places - adjusting to the breaks from the word wrap.

Also, be sure they (support) set the default to the font and size you need. HTML submission boxes can be a pain in the a** for everyone involved.




For those of you using Notepad - when you paste into it, the program tends to reset back to the default settings. Double-check the font settings. If they're reset, click "edit" then "select all" and then "format". Scroll to "font" and then set the whole document back to the 12pt Times New Roman font.

[Ed]

You are talking about a future possible text box in which to copy-paste text or the current one (content details)? I don't know exactly what Support had in mind, but they're the ones who initially suggested this fix, so hopefully they know what they're getting into!

Thanks,
Ed

[BarryDavidson]

I meant a future "universal" submission process. It's a good idea, I just thought to warn everyone ahead of time of the possible problems.

The best ones I've seen kill ALL formatting, and only conform to whatever the administrators set it to. It takes a bit of fine tuning, but it is a great idea. I only hope that they leave both ways open. For a while you'll probably get big blocks of text, or breaks in between each line, and let's not forget the famous arrows before each line - but it is doable if support works with you.

[Ed]

Hah! Thanks for the warning. Hopefully there can be some sort of automatic formatting so that no one has to think about it too much.

Thanks,
Ed

[audrabianca]

I've worked with both. Associated Content has formatting options including one option to paste text from MS Word. Demand Studios has a series of form boxes you paste text into but the web form formats all of the text the same.