Need Help With Formatting of My Document.

Margarita Skies · Nov 10, 2010

Hi. How are you all doing? Hoping you can help me like you always do.

Ok. Here's my little but pesky problem. Sometimes I type up my words in WordPad so I don't have to worry about the amount of words I'm writing and I can write away without freaking out because I have too little words and I have to accomplish my WC goal. Problem with that is that the document is always set up at 1.15 line spacing instead of single-space, and while I am typing up my book, I use single space so it looks like most books. I tried typing up in Notepad but when I do that the document is all messed up when I paste it into Works to be able to repaste it into Word to get all my words out. See because sometimes, when I paste it to Works, all my lines become single-spaced and my document is perfectly formatted. However, now, it didn't exactly work that way. I am right back in Word Pad with my document looking the way I don't want it to. Chapter 3 of my WIP. Bummer. So, what do I do to make my document single-space? What do I do from now on in WP to make sure it's always SS? Or can I download the old-school Word Pad from somewhere? I mean the old school Word Pad always formats documements single-spaced as you're typing them. Do you guys think you could help me out here? It's not that serious of a problem at all, but it's driving me strawberries and bananas. That might be a new one, but that's a way to say that it's driving me beyond bananas.

Counting on you as I've always been able to,
Magali.

alleycat · Nov 10, 2010

Uh, well, uh . . . I'm not sure I actually understood all of that. ;-)

You might like to try something like Page Four (you can download a free demo version that has all the functions; it just won't allow you to have but three or four folders). It exports or imports directly to a Word file. You might like it better than using Notepad. It's more of an organizational tool than a writing tool, but it might serve you well.

And you do know your manuscript needs to be double-spaced if you're submitting a paper copy? The format wanted will vary with online submissions.

Margarita Skies · Nov 10, 2010

alleycat said:
Uh, well, uh . . . I'm not sure I actually understood all of that. ;-)

You might like to try something like Page Four (you can download a free demo version that has all the functions; it just won't allow you to have but three or four folders). It exports or imports directly to a Word file. You might like it better than using Notepad. It's more of an organizational tool than a writing tool, but it might serve you well.

And you do know your manuscript needs to be double-spaced if you're submitting a paper copy? The format wanted will vary with online submissions.

Thanks for helping. Yes, I knew that.

I just like to type it single-space as I am typing it up. Then come submission time I double-space it. Thank you so much! You're so nice!

alleycat · Nov 10, 2010

Here's a link to Page Four if you're interested:

http://www.softwareforwriting.com/pagefour.html

Margarita Skies · Nov 10, 2010

Now I am typing up my document in Notepad and I tried pasting my document into Works again and works gave me a perfect single-spaced document looking like a manuscript. I am doing this because this chapter started as what I call a brainstorm and it wound up being a whole chapter, so just so that I don't have to struggle with this, brainstorms will stay brainstorms, just what's going to happen with no dialogue or anything. Oh, and I just tried pasting it into PageFour and it gave me 1.15 spacing again, so I uninstalled it minutes after installing it.

Susan Coffin · Nov 10, 2010

Magali,

I have not used Wordpad before- does it have a format page function in the toolbar? If so, you should be able to highlight everything and choose whichever spacing works for you.

kurzon · Nov 10, 2010

Okay, if you're using WordPad in 2007 or 2010, Microsoft has done that idiotic automatic linespacing after each paragraph here as well. To get rid of it:

- Select your entire document (Control-A) and then on the Home toolbar locate the Line Spacing button (it's above the Full Justify button on my install).

- Remove the tick from next to "Add 10pt space after paragraphs".

Out of curiosity, why are you going WordPad -> Works -> Word? Why not paste directly from WordPad to Word (or work directly in Word, for that matter?)

benbradley · Nov 10, 2010

If you're not going to be formatting while you write (which IMHO is not neccesary anyway), you can use a plain text file, and it should load or paste well into ANY program (or browser text-box like this on on AW) and show up with the default font and formatting, ready for you to change it to your liking.

I use Wordpad and the first thing I do when writing a new document is select "New..." then "Text Document." I save that and it saves as a .txt file, a universal format (other than a few CR/LF and TAB issues) that has existed since the 1960's (though not always with the .txt suffix). All the character insertions and cursor movements happen instantly even on an old slow computer, unlike the full-featured Word Processor programs.

I do formatting later, like when I want to print in 18 point TNR so I can read it without wearing glasses...

Margarita Skies · Nov 10, 2010

SusanL said:
Magali,

I have not used Wordpad before- does it have a format page function in the toolbar? If so, you should be able to highlight everything and choose whichever spacing works for you.

I do that and it eliminates the 1.15 line spacing on the paragraph itself, but it still separates the paragraphs. Argh!

kurzon said:
Okay, if you're using WordPad in 2007 or 2010, Microsoft has done that idiotic automatic linespacing after each paragraph here as well. To get rid of it:

- Select your entire document (Control-A) and then on the Home toolbar locate the Line Spacing button (it's above the Full Justify button on my install).

- Remove the tick from next to "Add 10pt space after paragraphs".

Out of curiosity, why are you going WordPad -> Works -> Word? Why not paste directly from WordPad to Word (or work directly in Word, for that matter?)

Thanks for the brilliant suggestion. Will try that. To answer your question, I have to go Word Pad -> Works -> Word because if I go directly from Word Pad to Word that stupid 1.15 line spacing format will automatically be applied to the document and although the individual paragraphs would be single-spaced, they would be separated from one another.

benbradley said:
If you're not going to be formatting while you write (which IMHO is not neccesary anyway), you can use a plain text file, and it should load or paste well into ANY program (or browser text-box like this on on AW) and show up with the default font and formatting, ready for you to change it to your liking.

I use Wordpad and the first thing I do when writing a new document is select "New..." then "Text Document." I save that and it saves as a .txt file, a universal format (other than a few CR/LF and TAB issues) that has existed since the 1960's (though not always with the .txt suffix). All the character insertions and cursor movements happen instantly even on an old slow computer, unlike the full-featured Word Processor programs.

I do formatting later, like when I want to print in 18 point TNR so I can read it without wearing glasses...

Wonderful idea, too! I will try all of those ideas and apply the one that's easiest for me in my future documents. Again, I do this instead of doing it directly in Word from the beginning so I can get my scenes on the page without having the word count in front of me and me having to stress about not doing enough words. I know I can hide the WC in Word, but I don't because I always have to know how many words my .doc files have.

Thanks to all of you!! I knew I could count on your help and support. As always, you're awesome, and you prove to be every single day.

Regards
M.

Margarita Skies · Nov 10, 2010

Good news! Suggestion by kurzon worked like a charm.

Yay!! Never thought it would be this frigging easy!!

Here I was, melting my brain cells trying to figure this out, copying and pasting from Word Pad to Works, then from Works to Google Docs, then messing with the line spacing in Word and Word Pad to no avail! I even tried to download old-school wordpad or get it to work on Win 7! :ROFL:

Thought of everything but this. I had no idea what the "10 spaces after paragraphs" that kurzon mentioned and I disabled, had no idea what that meant until I read that post. Another thing is that I simply open the txt file in Word and it comes out perfectly formatted just the way I want it when I write it up in Word Pad, and all I have to do is change the format to my favorite font and size and then paste it to the main WIP document. Just occurred to me, tried it, worked amazing. Thanks to all of you for taking your time helping me. You're the best like fo sho. :ROFL:

Have a good night.
M.

Need Help With Formatting of My Document.

Margarita Skies

alleycat

Still around

Margarita Skies

alleycat

Still around

Margarita Skies

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

kurzon

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world

Margarita Skies

Margarita Skies