BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2014

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 11:29 am

I just had a try. The italics and bold parts work fine but there are no line breaks.

**Posted by silverblaze** November 24, 2014 12:24 pm

No line breaks? That's gonna be one hell of an alinea then.

**Posted by silverblaze** November 24, 2014 1:45 pm

Ok, I've got exactly the same problem, bold italics are fine, but the line breaks don't work. I tried .odt and .doc, extension doesn't seem to matter. I can't convert to docx, maybe that works? Typing [br][/br] doesn't work either. Maybe the line break command is different in different versions of bbcode?

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 2:53 pm

No idea if I can convert to .docx, I am working with Mac and only rarely use an old Word version. Maybe Kerkerian can tell us about her experience last year?

**Posted by silverblaze** November 24, 2014 3:04 pm

Maybe it's a Mac thing. I use open office and leopard, both pretty ancient from before the docx time. .txt format doesn't work either. The only thing I can think of is to retype all the line breaks by hand but Schmiezi can't possibly do that for all of us. I wouldn't mind typing it all in bbcode in the doc file, but the command I found doesn't work on this forum.

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 3:12 pm

I found a way to do, thanks to Harriet who posted the two-step conversion.
However, I had done italics and bold manually so I am not sure if this really works. But the line breaks are in there which is important. I sent the HTML file to Schmiezi so she only has to paste it into the BBCode converter and then put it in here. This way it should work.

First:
http://document.online-convert.com/convert-to-html

and then:
http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/html2bbcode/

Last edited by SusiGo (November 24, 2014 3:54 pm)

**Posted by Kerkerian** November 24, 2014 5:36 pm

SusiGo wrote:
No idea if I can convert to .docx, I am working with Mac and only rarely use an old Word version. Maybe Kerkerian can tell us about her experience last year?

Hey lovelies, I'm sorry, I don't speak any computer at all. I redid all the line breaks manually after loading the respective fic up last year.
Hopefully Susi's solution will work.

**Posted by Schmiezi** November 24, 2014 5:37 pm

I love how much thought you are all putting into this.

Rumor has it that you can also copy your text and paste it into AO3. Pretend that you want to post it, then copy and paste the preview again. I will go and try it ASAP.

**Posted by Schmiezi** November 24, 2014 5:41 pm

SHERLOCK (gesturing to his own left cheek): Punch me in the face.JOHN: Punch you?SHERLOCK: Yes. Punch me, in the face. (He gestures to his left cheek again.) Didn’t you hear me?JOHN: I always hear ‘punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking, but it’s usually subtext.

(This is AO3 HTML)

Last edited by Schmiezi (November 24, 2014 5:44 pm)

**Posted by Schmiezi** November 24, 2014 5:43 pm

SHERLOCK (gesturing to his own left cheek): Punch me in the face.JOHN: Punch you?SHERLOCK: Yes. Punch me, in the face. (He gestures to his left cheek again.) Didn’t you hear me?JOHN: I always hear ‘punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking, but it’s usually subtext.
(This is AO3 HTML as preview)

Last edited by Schmiezi (November 24, 2014 5:44 pm)

**Posted by Schmiezi** November 24, 2014 5:45 pm

Both still need manual line breaks here after getting manual line breaks at AO3.

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 5:58 pm

Schmiezi, it worked for me with Harriet's converters. I took a Word 2003 file, converted it in two steps and pasted it in here and checked the preview. As I said, I had put in the italics and bold codes manually. But the line breaks worked.

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 6:08 pm

Here is a sample from my fic which I converted as described above. I have changed the words into nonsense in order not to give anything away.

fdlhohs:
ljklglgjlfjlfjlfjljl
alavölxjöjlöcjgl
jfaljglfjglkjljl
kljfldjflfjlfjls, riddjfgkldjglkdjglafgjljgklfjl

Last edited by SusiGo (November 24, 2014 6:10 pm)

**Posted by Schmiezi** November 24, 2014 6:12 pm

Good to know. Thank you for trying.

So did I get it right? Everybody should do what you did and send me the documents afterwards?

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 6:15 pm

I think it would be easiest for you if you received an HTML file and you only had to convert it and paste the whole text in here.

Btw - everyone can play around and check: Start a new topic, fill in a title (this is necessary), paste your text and click on preview. So nobody can see what you are doing.

**Posted by Schmiezi** November 24, 2014 6:20 pm

Sorry, I am a bit slow right now after three hours of constant background wailing.

**Posted by silverblaze** November 24, 2014 6:50 pm

I was abusing this thread for that . But I played around with the preview function and I think I got it to work. This is what seemed to work for me: The bold and italics needed to be put in separately, then convert the text to html, then DON'T use the source code, but the normal text from the html file into the bbcode converter (took me forever to work that out). I do hate how html makes a line break look like double spaced WHY DOES IT DO THAT? But in bbcode it looked normal again.

Mmm, the time I spent wresling with the computer is reflected in my capslock abuse. But Schmiezi, I'll send you the html file and fingers crossed the bbcode converter works the same with you. It should just be a matter of copy paste now.

**Posted by SusiGo** November 24, 2014 6:52 pm

I realised because I am subscribed to it and always got a notice and then it said "bad or outdated link."

**Posted by SolarSystem** November 24, 2014 6:55 pm

So am I getting this right, Susi: You converted your file into html, then did the italics and bold manually and then sent the file to Schmiezi? Or the other way around, first the italics and bold and then you converted it into html?

**Posted by silverblaze** November 24, 2014 7:01 pm

Oh, I didn't realise it'd send out messages whoops.

Solar, I did italics and bold manually and then the conversion into html. After conversion you still see the code, but when you put it through the bbcode converter and copy it onto the forum it looks right.