Useful text reformatting utility for forum posts (Windows only)

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dpaterso

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You may notice, if you're posting material from your WIP in Share Your Work or elsewhere, that paragraph indents disappear, i.e. text falls to the left margin, which can result in big blocks of text that are hard to read. This is a quirk of the message board software that's beyond our control.

The easy workaround is to manually insert a blank line between paragraphs -- like I'm doing as I write this message -- to break up the big text chunks that may put readers off. (If you only notice how bad things look after you post, no big deal, select the Edit button down in the lower right corner just below your message, you can add blank lines then save your changes.)

But there's a smarter way, which allows you to post your text with "indents" visible. Member Michael Parks has provided a text reformat utility that can be downloaded from his website. Read this thread for details and screenshots:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96696

And here's a quick link to the zip file, right-click then select Save Target As to download:
http://michaelparks.info/add-indent.zip

Alas the utility only runs in Windows.

-Derek
 
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Maryn

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Thanks, Derek. And Michael, of course.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who opens up a story or chapter in Share Your Work, sees a solid block of text, and quickly closes the tab. I mean, these are the only eyes I've got.

Maryn, squinting at the screen as we speak
 

Matera the Mad

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I mean, these are the only eyes I've got.
Tell me about it -- that's what I want to scream at the *^%&$s who use Times New Eyestrain or Courier Dim. But anyway...this little tool is a marvel for separating paragraphs. Michael is a candidate for sainthood for that trick.

If I feel that reading a post is worth it, I'll copy/paste into a text editor that can work with line endings, and simply double all in a search-and-replace. That takes care of font probs too, ha ha. Too bad if all their italics/underlining is gone. But it would certainly be nice if SYW posters would realize that they need to make their posts accessible to a wide variety of people under different conditions.
 

lilmerlin

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But there's a smarter way, which allows you to post your text with "indents" visible. Member Michael Parks has provided a text reformat utility that can be downloaded from his website. Read this thread for details and screenshots:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96696

And here's a quick link to the zip file, right-click then select Save Target As to download:
http://michaelparks.info/add-indent.zip

Alas the utility only runs in Windows.

-Derek

Thank you so much - this made my post look so - smart and professional! Amazing. Now I just need a tool that converts docx into text without losing indents, apostrophes and quotes. sigh.
 
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