Hey, all,

I suppose this question is sort of two-pronged, but I have been going back and forth on my personal decision, and honestly getting other peoples' input would be helpful.

As I'm sure we're all aware, different file types display differently when trying to read writings posted here. PDF uses the classic PDF viewer, text files are centered text in the reader, rtf/xml/docx all have similar viewers, etc. Obviously each author has their own preference, especially when it comes to the expanded possibilities with PDFs, but what's the reader preference? Are there specific file types that make it harder to read the story? Similarly, what's your preference when downloading a story to save?

I mostly use RTF. A small downside I've noticed is that, the way its default settings show on the site, it makes paragraph breaks wiiiiide. I use a lot of paragraph breaks so it's pretty noticeable. Even then, they've kinda grown on me.

I use pdf. It lets me put side-boxes of text to talk about lore without hurting the pace, and I can use specific fonts with it. Besides, it looks quite clean. Idk if it's the best, but it's certainly good for me.

I've always used RTF and I'm extremely comfortable with it. The format gives me enough to work with, without going overboard with a bunch of tools and things that I'll never need. It's clean and precise and it also doesn't get weird with paragraph and line spacing like a lot of other formats do. I can even set that specifically to how I like it.

Tried and true. I've been using wordpad RTF files to write stories for as long as I've been writing.

For this site specifically, my favorite is rtf, because you get a nice viewer right on the page that resizes itself depending on the web page window or phone screen, and I think that can give the best and easiest reading experience.

But on its own an rtf doesn't look good. I spent a good bit of effort figuring out exactly how to format it using things like margins, line spacing, tab stops, and such so that when I upload it to my gallery, I get something with a nice font at the right text size, with left and right margins, good paragraph indentation and a justified alignment. (Which I think looks nice!) If you upload an unformatted rtf you don't get any of that and it's not as pleasant to read. And the process I found is a bit convoluted, because using TextEdit on a mac creates rtf files that for some reason the site will choke on, but if you open it and re-save it using LibreOffice, then it works properly.

The downside is that it's not quite as good for people who download the file. But it's still readable, and since it's rtf they can reformat the text if they want to. But for downloading pdf is probably the best because it's so universal, and you can format things however you want and know for sure it'll look right.

Someday I'll need to look into the code that converts stories for in-browser viewing again. Hopefully the available technologies have improved since the last time I did a survey of available converts. Back then I had to make my own customization to get an .rtf converter that actually worked.

Leshana wrote:Someday I'll need to look into the code that converts stories for in-browser viewing again. Hopefully the available technologies have improved since the last time I did a survey of available converts. Back then I had to make my own customization to get an .rtf converter that actually worked.

If you ever need a sample of an rtf that causes an error, I can toss one your way!

I use .doc for my stories, saved in LibreOffice. Not .docx; just .doc.
I found .rtf gives me a few inconsistencies that I don't like; mostly with line spacing and margins. .doc has been very consistent for me, and it works on both my PC and my phone without having to do that side-to-side wiggle on the latter because the text just barely goes outside the margins of the viewing window.

I use RTF, had no issues with it besides page numbering making weird numbers appear in the beginning of the document. The solution is pretty simple - just remove page numbering.

RTF, but mostly anything but PDF. This first thing I do is convert them if someone uses them. I read on my tablet mostly and PDF does that very poorly.

Overall, any file format more or less is fine. If text formatting doesn't work for me, on PC I can just do Ctrl+A and insert it in text editor of my choice. Of course, only if there is no problems with file structure, which are more common in PDF.

If I want to read on my tablet - I would prefer big letter PDF from listed options. Otherwise, with a bit of hassle I can convert file to .epub, which is superior format for any written work imo (not sure if site supports it though).

The older Microsoft Word .doc format seems to work best with the gallery software here. Libreoffice can easily save to it. You can even get graphics into it if you really want to, and it is better about preserving formats than any other file format I've seen except PDF, but PDF is too fixed a format for the gallery; a reader can't reflow text to fit whatever he or she is viewing on.