Are you paying attention, you two?

[shunn]

Hey there, all you WordPerfect users aspiring to write short fiction! For you maligned folks and you folks only, I've added a new feature to my inexplicably popular manuscript formatting instructions.

I created a set of WordPerfect templates and macros that let you easily create a properly formatted short story manuscript and update the word count as you type with a simple keyboard shortcut.

Downloading, installation, and usage instructions here.

(For you eager users of Microsoft Word, I'll get to you soon. I'm far more comfortable in WordPerfect, which I've been using faithfully ever since version 4.0 for DOS, and even so, the programming and page-building took quite a bit longer than I expected.)

Comments

[asphalteden.livejournal.com]

Of course, I won't name any names, but authors you'd expect to know better (like, ones with books out and stuff) have only just made the switch to sending me Word files I can use easily with Quark.

You won't believe the lengths I went through to get that floppy to yield its data. I had to bring it to the local public school, where they ran old computers, and convert it that way into an ASCII text file. How's that for above and beyond? We just didn't have a drive in the office that could handle such an anachronism.

That ad sounds great! I certainly appreciate WP and I know a lot of people still consider it the word processor. I guess it's kind of a shame that these different programs aren't more compatible so people can feel free to use whatever they like at home. Though admittedly a lot of our problems arose back then because we were using Mac systems. Things have gotten a lot more complimentary between Mac and PC in the last few years, it seems.

[shunn.livejournal.com]

Boy, I wouldn't have thought you could still get those old discs. (Science fiction writers. Geez.) You certainly went the extra mile for that manuscript!

I keep thinking someone should develop a good public XML standard for manuscript sharing, which every word processor and page-layout app could export to and import from. Screw my rocket car. I want XMLms!

I sure wish I still had a copy of that ad. I used to have it around, but I think it got lost in one move or another.