And a word from KD...

And that's why I'm a fan of entering via hard-copy: no unexpected formatting issues.

And that's why I'm a fan of entering via hard-copy: no unexpected formatting issues.

QFT !

Well, more than one word, but who's counting. From KD on the SFF.net forums:

"I'm plugging away on reading entries [from Q3]. One thought comes to mind this quarter:
Please be sure you turn off Track Changes, Comments, and that function (whatever it's called) that numbers each sentence. Also, make sure you don't center your text.

I guess that's more than one thing!"

Hmm, I don't even know what she means...

I was briefly a member of a critique group that used all kinds of fancy MS Word thingys to add in-line comments in red balloons into their texts. Despite one member trying to explain it to me, I never did figure that out either.

Track changes is really useful when you're critiquing someone's work, but I'm not quite sure how it could be useful when revising your own...

Why not just save a new version, instead, and make the changes there?

Track changes is really useful when you're critiquing someone's work, but I'm not quite sure how it could be useful when revising your own...

Some people don't change their settings very often in Word. Once they set 'em, they leave 'em.

Maybe this has to do with that "don't rewrite" thing again. I like to tinker with my prose, so if I accidentally had track changes on... it'd be pretty obvious from all the underlined red stuff everywhere.

What's Word?

Seriously, though, I use OpenOffice. I have yet to run across anything Word does that it doesn't, and it's free. I haven't found much need to turn on any of those comment/change settings yet, though. I suppose it's more useful if you're bouncing the file off a critique group, something which I'm currently lacking.

Formatting's another story altogether, though. I work single-spaced with tiny margins, in order to have as much on-screen as possible, so I have to reformat after I finish, or whenever I get to the point that I want to print out a hardcopy. At some point during my process, I usually end up having one printed anyway, so any odd formatting issues would become pretty obvious there.

Hooray for OpenOffice!

Please... There are a million places on the Internet where people tell me how much cooler their software is than mine... Can this forum please be one place where we discuss writing instead of engaging in tool wars?

Three sentences about non MS-Word software is hardly a war. Barely even a salvo!

edit: Okay, four sentences if you count "What's Word?"

I'm an Open Office person myself, but I use Open Office and Word both and I don't know how to track changes or add comments in either and I never really bothered to learn. I'm glad I didn't. My biggest concern is I'm always scared my name has ended up on the manuscript somehow. It's not paranoia if it's true, right?

Please... There are a million places on the Internet where people tell me how much cooler their software is than mine... Can this forum please be one place where we discuss writing instead of engaging in tool wars?

I didn't intend it as aggressive or anything. The "What's Word?" was supposed to be a bit of playful needling. I actually started using OpenOffice initially because I couldn't find my Word install disc after getting a new computer. That was six or seven years ago, and I still don't know where it is. (I haven't exactly bothered looking, though.)

Track changes is really useful when you're critiquing someone's work, but I'm not quite sure how it could be useful when revising your own...

Why not just save a new version, instead, and make the changes there?

I've been doing this for nearly a year now. Makes things so much easier.

I'm an Open Office person myself, but I use Open Office and Word both

Have you noticed different word counts in Open Office and Word?

Last year, a contestant in the Dutch SF writing contest "Fantastels" (maximum number of words 12.000) asked if his story was okay if Word said it was 11.999 words.

So we ran a few documents through different word processors. And Open Office typically showed a 4% higher word count than Word. After some further experimentation, we found that Open Office made a weird mistake: it counted quotation marks as extra words.

I'm an Open Office person myself, but I use Open Office and Word both

Have you noticed different word counts in Open Office and Word?

Last year, a contestant in the Dutch SF writing contest "Fantastels" (maximum number of words 12.000) asked if his story was okay if Word said it was 11.999 words.

So we ran a few documents through different word processors. And Open Office typically showed a 4% higher word count than Word. After some further experimentation, we found that Open Office made a weird mistake: it counted quotation marks as extra words.

I've had this problem as well. One of them also counts words separated by an em-dash as a single word, but I can't remember whether it was Word or OO.

As far as word counts go, I'd hazard a guess that 4% isn't going to make or break a story. If it's good enough to win a contest/get published/change the world, it'll manage just as well at 11538 or 12000. I doubt most publishers nitpick quite that much about word counts. (As a caveat, please don't come hunting me down in a blind rage if you run across the exception.)

As far as word counts go, I'd hazard a guess that 4% isn't going to make or break a story. If it's good enough to win a contest/get published/change the world, it'll manage just as well at 11538 or 12000. I doubt most publishers nitpick quite that much about word counts. (As a caveat, please don't come hunting me down in a blind rage if you run across the exception.)

If your story is 9900 words in OpenOffice but Word reports it at 10296, and the market has a 10000-word limit, your story will get rejected before they even look at it. I had one story returned because it was over the count, although they were nice enough to tell me this was the reason and invite me to trim and resubmit. Many places will not bother. Firm usually means firm.

As far as word counts go, I'd hazard a guess that 4% isn't going to make or break a story. If it's good enough to win a contest/get published/change the world, it'll manage just as well at 11538 or 12000. I doubt most publishers nitpick quite that much about word counts. (As a caveat, please don't come hunting me down in a blind rage if you run across the exception.)

If your story is 9900 words in OpenOffice but Word reports it at 10296, and the market has a 10000-word limit, your story will get rejected before they even look at it. I had one story returned because it was over the count, although they were nice enough to tell me this was the reason and invite me to trim and resubmit. Many places will not bother. Firm usually means firm.
Different places track count differently, though. For instance, I know I've seen on here that they go with "pages x250," which doesn't usually come as close as 4%. (Interestingly, however, they said above that Word typically reports the lower count, so I don't imagine you have anything to worry about as far as "going over" with OOo. The concern would be coming up short instead, I suppose.)

Also, sometimes you see "firm" and sometimes not. I imagine some places are strict and others not as much. Everyplace I've seen discussion on "how to determine word count," you round it anyway. 10040 is 10k. So is 9960.

*shrug* I admit I'm probably not the guy to ask, and maybe I spoke out of turn. I don't really worry about length too much. I write the story, and however long it is once I'm happy with it is how long it is. If it doesn't fit neatly into a certain box, well, there are other boxes.

Oh dear. I need a signature.
And an avatar.
And probably other things I don't even know about.

I feel naked.

 

True enough!

I don't think you need to worry about speaking out of turn on a forum like this--I was just offering up a counter-example.