Posting large articles on the forum

[John CutlerParticipant]

This is advice learned from my own torrid experience. It is designed to try and keep within the file size limit and the time taken to submit a Post which might be limited by the software.

1. Write up the article in Word or similar.

2. Insert photos in the appropriate section of the Article. Size the photos in Word so they appear as you would expect them in the forum posting.

3. Prior to inserting the photos, prefix their file names with a number, in sequence.

4. After inserting each photo, from Word save each photo ( Save Picture As , not Copy and Paste) , using the number as the file name, in a separate folder called “forum photos” or similar. These photos will have been compressed by Word so will be substantially smaller than the originals.

5. Be aware that text cannot be underlined on the forum.

6. When copying text in italics or bold or underlined text, the formatting will be ignored and it will be pasted as plain text. So make a note of locations where you want to use italics or bold text for emphasis. You could use block capitals instead but this is regarded as bad manners (SHOUTING) if overused.

7. I prefer to use italics to differentiate picture descriptions. These are easily located once the pictures are placed on the forum.

8. Be fully prepared before opening a new post. There may be or may not be a time limit imposed by the software. Nobody seems to know.

9. When making the initial posting on the forum it will frequently not accept a Paste command. Type an “a” and delete it after Pasting.

10. Copy and paste the entire Word document onto the forum including the pictures. The photos will be ignored. This preserves any paragraph numbers and list sequences.

11. Insert the photos from the “forum photos” folder in sequence using the top right icon on the forum posting menu; the file numbers should help. Wait for the file name to appear on the forum popup screen before hitting “OK”. After several insertions the “OK” button can be obscured; tap somewhere else harmless to reveal it.

12. Each photo will still have to be resized to fit using the arrows at the apex corners of the photo. Tap on text below the photo to finalise it.

13. Edit the text for any wanted italics or bold characters.

14. If the text includes any aligned data such as an accounting list of expenses, the alignment of the monetary values will have been lost. Edit.

15. Pasting text to the forum seems to create extra lines. Do not worry about this extra white space. It makes everything readable and correcting it might eat into any time-out allowance the software permits.

16. Do not forget a Topic title, then Submit.

17. The message “Submitting” may finish prematurely. So you may see a screen with a topic heading but no post. Do not exit or close the screen. Do nothing and wait for a few minutes. Hopefully the screen will refresh and you will see the post. Maybe.

If you have any tips to add from experience, please do!

[Trade OfficerKeymaster]

One thing i noticed from the above guide is that you have copied and pasted from word. I do know that can occasionally cause problems, not only on this forum but into other applications. About a year ago I came across this issue when a post disappeared and when I investigated with the word document in question it was reproducible. I did post about this at the time.

Steve young has similar problems copying from word into the software he uses to layout the Newsletter

Trawling through the internet there are numerous queries about this. A couple in particular caught my eye when I was rechecking following your issue.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/externalrelations/digital-and-marketing/web-team/faqs/q-and-a/general/why-cant-i-copy-and-paste-text-from-word-into-the-cms.aspx

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/412538/microsoft-word-copy-paste-doesnt-work-outside-of-application

My advice is as per the above as most of the time it is OK but it depends on what formatting you have used

john

[Paul TomlinsonParticipant]

Just for the record, my post “disappearances” aren’t connected to Word, as I don’t use it or any other word-processing software. After John Cutler’s post, I tested the “time-out” theory of mine, compiling a test post including an embedded photo, which I left for over half-an-hour before I pressed the “submit” button. Annoyingly, it posted OK, so another theory busted.

[Trade OfficerKeymaster]

I don’t know how common posts “disappearing” is

I am happy to look at this but I need  examples of when it happens. If you can email me at trade@emgs.org with times (nearest hour is sufficient) of when it happened I can look in the logs and see if there is anything untoward

Copying from Word I know can cause the occasional problem but there may be other causes. It is obviously intermittent

 

john

[Paul TomlinsonParticipant]

Thanks, John. I reckon that I’ve made about 30 posts and have experienced the disappearing post event on 2 or maybe 3 occasions. As you were able to trace John’s missing post in the “pending” file, I’d agree that it would be a good idea to contact you directly(and immediately) if/when this situation occurs. Cheers.

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