Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Computer help

I hope that one of the many computer-savvy L&C fans can give me a hand here.

I'm currently editing a fic for the archive.

Here's the sequence of events:

I got the fic, cut-and-pasted it into a Microsoft Word (2003 version) document.

I made the proposed edits using the "track changes" feature which shows the changes in red.

I sent the edited version to the author for approval of edits.

The author reviews it, makes her own comments, and sends it back.

When I get it back, one of two things happens:
1) if I download it as a Word document, (firstly the program says "convert from RTF") and the fic appears normal right up to the point where I made my first comment. After that, all the words are in gray and have a strikethrough through them.

2) If I view it as plain HTML, the part of the fic prior to my first comment appears. Everything after that is absent.

Can anyone tell me why this is happening and what I should do to avoid it?

Probably a screw up while saving on the other side or the other programme not being able to work with tracking changes. Or anything else in between not working. You downloading it as a Word document or html sounds like there's a another agency in between which might not be able to do convert to doc and track changes either. And the Convert from RTF sounds like it's not a Word document anymore.

Send it without the track changes feature and have Word do a compare between the original file and the one you get back. Try to get a real doc file back or least a normal txt file without someone in between.

Keep a copy of the files before doing anything with them.

Ask the author(s) which software they are using. If they are not using Word, their software might not be able to track changes and might not be able to properly keep that information.

I, for example, haven't used Word for quite some time. I have OpenOffice on my Mac and I can open Word files with no problem (I can also save in Word format), but I'm pretty sure that the differences between the software wouldn't allow total compatibility, especially with these more sophisticated functions.

malu

Another possibility: The other party accidentally deleted everything which has a strikethrough. What happens if, instead of viewing it as "Final showing markup," you view it as "Final," "Original," or "Original Showing Markup"? If the struck out text disappears completely under Final but is visible without the strikethrough under "Original," that is probably what had happened. If that is the case, you can simply reject that change to eliminate the strikethrough.

Joy,
Lynn