Formatting questions

[4rumid]

Hi,

I'm preparting to submit my first article and am finding some conflicting information about formatting requirements in the help section and forums. Hoping for some clarification on these issues:

1. Can articles be submitted as .doc files?
2. Can articles be submitted in either Times New Roman or Arial?
3. My article contains a numbered list, which I've formatted with a hanging indent. Is that okay?

No conflicting info about this, just a question:
If articles can't be submitted as .doc files, and I use italics in a couple of places for emphasis, is there any way to indicate that in a .txt file? (My understanding is formatting commands aren't retained in .txt files.)

Thanks very much!

[Debbi]

.doc, .rtf, or .txt files are accepted, but not .docx (Word 2007 default)
Times New Roman 12 or Arial 12 is ok.
I've never used a numbered list so not sure on that one.

[nichewriter]

I play it safe so when I need to enumerate or I have points, I just type out the numbers or use an asterisk in place of bullets in my articles instead of using the auto-numbering/bulleting on my word processor. That way, I don't need to deal with weird spacings or the text in the document appearing different when Ed is reviewing.

Re: indicating italics in text files - I think you can enclose the words in quotation marks.

[4rumid]

Thanks to both of you.

I'll change the hanging indents and just make everything flush left to be on the safe side.

As for the italics, if I can submit in .doc format it's okay, but if I were submitting in .txt I wouldn't be able to use quotes, because the italics are to emphasize the importance of a phrase or sentence, not just to set off a word. I thought of capitalizing the whole sentence, but that seems like overkill.

[nichewriter]

You're welcome Yeah, if you need to have some texts italicized, better to submit the article in .doc format. It's better than capitalizing an entire sentence (which I would guess might get the article rejected). Good luck with your submission!

[4rumid]

Thanks!

[Leonardo56]

Hello:

I have written 4 articles which could not be submitted. On the submission screen it stated that the submission was incomplete due to "the article is already registered." All of these articles were taken from categories at CC.

I have since tried to re-submit each article with only usage rights and received the same response. I'm now concerned about writing anymore "dead articles" articles only to be told that "this article is already registered."

Are all of the articles in the categories open for submission, or am I missing something? Five of my former articles have been submitted with no problems. I'm having trouble understanding "registered articles" and how to spot them before spending hours writing on a registered article for nothing.

Any help with this problem would be most appreciated.

Best wishes:

Leonardo56

[4rumid]

Hi,
This doesn't sound like a formatting question. You might want to post this in another thread.

(And, since I'm new, I have no idea what a "registered" article is, so I can't be of any help on that.) Good luck.

[Debbi]

I've submitted over 50 articles and have never seen that message. Maybe you should contact Support.

[nichewriter]

Hmm, I've never encountered that problem before. My best guess -- perhaps the titles of your articles already exist in CC? Try changing the titles and see if that works. If it still doesn't, you should contact support about this issue.

[Celeste Stewart]

Yes, the "article is already registered" error means that the title of the article already exists on the site. So, if a request is for "Pet Grooming 101" and a writer has already submitted an article with the title "Pet Grooming 101" that means that the next writer who submits an article with that same title will get an error. Instead, you may need to tweak the title to read, "Pet Grooming Tips" or "Pet Grooming 101: The Basics." It happens. In fact, I had that same error the other day with a client's website home page. I was asked to freshen it up since I originally wrote it a year or so ago because the client has since added services/products. I titled the article "___ Home Page" and got that error because last time I had titled it the same. Made a slight change such as "____ Home Page 2009" (or something along those lines) and it went through just fine.

[Leonardo56]

Thanks to all:

I suppose then that I can write on "any" title that I choose, not only those in the categories which are already written? I'll try and change the title a bit and see what happens.

Thanks"

Leonardo56

[Leonardo56]

Thanks again:

Success: articles submitted. I suppose that you can submit to some articles already written, but not others.

Best wishes to all:

Leonardo56

[nichewriter]

Leonard0,

Just FYI, you come up with articles (and titles) and then submit those to the appropriate categories. It's entirely up to you what categories you want to write articles on. Judging from a couple of your posts, I'm thinking you are going through the categories, looking at the titles and then writing your own version of the articles (please correct me if I'm wrong). This is how Helium works (several people writing articles on the same title), but this is NOT how Constant-Content works. Here on CC, you decide what articles you want to write and then submit them for approval.

Good to know you were able to submit finally.

[Celeste Stewart]

I think he's talking about "public requests" when he says the articles are taken from categories.