I start all of my RTF documents in Office 2007 Word and then import them to Atlantis to finish the work. The problem is that the documents are not importing with the correct formatting. As an example I format the chapter heading thusly:
^p
^p
Chapter One
^p
^p
^p
Chapter contents
When I import it to Atlantis every chapter heading shows up as:
^p
Chapter One
^p
^p
^p
Chapter contents
It won't let me use Enter to get that first line back so how do I get it?
Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
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wildchild1954
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:32 pm
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
How do you import documents to Atlantis? Through copy/paste, or by opening a document generated by MS Word?
Do individual “^p” items in your example represent “paragraph end marks” or “space before paragraph”?
It would be easier to suggest a solution if you provided a sample document with additional instructions and details.
Do individual “^p” items in your example represent “paragraph end marks” or “space before paragraph”?
Why not?It won't let me use Enter to get that first line back
It would be easier to suggest a solution if you provided a sample document with additional instructions and details.
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wildchild1954
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:32 pm
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
How do I include a picture in here? I have taken screen shots of both the document open in Office 2007 Word and Atlantis Version 4.4.6.0. And the Word RTF is opened directly by Atlantis. And I have no idea why it won't let me use the enter key in an open document. The P I'm using to try and show what is going on is the paragraph end mark.
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
Under the message box (where you write the text of your post) you can find a tab called "Attachments". -> Klick on it -> Then klick on "Add files" -> Choose the picture you want to upload (or drag it into the message box).
If you want to place it directly in the message box, click afterwards on "Place inline" beside the filename (again in the tab "Attachments"):
- 2025-09-17_134927.jpg (17.23 KiB) Viewed 2230 times
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
A sample document would be better than a screenshot.How do I include a picture in here?
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wildchild1954
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:32 pm
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
This is the file as it's done in Office 2007 Word showing the spacing of the lines I want at the beginning of each chapter.
This is that same file opened in Atlantis and you can see the difference in the leading lines. As mentioned, Atlantis will not let me use the Enter key to add the missing line in.
- Image1.jpg (1.05 MiB) Viewed 2211 times
- Image2.jpg (1.25 MiB) Viewed 2211 times
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
If you can’t post the entire document file, you can send an excerpt showing the problem. Not much can be done with the screenshots only.
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
Okay ... I have been working with this kind of thing (styles, formatting, templates) for about forty years. I know that I could add another blank line at the top of your document, but I believe you when you say that you cannot. There must be something in the code that affects the addition of a blank line there. That is something that I do not know.
However, I believe that you could use a workaround. I am pretty sure that you could put your cursor right before the phrase Chapter 1 and hit ENTER. That would push Chapter 1 etc down by one line, and you would have a blank line with the format of the Chapter number. That is not the format that you want. But you could change the style to your "Main-RTF" style (if that is what the blank line at the top is). Just put the cursor on the line that you want to change and then double-click the desired style. That will probably work.
If that does not work, you can do the following, which is how you ought to be doing all this stuff anyway. First, you should almost never (or maybe never) make blank lines by hitting ENTER with the purpose of making some white space. That is the old-fashioned typewriter method. Instead, use styles for your paragraphs. (Unfortunately, I cannot explain all of that right now, but maybe I will add a section on the subject of using styles to my book that I am writing on Fade In screenwriting software and on screenwriting and playwriting.) OR you can just add space above a paragraph by doing this:
Right-click on a paragraph. You want to add space above it. A menu will pop up when you right-click. The menu will have Paragraph on it. Select Paragraph. You will see Spacing > Before and After. Select Before (it means Above here). You will need to add the amount of space that you are adding, and you do it in points. This is simple. For the equivalent of one line, try 14 point (14 pt). For two lines, try 28 pt. You may have to adjust the number of points that you add.
Give these methods a try, and please report back.
However, I believe that you could use a workaround. I am pretty sure that you could put your cursor right before the phrase Chapter 1 and hit ENTER. That would push Chapter 1 etc down by one line, and you would have a blank line with the format of the Chapter number. That is not the format that you want. But you could change the style to your "Main-RTF" style (if that is what the blank line at the top is). Just put the cursor on the line that you want to change and then double-click the desired style. That will probably work.
If that does not work, you can do the following, which is how you ought to be doing all this stuff anyway. First, you should almost never (or maybe never) make blank lines by hitting ENTER with the purpose of making some white space. That is the old-fashioned typewriter method. Instead, use styles for your paragraphs. (Unfortunately, I cannot explain all of that right now, but maybe I will add a section on the subject of using styles to my book that I am writing on Fade In screenwriting software and on screenwriting and playwriting.) OR you can just add space above a paragraph by doing this:
Right-click on a paragraph. You want to add space above it. A menu will pop up when you right-click. The menu will have Paragraph on it. Select Paragraph. You will see Spacing > Before and After. Select Before (it means Above here). You will need to add the amount of space that you are adding, and you do it in points. This is simple. For the equivalent of one line, try 14 point (14 pt). For two lines, try 28 pt. You may have to adjust the number of points that you add.
Give these methods a try, and please report back.
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wildchild1954
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:32 pm
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
Well, I have tried both methods several times. The first one doesn't work at all and the second one just keeps pulling the Chapter 2 heading out of the document and inserting it after Chapter 1. I'm modifying the Heading 1 style to include that spacing before since that's where I need the line added back in. So per your request here is an excerpt consisting of the first two chapters.
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
Thanks for the file. But it is displayed in the same way in both Atlantis and Word:
^p
^p
Chapter One
^p
^p
^p
Chapter contents
Where is the problem?
^p
^p
Chapter One
^p
^p
^p
Chapter contents
Where is the problem?
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
By the way, not only creating spacing between paragraphs by adding blank paragraphs is not a good technique. Manual page breaks before the chapter headings is also a bad thing. You can remove the blank paragraphs before and after the chapter headings and also remove the manual page breaks before the chapter headings. Then choose the "Format | Style..." menu command of Atlantis, click "Heading 1", click "Modify...", then click "Paragraph...". Then add space before and after on the "Indents & Intervals" tab of the "Paragraph Format" dialog and check the "Page break before" box on the "Line & Page Breaks" tab.
Please see the attached version of your document with proper paragraph spacing and breaks:
Please see the attached version of your document with proper paragraph spacing and breaks:
- Attachments
-
- Disguised Intentions excerpt (2).docx
- (19.71 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
Okay, Wildchild ... I just this evening found your message (and its attached document excerpt). I solved your problem in about two minutes of looking things over. I can easily put as many blank lines as I want at the top of your Chapter Title.
However, I do not think that I can explain all of this to you in a setting like this. The nature of the problem (I am assuming here) is that you have little or no understanding of styles. I do not know if I can explain all of this in a way that would be easy for you to follow. I would need to make a bunch of graphics to do it in a clear way. And, honestly, that would take a great amount of time to explain some principles that are really very simple.
But I will throw out some thoughts for your consideration.
First, a question. Am I correct that you want two blank lines at the top of your Chapter because you want the Chapter to start part of the way down the page? If that is the reason, you do not have to do it that way. In fact, you should not do it like that. Nonetheless, here is how to put the blank lines in place.
Your Chapter Title uses the style Heading 1. Nothing wrong with that. But when I tried to put a blank line above it, the Chapter Title got pushed to the next page. I immediately suspected that the style had a "page break before" code attached. It did. I removed that, and I also removed the codes for the space before (above) and after (below) the paragraph.
Then I was able to put a blank line above the Chapter Title. Of course, it picked up the formatting of the Chapter Title. But I changed the style to your basic paragraph style by double-clicking the MAIN-RTF style. Then I added a second blank line. Really, nothing to it at all, if you know what you are doing with styles.
To keep the page break, which I deleted earlier, you can add it back manually. First, edit the style Heading 1. To do that, follow this path: Format > Style > Heading 1 > Modify > Paragraph > and look for the little box that says not to add space between paragraphs of the same style. Uncheck that little box.
Now go back to the start of the first blank line (look for the ¶ and put the cursor in front of it). Press Ctrl+ENTER, and that will insert a page break above the blank lines that you have added.
Different matter now ...
You need to make styles for different paragraph types. The first body paragraph of your excerpt has Garamond as the font. That is fine. The paragraph style is supposedly MAIN-RTF. But then some following paragraphs are in the Lucida Calligraphic font, but the style is still tagged as MAIN-RTF. This tells me that you must have selected those paragraphs and then imposed the Lucida Calligraphic font upon them. That is not the best way to do this. You ought to make a style that has a first-line indent (I think you used 0.2-in.) and has a special style name, like maybe Body-LucidaCallig or something like that.
Anyway, if you have any questions, please post them or send them to me. I have been working with templates and styles for several decades. But it is darned difficult to explain these things in a post like this.
However, I do not think that I can explain all of this to you in a setting like this. The nature of the problem (I am assuming here) is that you have little or no understanding of styles. I do not know if I can explain all of this in a way that would be easy for you to follow. I would need to make a bunch of graphics to do it in a clear way. And, honestly, that would take a great amount of time to explain some principles that are really very simple.
But I will throw out some thoughts for your consideration.
First, a question. Am I correct that you want two blank lines at the top of your Chapter because you want the Chapter to start part of the way down the page? If that is the reason, you do not have to do it that way. In fact, you should not do it like that. Nonetheless, here is how to put the blank lines in place.
Your Chapter Title uses the style Heading 1. Nothing wrong with that. But when I tried to put a blank line above it, the Chapter Title got pushed to the next page. I immediately suspected that the style had a "page break before" code attached. It did. I removed that, and I also removed the codes for the space before (above) and after (below) the paragraph.
Then I was able to put a blank line above the Chapter Title. Of course, it picked up the formatting of the Chapter Title. But I changed the style to your basic paragraph style by double-clicking the MAIN-RTF style. Then I added a second blank line. Really, nothing to it at all, if you know what you are doing with styles.
To keep the page break, which I deleted earlier, you can add it back manually. First, edit the style Heading 1. To do that, follow this path: Format > Style > Heading 1 > Modify > Paragraph > and look for the little box that says not to add space between paragraphs of the same style. Uncheck that little box.
Now go back to the start of the first blank line (look for the ¶ and put the cursor in front of it). Press Ctrl+ENTER, and that will insert a page break above the blank lines that you have added.
Different matter now ...
You need to make styles for different paragraph types. The first body paragraph of your excerpt has Garamond as the font. That is fine. The paragraph style is supposedly MAIN-RTF. But then some following paragraphs are in the Lucida Calligraphic font, but the style is still tagged as MAIN-RTF. This tells me that you must have selected those paragraphs and then imposed the Lucida Calligraphic font upon them. That is not the best way to do this. You ought to make a style that has a first-line indent (I think you used 0.2-in.) and has a special style name, like maybe Body-LucidaCallig or something like that.
Anyway, if you have any questions, please post them or send them to me. I have been working with templates and styles for several decades. But it is darned difficult to explain these things in a post like this.
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wildchild1954
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:32 pm
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
You're right I have too much trouble following your instructions. I am not very computer savvy. I did, however, find out while playing around that if I save the document as a .docx from Word and then import that into Atlantis all of my spacing stays correct. I have always worked with RTFs before so will need to remind myself not to do that. Thanks for trying so hard to teach me about Styles and other things for the RTF documents!! I'll keep trying to work out the RTF instructions, though and hopefully one day it will make sense to my 71-yea-old brain!
Re: Imported RTF from Word not formatting correctly
Hi, Wildchild ... I am really glad that you found that you could use .docx successfully to do what you wanted.
I wanted to say a few additional things before we move on.
(1) The RTF format. Big sigh here. It seems to work very well when Atlantis is creating or reading it. Until recently I was using only .docx format. But I have now started using mostly RTF, to which Atlantis defaults. It is just easier, and so far I have not had any problems. In years past, though, RTF was a nightmare in most software applications. It did not reliably transfer from one application to another. Lots of stuff got all messed up.
(2) Styles. They really are not difficult. But I can understand your hesitation about them. I remember how intimidated I felt, thirty-five to forty years ago, when I first encountered templates and styles. I did not care about all of that. I just wanted to type my documents. I was using WordPerfect then, and I was able to impose my formatting by highlighting text and applying the format that I wanted, or I used Reveal Codes and manipulated the formatting code.
Anyway, I learned before long that Styles was a wonderful feature. And not at all difficult. In the book that I am writing about a particular screenwriting program (Fade In), I was already planning to have an Appendix that explains a few topics outside of the main subject of the book. I think I may include a short "how to" on how to use Styles. I need to prepare a short article in PDF format on the subject to put onto my website. It is just not possible to explain things in a simple manner without graphics.
But if you have any other questions, please post them.
I wanted to say a few additional things before we move on.
(1) The RTF format. Big sigh here. It seems to work very well when Atlantis is creating or reading it. Until recently I was using only .docx format. But I have now started using mostly RTF, to which Atlantis defaults. It is just easier, and so far I have not had any problems. In years past, though, RTF was a nightmare in most software applications. It did not reliably transfer from one application to another. Lots of stuff got all messed up.
(2) Styles. They really are not difficult. But I can understand your hesitation about them. I remember how intimidated I felt, thirty-five to forty years ago, when I first encountered templates and styles. I did not care about all of that. I just wanted to type my documents. I was using WordPerfect then, and I was able to impose my formatting by highlighting text and applying the format that I wanted, or I used Reveal Codes and manipulated the formatting code.
Anyway, I learned before long that Styles was a wonderful feature. And not at all difficult. In the book that I am writing about a particular screenwriting program (Fade In), I was already planning to have an Appendix that explains a few topics outside of the main subject of the book. I think I may include a short "how to" on how to use Styles. I need to prepare a short article in PDF format on the subject to put onto my website. It is just not possible to explain things in a simple manner without graphics.
But if you have any other questions, please post them.