Why do formats not survive cut-and-paste?

[Dan A]

I’m “crowdproofing” my manuscript, and have found that italicized passages are not surviving the cut-and-paste process. I’m using a lot of italicized passages, so this is problematic. What am I failing to do?

[marguerite]

Hi, Dan, and welcome to the forums,

Font overrides (bold, italic, etc.) can be tricky when cut and pasted. Are you trying to paste from Storyist to another program: Word, say? Or something else?

There are often ways to get around the tendency for programs to nuke the italics, but before I go into details, it would be helpful to know exactly what you're trying to do.

Best, Marguerite

[Dan A]

Sorry I haven’t responded until now; life, ya know?

I have tried to cut-and-paste sections directly into gmail, as well as to Word and Pages. Much of my characters’ thoughts are in italics, so it would save a lot of time to be able to cut-and-paste with formatting surviving the action. It matters because some agents’ submission guidelines call for sample chapters in emails. 

[julia gregson]

 

I am new to Storyist, and am probably being dim about this, but I am trying to copy documents that were initially created in WORD into Storyist, and I can't seem to cut and paste them.  I've tried using import, but that doesn't work either.  Would greatly appreciate your help.   Thanks, Julia

[marguerite]

The easiest setup for import is to use File > Save As in Word and save the file to RTF format. You can also find a lot of information about going back and forth between Storyist and Word in this thread: 

Copying/pasting out of Storyist is determined by the app you're copying into (Dan), but if you click in your manuscript and choose File > Export > then choose RTF, you can open that file in Word and have all the italics, etc. preserved. Save it as a Word .docx file, and you can attach it to an e-mail for agents or cut/paste from there if the agents refuse to accept attachments, as some do.

One caveat: do not redefine your Section Text style in Word after importing the file from Storyist, or Word will impose the new definition on every paragraph that contains only italics, wiping them out in the process (in-paragraph italics will be maintained). That's a Word feature, not a Storyist feature.

In Storyist, the main thing to watch out for is that before you change styles, make sure you are in a line or a part of a line that is neither italic or bold. In that case, Storyist will retain the special formatting.

Good luck!

Marguerite

 

[Dan A]

Marguerite, Thanks for attempting to help me. I’m pretty dense. 

But I just realized that you were responding to a Storyist for Mac question, when I actually use Storyist for iPad. Probably my error. My questions remain...

Thanks again.

[marguerite]

Understood. Sorry I can't help with that, as I use the iPad version mostly for editing and that not so often. I do almost all my writing on the Mac.

Try posting the question again in the iPad section, and probably someone (maybe Steve, the developer) will respond.

Good luck!

M