Two days ago I submitted a short story as an email attachment to an ezine called 10 Flash Quarterly.

Today I had an email to say they'd made their selection for this month but in any case they couldn't open my attachment.

They can't open 'docx' documents,said the editor. This is the default 'save' for my word processing programme. What they really like, said the editor, are documents that are .rtf files

I use Word 2010 because that was offered with the laptop I bought five months ago. When I looked, I saw it offers 18 different options for saving. The default just says 'word document' and mainly it gives no problems, although I don't submit much and maybe they just don't tell me.

I wonder how I can comply with the .rtf requirement if I want to submit to 10 Flash in future?

Sheila

Hi Sheila, one of the options word gives you is Rich Text Format, which is .rtf. So you can just select that when you save and attach that to send. You can also choose to save it as a word 97 - 2003 document, which gives it the old .doc format (without the x).

I can't open .docx attatchments either, and have to email back asking it to be sent as an .rtf .doc or .pdf file instead.

Anyone with any version Word can download a patch which means they can open .docx files, and although it is an unbelievably crap format in lots of ways, I think it's pretty useless of any business which handles Word files day in day out not to be up to speed to that extent - Word 2007 also defaults to .docx, so it's not exactly new.

You can "save as" .rtf, or ordinary .doc, which is the easiest way.

(Word 2007 chews up .rtf files, in my experience, too - my OU students are allowed to submit it in, and I never know whether to take marks off for duff presentation or not. So they're not a panacea either.)

It's enough to make you go back to typewriter and postage stamps.

Emma



<Added>

Naomi, sorry, realise that reads as if I'm saying you're useless - I was meaning magazines and publishers and so on, of course, not real people.

Thanks so much for such a reassuring set of responses. I was sure I'd been palmed off with a useless word version. It would have helped if I'd realised that .rtf meant 'rich text format'.

In future, though, that's what I'll save as.

Sheila

This tip was recently tweeted by a US agent, but I'll park it here in case it's of interest:

Agents read subs on ereaders. For Kindle anyway subs should be in 1 of following formats: .doc, .rtf, .htm, .html, .txt, or Mobi

<Added>

No worries, Emma. It saves a lot of useless paperwork if I just email back that I can't open a .docx attachment. Most times they don't bother sending another version.

How annoying. It won't save as rich text format either. I left it ten minutes but the little ring was still revolving when I came back. No point for the computer to offer a save option that doesn't work. When I try PDF it gives me strange messages about runtime and Adobe 9.2 not working, although I end up with two versions, one of which opens in the Adobe format. So I suppose I could risk sending that if required. I get the same message when I open PDF maps on the TfL site but it opens them OK.

When I try 97- 2003 it tells me certain features may not be retained, so I guess that's what gives you the problems with your students' files.

Maybe there's something I've done with this particular short storyy document that makes it difficult to save an an .rtf file. I'll try some of the others.

Emma.

<Added>

Oh, the last bit's strange. looks as if I've put a false name.

What I meant was:

'I guess that's what gives you the problems with your students' files, Emma.'

The last sentence I've somehow inserted into the sentence.

I looked at the instruction manual and it says 'Plain text is the simplest type-there's no formatting but your file will be readable on almost any system. '

I can't imagine what it must be like to read a short story with no formatting.

I think I'll make a copy and experiment with all the different formats to see what they look like.

Sheila

another option is to Save As... Word 1997-2003 document (.doc). Most people seem to be able to open this one

<Added>

and, as far as I can tell, it looks exactly the same as the .docx version

Ok. I seem to have solved the problem. I made a copy of the file and added 2 to the title then saved it as rich text file. That was the answer -it wouldn't convert from word docx to rtf but if it's a new document not previously saved it would.

Sorry about all this. I'm relieved to think I know what to do in future.

Sheila

Thanks, Freebird. I've only had this problem, occasionally, since buying a computer with Word 2010 installed. I think it's possible to download the earlier version, but it takes up a lot of space, I should tink, to run two versions.

Sheila

I can't open .docx either. I always send mine .doc and never have probs.

Thanks, Jem. I'll just try to remember to do that in future. I haven't submitted any stories for a long time but I think I have a submissions spate coming on. I can send the 10 Flash story elsewhere, I expect.

Sheila

Sheila, my computer automatically saves to .docx too, but whenever I send any attachment out, I save it as .doc.

The problem with rtf is you can't guarantee the formatting will be the same their end, which can make a story, say, look hideous and difficult to read if the paragraphing is all over the place.

.doc will look exactly the same as .docx but is compatible with everyone, whereas .docx still isn't.

Susannah

Susannah, thanks for sharing this tip. It seems a concensus is in favour of the doc format, so that's what I'll use in future unless requested otherwise.

Sheila