I was interested in submitting a story to Mr. Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. The little deal thing said to send it as a Microsoft Word program. But I have a Mac......which means no Word. I have a program called AppleWorks. And I have a Hotmail account. So this could be kind of sort of difficult. Is there some other way for me to submit a story, or what?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You know, Microsoft Word is available for the Mac.
Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 5938) on :
AppleWorks should be able to save a file in Rich Text Format (RTF). It's a format that preserves the text formatting (underline, margins, double-spacing, etc.), and it's compatible with MS Word.
Of course, I can't speak for them, but my guess is that would probably be acceptable.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Here's a little trick anytime someone requires something be submitted as a .doc file:
Create either a .rtf file or a .html file with the proper formatting and then rename it my_file.rtf.doc or my_file.html.doc. Word will open it up, recognize what type of file it really is, and deal with it appropriately.
The linux users had to do that to submit resumes on the BYU server.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
Tom- But it costs nearly $200 or something like that. And my parents don't want to spend the money. It is their computer.
Eric/mph- I tried this once for one of my online classes. It didn't work. Is there a way you could give me step by step instructions?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It actually costs $99, since you're a student. But I hear ya. *grin*
Posted by xtownaga (Member # 7187) on :
assuming you don't need any terribly fancy formatting, you can use one of the various programs available for macintosh that can save to word format (TextEdit, AppleWorks, Pages, OpenOffice (requires X11), etc). My experiance is they aren't great for anything that has a lot of specific formatting that has to be "just so" but they're passable.
Another thing you might be able to do is email the story to yourself as an rtf file or somesuch and then go to a library, open it up, copy/paste into the library computer's copy of word (assuming it has one, but in my very limited experiance most do), and then save and submit this word file.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
Can I scan it and then put it on an e-mail? And then e-mail it to myself and copy and paste it into Word? And then e-mail it to the magazine people?
Tom- That is more money than I have right now anyway. So it doesn't matter.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Why would you ever want to scan it? *blink* Were you planning on writing it longhand?
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
No, I don't want to type it again. I have the original program saved on another computer. This other computer is not hooked up to the Internet. When we got a new computer, my dad gave me the old one. He doesn't want me on the Internet all the time, oops, so it isn't hooked up. It is basically a glorified typewriter.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Do you have a floppy or a jump drive?
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Are they both macs?
No matter how old they are, they should either have phone jacks or USB ports. If the former, you can connect them with appletalk... it's been about 5 years since I used that, though, so my memory is foggy. If they're OS X with USB ports then it's even easier. Plug 'em in and poof, their connected. File transferring after that is a cinch.
I can't think of a mac that's been created in the past two decades without a floppy drive, or a phone jack, or a USB port.
Making Macs talk to each other is easy.
Using them to play networked Doom 2, however, is an unfathomable mystery better left to wizened sages.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
The problem is that the computer only runs discs, no floppies. And the computers are on two different floors of the house. Makes all this mumbo-jumbo computers having conversations junk difficult.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
You know, about four or five years ago people started pushing the whole computers without floppy drives thing. As I recall, the leader in that was Apple. The theory was that everyone would be networked and could share files that way, so floppies were obsolete.
Stupid.
I can't tell you how many times over the last four years the absence of a floppy or a floppy drive has caused something to go awry for me or for a student. How many papers could not be printed on time. How many presentations could not be given. etc etc etc. People need a way to transfer files not dependent on a network working. (Especially if your house doesn't have a network!)
How do most of my students get around this? They get jump drives.
jump drives = the new floppies
That's great and all. They store more, they seem less fragile. But can we admit, then, that the share-everything-over-networks idea was a flop? (Or, at the very best, ahead of its time?)
-o-
Steve, why don't you move one computer? It may be a pain, but it seems like your only out, if the file is on a computer with no internet connection and no floppy drive.
If you're not completely broke, why don't you invest in a jump drive? I've seen them reasonably cheap, and they would solve this problem and others that are certain to come up.
Here's one from Staples for $24.99. You can probably find them cheaper--I only spent a moment looking. I recommend you get one skinny enough that having it in your USB port doesn't block your other USB port.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
quote: Steve, why don't you move one computer? It may be a pain, but it seems like your only out, if the file is on a computer with no internet connection and no floppy drive.
If you're not completely broke, why don't you invest in a jump drive? I've seen them reasonably cheap, and they would solve this problem and others that are certain to come up.
1. Its a heck of a job to move the stupid juggernaut.
2. See the problem with that is, I am completely broke. And the computer I use is one of the first I-Macs. You know the blue ones? The ones that suck? Yeah, thats it.
Posted by xtownaga (Member # 7187) on :
it's hard to move an original iMac?? All you need is the computer, mouse and keyboard and I mean... they have a handle (this coming from the guy who used to bring his alienware tower w/ 17 inch CRT monitor to a friends house for faster networked games fiarly often...).
Is there a phone connection within range of the iMac though? Even if you can't leave it hooked up to the internet perhaps you'd be allowed to connect it briefly (if you don't have dial up access I think there's a way to do direct dial-up networking, though you might need two phone lines)
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
There isn't a handle on that blasted thing! I've looked! Its just monstrous. And the chances of my parents allowing me to hook it up to the internet for less than five seconds is as logical as a monkey with no arms and legs riding a unicycle.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Just use the submission form to tell us that you can't get on the internet. We'll write back and tell you where to mail the printed-out copy.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
I have AppleWorks 6 and there is an option to "save as" with a file format of "Word Windows 97, 2000, XP 2002." I don't see why this wouldn't work.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:It actually costs $99, since you're a student. But I hear ya. *grin*
I think our copy of MS Office (including Word, Excel, etc.) was $15 through the college.
Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
I have a question on this topic also. I have Microsoft Works Word Processor. If I attach a file in Works, can it be opened in regular MS Word?
Posted by xtownaga (Member # 7187) on :
there isn't a handle? I know there's on on the later model CRT iMacs... http://www.bmug.co.uk/images/other/imac.jpg see the white circle with the bar though the middle? That's the handle. The Apple Instalation Guide (that links to the pdf version of it) for the original iMac mentions the handle.
Another solution would be to get a cheep USB floppy drive from ebay (or somewhere simmilar). Typing "USB Floppy" into ebay returned a bunch of results in the $5-$15 range that would work fine on the iMac (and could then be easily reconnected to the newer computer to get the files off the floppy). Though since OSC gave you a way to mail in the story I guess you don't really need to do any of this anyway...
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
Thank you, Mr. Card.
Posted by macnewbold (Member # 7660) on :
If you don't want to pay for Microsoft Word or Microsoft Office (and you shouldn't), then take a look at OpenOffice at www.openoffice.org . It works on Windows, Mac (with x11), Linux, and more.
If you want a version customized for the Mac, check out NeoOffice.
Not only do they do the same things that Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access can, but they can also import and export to and from their formats, so you can save as a Word doc with it. They also can export the file directly to a PDF file, suitable for emailing or posting on a web page.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Not only do they do the same things that Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access can
This is not exactly true, I must hasten to point out. Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
Uh, yeah. What Tom said.
Posted by macnewbold (Member # 7660) on :
In general, they do. There are specific things that are different, and things that one does that the other doesn't. (For example, MS Office crashes frequently, and OpenOffice doesn't... ) But Tom and quid are right, they don't do exactly the same things.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
But I hear ya. *grin*
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
) But Tom and quid are right, they don't do exactly the same things.