Doc, txt or PDF?

[RoboticFreeze]

So i start uploading some stories on FA, but i start wondering now in what file format is the best for the readers. Maybe you got some experience with that?

 

[Sir Thaikard]

PDF is the most professional for anything back when I still worked in an office and old habits die hard.

 

[Thrashy]

PDF is more professional, but TXT can be opened on almost anything that has a display.

 

[ConorHyena]

pdf.

A lot of androids can't open a .txt

Plus, formatting and font gets messed with on any other format. And it's not editable.

What's not to like?

 

[hara-surya]

MS Doc is totally obsolete and a crappy interchange format on top of that. If your reader can't do DocX, which is 13 years old, then you need a new reader.

Txt is also obsolete outside of a handful of specialized uses in the tech world. (It's the base format for tons and tons of log files and programming and scripting languages.)

PDF is "ok" at best, but isn't capable of reflow and the readers are universally a dumpster fire for security and more crash prone than a 1972 Ford Pinto with bad brakes. If you're on a tablet or computer screen it's probably fine for reading, but if you're reading on a phone or most ebook readers you're it's probably going to be too small.

Personally, I like ePub. It's designed to allow reflow for different size screens and devices, neigh universal outside of the Amazon ecosystem and trivial to convert to any other format.

 

[Fallowfox]

I like it when the text is simply pasted into the description, because then I don't need to download anything.

Anyway, I think all of those file types are fine, but personally I make my (non furry) writing in PDFs.

I use LaTeX software to do this, with MikTeX and TeXmaker.

 

[Earyna]

.pdf, .txt, .doc

That order.
Never expect someone to be able to open a .doc file. Send me a .doc, you will receive a .odt back with the text: ".pdf please."

 

[artoni]

I do .txt mainly because I want the story visible when you're on the page, and not having to download an additional file.

 

[Jackpot Raccuki]

.PDF would be more ideal.

Truth be told I wished you could just read stories without a need to download, FA knows how to put me off from using their site.

 

[Miles Marsalis]

This came up yesterday, but doc. files are my personal preference for back compatibility reasons. You can run them on most versions of Windows. However, I would publish in pdf. because it is more professional in my opinion. It also allows for easy conversion for most reading tablets.

 

[Keefur]

As a professional printer, I use PDF files.

 

[CaregiverShade]

I use .TXT because I can use it on any writing document program I've got. Plus, when uploading it to FA, people can automatically see the text of the story instead of having to download a file to open up.