Upload Tips
Article upload tips:
First and foremost, titles should not have special charaters such as quotation marks ("), explination marks (!) or other
marks/symbols that are used in program code. They may work or they may produce and unreadable title.
Fish n' Clips Magazine requires that all stories and articles be in text (.txt) format. This helps us keep all
the bad guys from doing bad things to the web site. I’m sure situations will arise that aren’t addressed here
so if you have trouble, let us know what the problem is and we’ll find a solution. The Fish n' Clips Forum has
sections devoted to articles/photography. Check it out to get more information on this topic or to post new information.
Most people use word processing software to write their stories and they are automatically saved in that
software’s default format. To save your story in .txt format, open a simple text editor such as Notepad (in Windows: go to Start, All
Programs, Accessories menu) or a similar program that has the option to save in plain text (.txt) format.
Open your story file and copy it (Ctrl-A, then Ctrl-C), move your cursor to the Notepad window and paste (Ctrl-V).
Do not include headers, footers, the title or your name in the text file. The title and your name are entered
in the upload form and will appear twice if it is in the text file.
The first 200 characters will be printed with the photo and a link to the rest of the story so make the
first few lines attention grabbers. Make the reader want to see the rest of the story.
Fix the appearance, if necessary, text files do not support all the functions of word processing programs.
Basically, they recognize word wrap and carriage returns and punctuation. Don’t use features such as tables or columns.
The photo and article are two separate files. Don’t use the features of the word processing software to
insert photos into your document; they can’t be uploaded in the text file.
We suggest creating a folder such as ‘FishnClips Upload’ to put the files you want to upload to the magazine,
including the text version of a story and the associated photo file. Make sure you note the path name for
this file, even though the upload page has a ‘browse’ function, that won’t help much if you don’t know where to browse!
Save your story using the ‘Save As’ option under ‘File’, locate the ‘FishnClips Upload’ file to save your
file into, name your file, Save as type: ‘Text file (.txt)’, and click ‘SAVE’.
Be sure to have your photo (properly sized and in the correct format) saved in the upload file and you’re
ready to go to the Fish n Clips Upload page to publish your work.
Here are a few photo upload tips:
If your intention is to publish your photos online, you do not need to use the highest mega pixel setting
on your camera. Online photos are not that sophisticated. A medium setting is fine and will take up less memory.
Once you have downloaded your pictures to your computer and have chosen which one(s) to publish, you must do a little
editing to make them uploadable. Most pictures out of your camera are at least 1.5 megabyte files or larger. These
have to be reduced to under 200K to upload and must be in jpg format.
In your photo editing program, resize the photo to 480 x 640 pixels. This is the size we put on this magazine. Your
photo can be slightly larger but if it is smaller the quality will be affected when the photo is enlarged to show online.
If your picture is not in jpg format you must save it as a jpg file using a photo editing program that has that function.
There are some good, free ones on the internet or that you can download that resize photos and save into other formats.
When resizing your photo and saving it for upload, rename it so it does not replace your original photo. You may need
that high quality copy for printing out a copy or selling to a magazine!
If your resized photo, now 480 X 640, is over the file size limit of 200K, it is because the photo's compression level,
expressed in dpi (dots per inch) is greater than 300. 300 dpi is a standard for printing business cards and other printing
projects but is actually quite large for website viewing. So simply reduce the dpi in the editing software to 300 dpi or less
and you'll find that even a 4 megabyte photo will reduce to 130K when resize down to 480 X 640.
If your photo is accompanying an article, it helps to link the names together and have everything in one place
for upload. For example, create a folder named "fishnclips uploads" and save your article: your_article.txt and photo:
your_photo.jpg into that file. Make the name and location something easy for you to recognize.
Have some great tips you've found to make it easier to upload to the magazine? Post them on the Forum
for others to use.
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