TUTORIAL FOR TUMBLR WRITERS: How to Retain Formatting when Copy-Pasting your Writing from a Word Processor to a Tumblr Text Post
Hey guys! People often ask me, “Blake, what sorts of redeeming qualities do you have to offer to society?” to which I reply, “None! But I can tell you my foolproof way to retain formatting (like italicizations) when copy-pasting fanfics into the Tumblr textpost editor!”
Are you a fanfiction writer who hates having to go through your whole fic again after pasting it into Tumblr’s textpost editor, just so you can re-italicize things? Do you write long things with specific formatting that you’d like to easily transfer to Tumblr? Look no further!
In this post, I will provide detailed instructions on how to do just that. As a fanfiction writer, I discovered this technique is the best way to ensure that my italicizations, bolded texts, quotation mark directions, space-forced paragraph indents, and other formatting features of my stories will transfer over cleanly from my word processor to Tumblr. The process involves copying the rich text, using the work text editor box on the website https://archiveofourown.org/ as a rtf-html converter, and pasting the html into Tumblr. It is a clean, simple, and efficient process that I’ll outline in just 8 easy steps.
A few things to keep in mind before delving in:
Use a computer. I think it is easier to input text from a computer than it is from a phone. This tutorial details how to easily transfer text from a computer, but I’m sure you could try it out from your phone, if you think it’s possible.
DON’T WRITE LONG POSTS ON TUMBLR DIRECTLY. Please, oh please, do not make this mistake. This godforsaken website tends to crash, reload, or otherwise render itself nonfunctional at the most inopportune times. You do not want to find yourself in the tragic position of having to reconcile lost work, all because you were writing something in Tumblr’s unreliable text editor. (In fact, I’m writing this tutorial post currently on an iCloud backed-up note on my computer!)
You’ll need to have (or make) an AO3 (i.e. Archive of our Own) account in order for this technique to work. I know there are websites that’ll convert rtf files into html, but I tend to eschew internet downloads out of fear of downloading malware (which I’ve done on accident). AO3 has worked well for me.
Alright. Here are the steps!
1. Open your completed, ready-to-publish fanfic or work of writing. I write and edit my fanfics entirely on Google Drive (as seen below in the screenshot) but you could also do this from Word or any other word processor. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m using the text from Chapter 1 of my Queen/Almost Famous crossover fanfic It’s All Happening (read it here!!!). You can see how I have formatted at least two lines of italicized text (my first two lines). If I were to copy-paste from Drive into Tumblr, that italitization will sadly disappear.
2. Copy all of the text to your clipboard, and open https://archiveofourown.org/ . You will want to log in to your AO3 account.
3. On the home page of AO3, hover your cursor over “post” on the top right-hand side, and select “New Work.”
4. This will take you to the “Post New Work” page. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, to the editor box that says “Work Text*”. Don’t paste your text yet. First, click on the button that says “Rich Text” on the right-hand side of this editor box.
5. Now that the Rich Text editor button is selected, paste your writing into the editor box. You should see that the italicizations are still intact.
6. Now, click on the button that says “HTML.” Control+A and then copy the entire HTML code onto your clipboard. You’ll see that this HTML contains coded instructions for italicizations and other formatting.
7. Next, go to https://www.tumblr.com/ in a new tab on your browser, and log in to your Tumblr blog. Click the “new post” button and select “Text.” Click on the little Settings icon at the top-right of the textpost editor. Go down to the row that says “Text Editor,” which should default to “Rich Text” but you’ll want to select the option HTML.
8. Paste the HTML code in your clipboard into the HTML text box on Tumblr. (Troubleshoot: if it didn’t work the first time, go back to AO3 and re-copy the HTML text, and try pasting onto Tumblr again.) Scroll up to the top of the Tumblr textpost editor, click again on the Settings icon at the top right, and change the Text editor back to “Rich text.”
BOOM! VOILÀ! Your work of writing should now be perfectly formatted into a Tumblr textpost with minimal work and without having to go back through your writing and re-format everything!
At this point, you may add my appropriate headers, any photos/GIFs you’d like to include in the text, tags for other blogs (such as in my taglist), tags, embedded links (they may have copied over but idk for sure) etc!
I hope this tutorial helped in some way/shape/form, my fellow writers! Please reblog to share this post if you found this helpful! Thank you so much ♡ —Blake ( @sweet-ladyy )
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