I figured now would be a good time to share what we use to make posting recs each week less of a pain in the hopes that people will copy what we do here.
THE SHORT VERSION: Google form -> Google Sheet -> Mail Merge to a markdown format -> copy and paste to tumblr.
The long version is long mostly because the google suite doesn't have native mail merge, so I wrote my own. Plus some small formatting/fiddly bits.
There's four documents involved:
1) A google form. Here's a copy of what I use. But honestly, this part feels pretty intuitive.
2) A google sheet with all the responses. Here's a clean, commented copy of what we use. I'm storing all of themes and a script to execute the mail merge. This is the one that's got all the bells and whistles in it.
3) A google doc with whatever formatting you want to use. Here's a copy of what I'm using. If you're doing mail merge a different way, you might not need this one.
4) A second google doc that's going to hold the output from the mail merge. It's a blank google doc. Just open up a new one and save it something you'll remember in the future. (used for mail merge, might not be needed if you do it a different way).
Okay, what's this about mail merge?
So the mail merge is used to help save a lot of time with formatting - by taking the responses in the spreadsheet and plopping the information as specified in the formatting document above (3).
I'm usually a word user, so I didn't realize that mail merge isn't really a thing in google docs. There's extensions that you can do to use mail merge, but a lot of them seemed to be assuming one would be using mail merge to send email, so I thought it'd be faster for me to just write my own version. It's in the spreadsheet, under the tab that says 'script'. Feel free to use an extension! It'll work just as well.
Note: You'll have to copy the script into the google sheet (under extensions). The first time you try to run it, google will send you a warning that this is an unverified script - go under advanced options and then read the fine print at the bottom. If it makes you feel any better, here's a youtube video that explains the entire script from start to finish.
So what are the actual steps?
Put this week's theme in both Question 1 of the google form and Themes!F2 in the google sheet.
Send out the form, let people do recs
Go over to the formatting tab on the google sheet. Make any changes needed.
Run the mail merge script.
Open a tumblr post, click on the gear on the top right and make sure the text editor is in markdown.
Paste what's in the second google doc (doc #4 above) into tumblr.
Preview, add graphics, tags, post
Choose the next theme from Themes!C3 and we're back to #1
So go forth! Make your own! Improve on this, and make it work for your own communities!
Special thanks to the reccers on AiFL who submit recs every week, and @professor-rye who does the graphics, as what they do on a weekly basis probably takes more time than running this every week.
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READ MORE...AI Story Generator Tool Script Screenplay Writing software Mugafi
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