Cover letter form chops up my paragraphs

[davidchen83]

Pardon my ingnorance of current word processing developments. The cover letter section of the proposals page

has chopped up my paragraphs more than once in the final version that is sent to clients. I have been careful

to hit the 'return key' well before I reach the right side of the text window. Do I need to type in my 

cover letters perfectly the first time - with no edits - in order to avoid this?

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi David,

Did you copy the text from a Word document? There may have been some hidden formatting attached to that text. You can try writing the text in Notepad next time to avoid that.

[davidchen83]

Thank you for your response. In answer to your question, no,

I did not copy the text from a Word document. I use a Mac and

the "Pages" word processing program that came with it, which

does not have the Notepad function. Should I compose my documents

using the Pages program and then cut and paste the whole thing

onto the cover letter window? Do you think that might fix it?

[mtngigi]

David,

If you're on a mac, just use TextEdit program - it's always worked well for me (a mac user as well).

[kathrynbaughman · Accepted solution]

The site uses word wrap, so by hitting the return key, you are effectively chopping the proposals up yourself.  Only hit enter for a new paragraph.  This should quickly solve the problem.

[wendy_writes]

Light bulb moment; thanks Kathryn.

Valeria, you might want to use Kathryn's comment along with yours going forward.

[kochubei_valeria]

Thank you, Kathryn, for providing the solution. It's definitely better than mine

[davidchen83]

Thank you for your answer. I recall that the first cover letter I sent through Upwork was also chopped up and that time I did not hit the enter key and just typed straight through and let the system format my sentences automatically with the result that my paragraphs were chopped up and scattered that time as well. So I am thinking that some

other mechanism may be at work here. Do you have any other helpful advice?

[kathrynbaughman]

One of the biggest problems I have found is simple conversion.  If you are typing the proposal in any other text editor (of any type, be it notepad or otherwise) there is still a conversion when you are pasting the text into the proposal window.  

Unfortunately, UpWork cannot code their window to recognize and convert every single format type out there, so the best possible solution, as much as we may not like it, is to type the proposal directly in the proposal window itself.

This ensures that the only result is the result you see right there in the window, perfectly formed within the limits of the proposal space.

[davidchen83]

Thank you Kathryn. My experience has been that when I do type directly into the UpWork window

and everything looks perfect - when I hit send and then go back and view my proposal, the chopping

and scattering has occurred. At this point, I may try to compose my text in my Mac program and paste it

or I will have to carefully type in my cover letters perfectly the first time into the UpWork window and do no editing. 

. 

[kathrynbaughman]

I noticed it is doing it here on the forum as well.  I'd suggest the mac program mentioned by Virginia, but if that doesn't work then I'm really not sure what else to try other than to see if anyone in the tech department might have a solution based on your Operating System on your Mac.

[davidchen83]

Hi Kathryn, Yes, I noticed it on the forum also. And I was also thinking it may have to do with my computer, particularly the relative age difference bewteen my Mac (8 yrs) and my El Capitan operating system (1 yr). This would also account for the problem occuring with my email service as well.

So for now I may just compose all my cover letters and such as pdf files and include them as attachments in any

proposals I send out. 

Thank you very much for all of your help and advice!

Dave

[kathrynbaughman]

David,

I did a quick search to see if perhaps El Capitan is the issue and considering the volume of problems listed regarding mail programs, I'd say that is the likely culprit.  It seems that OS has quite a few quirks to it and the mail formatting issue is highly documented.  Wish I could give better news, but after that search I'm pretty sure you've found the problem and I'm afraid it simply is not one that is easily solved.

Hopefully your PDF workaround helps.  Good luck with it and do let us know how it goes!  I'm sure you're not the only Mac user who is experiencing issues, so you'll be helping others if you find a solution. 

[davidchen83]

Hi Kathryn,

Thank you very much for researching that and finding the source of the problem. El Capitan had caused other quirks in my computer after it was installed and I quess this is another more serious quirk. Oh well. It is helpful to now

know what the problem is, even if it is not readily fixable. Thanks again for your thoughtfulness and help.

Dave