AEC Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 Anyone else having this issue? DS has the titles of a few plays in his college essays, entered through common app's website. They look correct when entered, but there's a 'preview' that generates a PDF that is apparently what the reviewers actually see. In that, each sequence of italicized words comes out on it's own line. Like the above. Same if you use underlining. We tried generating the 'preview' on both a chromebook and a mac. Same result. Anyone else getting this? Google is failing to find this issue for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 Does he have the option to save his work in a separate document, then save/print it as a pdf, and then upload the document to the Common App? Instead of copy/paste text into the form? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 Did he type it into the comment box directly or copy and past it from a word processing document like Word? If it is the latter (which I expect it is), try eliminating the italics in that document and then redoing them once he's pasted it into the comment box by using the tool there. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 I would try to upload it as a pdf. I had trouble with this though with my school profile because the document then wound up being too large as a pdf. But I’m not that great with all the tech stuff. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEC Posted September 9, 2019 Author Share Posted September 9, 2019 He cut-and-paste from the screen of a GoogleDocs file. If original source matters, then I wonder if this is about the editor leaving hidden markup tags in the document that it doesn't render correctly (<shudder> memories of wordStar come rushing back to me). We'll try rm'ing the whole text and see if it works if you have nothing else. also...directly uploading a PDF? I didn't see an option for that in the essays...but Ill look again. That'd be the way to go! If everyone else isn't also having this problem then we're clearly doing something wrong, so we'll try again. thanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 I've read of other students having this issue. I think that the problem with with the student preview itself, rather than with the document. I've seen counselors who say when they look at the document in their counselor/advisor preview window that the italics look normal. He could also submit a trouble ticket with Common App for more help. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 1 hour ago, AEC said: He cut-and-paste from the screen of a GoogleDocs file. If original source matters, then I wonder if this is about the editor leaving hidden markup tags in the document that it doesn't render correctly (<shudder> memories of wordStar come rushing back to me). We'll try rm'ing the whole text and see if it works if you have nothing else. also...directly uploading a PDF? I didn't see an option for that in the essays...but Ill look again. That'd be the way to go! If everyone else isn't also having this problem then we're clearly doing something wrong, so we'll try again. thanks. I don't know what rm'ing is, but I would first try removing any formatting that isn't regular single spaced text and returns. Copy and paste that into the box in the Common App. Then use their tools to add italics and extra returns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 10 hours ago, AEC said: also...directly uploading a PDF? I didn't see an option for that in the essays...but Ill look again. That'd be the way to go! I just took a look, and I realize I am incorrect. It doesn't look like you have the option to upload a pdf. Please try the other suggestions in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEC Posted September 15, 2019 Author Share Posted September 15, 2019 yeah - we looked and it seems like you have no choice but to enter it as text. We cleaned up all of the text, just typed it directly into the box and italicized something, then hit review. And are seeing the same problem. DS decided that he'd rather risk having the reviewers see it with an extra new-line (and expects that they'd understand where it came from) than risk having it show up un-italicized and having them think he didn't know how to correctly identify the title of a play....so he's going with italics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted September 15, 2019 Share Posted September 15, 2019 Their help desk is very responsive. You might try contacting them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanchGirl Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 On 9/8/2019 at 8:11 PM, AEC said: Anyone else having this issue? DS has the titles of a few plays in his college essays, entered through common app's website. They look correct when entered, but there's a 'preview' that generates a PDF that is apparently what the reviewers actually see. In that, each sequence of italicized words comes out on it's own line. Like the above. Same if you use underlining. We tried generating the 'preview' on both a chromebook and a mac. Same result. Anyone else getting this? Google is failing to find this issue for me. My son is having the exact same issue. However it appears to be just in the preview in the essay section (as another poster has stated). If he previews the entire application (as if he were about to submit to a college), the issue is not there. The paragraphs also have more space in the final preview. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.