How to Delete eHow Article Drafts

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By TomCom
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Delete eHow Article Drafts

Preferring a neat console, I simply delete unwanted, unused, expired Article Drafts. They serve no purpose, after an Article is completed and published. And, there's certainly no point in keeping a Draft for an Article you've decided not to write!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

a pesky Article Draft!

Step 1

Some Drafts are created, when you choose to view and save an unfinished Article for completion later. Drafts could be expired, from the Top Requested Article list, which were never completed within the 24 hour deadline. If you progress straight through, from start to finish, publishing your Article, there will be no Draft left over. Nevertheless, getting rid of them is a pretty straight forward process.
Step 2

Open the Editor

To delete your Drafts, you'll have to open them for editing. There are no check all / delete buttons here!
Step 3

If your Draft is incomplete, simply fill all required fields with the text in the initial box. I am speaking about the paragraph inside of the yellow highlighted box, 'Save this article as a draft within the next 30 minutes and...' Really, any text of about 50 words or so will do. Copy/paste this into the remaining steps
Step 4

Select "Save & Continue," to progress through each step, pasting the same text into each block, until you reach the end. When you get to the Category section, just pick anything out from the three windows, it doesn't matter what. Don't forget to put something in the Keywords box.
Step 5

Final step of Draft Deletion

This last step is critical. DO NOT SELECT PUBLISH!!! This is where you select '...delete this article draft.'
Don't worry, you can always edit your Published Articles later, as required!
Step 6

Final step of Article Deletion

If you accidentally hit 'Publish Article' instead of Delete on the last step, don't worry. Return to 'Manage your Articles' and select the erroneous title in the editor once again. But, this time, click on "Step 4 Publish It," then on 'Delete Article,' then 'OK' in the pop up window.
Step 7

Expanded View

Since this article was first published, a new feature has been added. 'Expanded view' allows you to see all of the publishing wizard at once. No longer do you have to click Save & Continue. After you open the wizard in expanded view, you can scroll right to the bottom of the page and, without having to fill in anything else, click to delete the article draft. Simple!
Step 8

eHow Publishing Format

Many freelance writers have found it simpler to write and complete their Articles offline. This also provides you with an original you can save to your hard drive or to a removable drive. I created my own copy of the eHow Publishing Format, using Notepad. Others prefer to use a text editor which includes spell check, although Firefox does this for me during publishing. When I have completed publishing an Article, I will save it, along with any illustrations, into its own Zip archive. Although it doesn't save a huge amount of space, since image files don't compress by much, it keeps everything well organized!

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TomCom said

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on 10/25/2009 Articles 'stuck in pending' are actually waiting to be reviewed and approved by eHow Editors before they go live. If, after they go live, you decide that you want them deleted, follow this tutorial. The deletion process is the same for Articles as it is for saved Drafts.