Creating Custom Templates

Microsoft Word comes with several templates for creating reports, press releases, resumes, and other documents. These templates can come in handy, but, as subscriber David Ibbetson writes, "The best way to use templates is to make your own according to your tastes and needs. Built-in templates can be valuable as a source of ideas, and can sometimes be modified to meet your requirements. An off-the-shelf template is unlikely to be as satisfactory as one made-to-measure."

This is especially true of templates for editing and typesetting, which Microsoft's off-the-shelf templates simply aren't equipped to handle. Their main drawback is not having enough styles, especially for something as complicated as a book, which needs styles for everything from epigraphs to endnotes. If you'd like a template with lots of styles, please feel free to use, modify, and rename the highly generic Typespec template that comes with our Editor's ToolKit program, which you can download here:

http://www.editorium.com/14842.htm

The other drawback to Word's templates is that they don't provide enough variety. In my opinion, nearly every publication is worthy of its own design--one that fits its subject and style. For example, Moby Dick needs a different typeface (something wild and rough-hewn) than Paradise Lost (which calls for something dignified and classical). Book design is a little beyond the scope of this newsletter, so you may want to consult such books as these:

The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst.

The Printed Word, by David A. Kater and Richard Kater.

The Art of Desktop Publishing, by Tony Bove, Cheryl Rhodes, and Wes Thomas.

Desktop Publishing with Word for Windows, by Tom Lichty.

The Non-Designer's Design Book, by Robin Williams.

The Non-Designer's Type Book, by Robin Williams.

Besides the templates that you use for final formatting, you'll also need a template that you use with every document--but only while you're *editing* the document. That template should include all of the styles you'll use for final formatting (typesetting) but with typefaces, point sizes, and paragraph formatting that make editing easy. Currently, my favorite typeface for editing is Times New Roman, because its hyphens and dashes are so easily distinguishable from each other, as are its opening and closing curly quotation marks. You can download Times New Roman (and other useful fonts) free of charge from Microsoft here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm?fname=%20&fsize=

To create a custom template, follow this procedure:

1. Create a new document.

2. Paste in a bunch of text that you can play with.

3. Create and format the styles you'll need, experimenting on the pasted text (this will require time and care).

4. Delete the pasted text, leaving only the styles in your document.

5. Click the "File" menu.

6. Click "Save As."

7. In the "File name" box, give your template a name that will help you remember its purpose ("Editing.dot," "MobyDick.dot," or whatever meets your needs).

8. In the "Save as type" box, select "Document Template (*.dot)."

9. Click the "Save" button to save the template.

I recommend using the same style names in all of your templates, even though the styles will be formatted differently from template to template. Someday when you're converting hundreds of publications into a giant XML archive (or simply attaching a different template to a document), you'll be glad you did. I also recommend using Word's built-in heading styles (Heading 1 through Heading 9), which make it possible to navigate and rearrange whole sections of a document in Outline view.

Once you've created a template that you like, you can modify it as needed for other publishing projects, saving it with a new name for each one. After a while, you'll have a wide variety of templates designed specifically for *your* projects and needs.

Attaching Templates to Documents

Last week we used Microsoft Word's Style Gallery to understand one of the main reasons for using templates: to change the formatting of all of the styles in a document. You can read last week's newsletter here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704442036

Why would you want to change the formatting of all of the styles in a document? Let me suggest some reasons:

1. You're sick of editing in Garamond Ugly, which is the typeface your client has used. Why not (a) save your client's document as a template and then (b) go back to the original document and attach your own template that defines the styles in a typeface you like? When you're finished editing, you can simply attach the "client" template that you saved, which will restore your client's formatting in all of its hideous glory. For suggestions of typefaces that work well for editing, see our June 6, 2000, newsletter:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?sort=d&mid=1700934923

2. You've finished editing and you want to apply the final format to a document that's otherwise ready for printing. In the past you've saved certain elegantly designed documents as templates, so now you can attach one of those templates to your current document and create an instant masterpiece.

3. As the editor of an academic journal, you're pulling together a dozen papers from various scholars and want to give all the papers the same format. You attach your standard template, and voil?!

Note that for these scenarios to work, the documents in question must use styles that are also used in the templates you're going to attach. For example, if your document includes certain paragraphs formatted with the Heading 1 style, when you apply a *template* that uses the Heading 1 style, the formatting from the template will be copied to the headings in your document.

That is, it will if you've turned on the option to automatically update document styles. Here's the whole procedure:

1. Open the document to which you want to attach a template.

2. Click the "Tools" menu. (In Word 6 or 7, click the "File" menu instead.)

3. Click "Templates and Add-ins."

4. Click the "Attach" button.

5. Click the name of the template you want to attach.

6. Click the oddly-named "Open" button. (You'll now see the name and path of the template in the "Document template" box.)

7. Put a check in the box labeled "Automatically update document styles."

8. Click the "OK" button to attach the template to the current document and update the styles to match the formatting in the template.

I still haven't said why you should attach a template rather than use Word's Style Gallery to change your styles' formatting. Actually, the Style Gallery works just fine for that purpose. But attaching a template does more than just change the formatting of styles. It also makes certain items available in the document to which it is attached. Those items include AutoText entries, macros, and customized toolbars, menus, and key combinations--some very useful stuff! But that's a topic for another time.

Understanding Templates

A hundred years ago when I switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word, there was one thing I just didn't understand. That thing was templates. What the heck were they, anyway? How was I supposed to use them? And what did they have to do with editing?

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines "template" as a "pattern . . . used as a guide to the form of a piece being made"--a pretty good description of a template in Microsoft Word.

In my opinion, the best way to see what that means is to play around with Word's Style Gallery for five minutes. Never heard of it? Try this:

1. Open a document you've been working on (make a backup first, just in case).

2. Click the "Format" menu at the top of your Word window.

3. In Word 2000 or 2001, click "Theme."

4. Click "Style Gallery."

5. In the "Preview" box (on the lower left), click "Document" (if it's not already selected).

6. In the "Template" window (on the upper left), click the name of a template.

Now, look at the "Preview of" window on the right. You'll see what your document would look like if you were using the template you selected in the "Template" window. For example, let's say your original document uses 12-point Times New Roman for its Normal text style. If you select the "Elegant Report" template in the "Template" window, the Normal text style will suddenly be displayed in 11-point Garamond. If you've used the Heading 1 style in your document, formatted as 16-point Arial bold, let's say, the text styled with Heading 1 will be displayed in 9-point Garamond bold. Quite a difference!

Now you see one of the main things that a template does: *It changes the formatting of all of the styles in a document.* It does that, however, only if the styles in the template are the ones actually *used* in the document, which is an excellent reason to use the same, standardized style names in every document you work on. For example, if you create a style named ChapHead for chapter headings in a certain document, that style definitely *won't* pick up the formatting from the Heading 1 style in the "Elegant Report" template.

Try clicking some other templates in the Style Gallery. Each template will change the look of your document in the "Preview of" window. If you want, you can click the "OK" button to copy the styles from the selected template into your document, which will actually change your document formatting. (You can't just "undo" this, by the way. You've got that backup, right?) Or, you can click the "Cancel" button to close the Style Gallery without changing your document.

As useful as it is, the Style Gallery isn't the *real* way to use templates. The real way, especially for editing and publishing, is to *attach* them to your documents. We'll talk about that next week.

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READERS WRITE

Last week we discussed "the death of proofreading." Subscriber James Spear was kind enough to send some proofreading tips he's found useful. They're quoted here with his permission:

"As a technical writer, I typically find my self flying solo through the document creation process. Proofing my own work is a part of this process dominated by one major pit-fall--I read through certain errors, because I know what I intended to say. So, what I have actually put 'on the page' doesn't always register.

"Conversations with other tech writers have reinforced my suspicions that our brains have this marvelous ability to unconsciously interpret and correct errors as we read through our own work. This is fascinating stuff for a study of the human cognitive processes. But--it can become a major obstacle when you are working alone against a deadline.

"I have adopted two techniques for tackling my proofreading dilemma. These are recruiting my sources as proofreaders and manually inserting/reviewing the table of contents.

"In technical writing, I typically report information from engineers, technicians, and programmers. This process starts with interviewing these technical types, then concludes with writing the documents.

"I am able to keep the technical people in the process as proofreaders, simply by asking. They are often extremely reliable proofreaders for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I find that these people are generally glad to review documents that are based on information they have provided, under one condition. You have to dole things out in small chunks! If you ask someone to read through 5 or 10 pages, they will almost always say yes. If you ask someone to read 300 pages, you may gain a reputation as a nut case.

"The other technique that I have adopted for solo-proofreading affects my approach to the table of contents.

"I try to avoid using Word's automatic table of contents feature. I know this is contrary to the notion of using automatic word-processing features to save time. But--I have found that manually entering each entry into the table of contents forces me to look at each page of a document, individually.

"Rather than just reading headings and typing them into the table of contents, I use the opportunity to read each page. This forces me to slow down and address each page. I find that this type of careful reading, in small chunks, produces the best proofreading results. Once I have entered an individual item in the table of contents, I use Word's Cross-reference feature to insert automatic page numbers for each entry."

Thanks to James for his comments.

The Death of Proofreading

There you are, editing somebody's book in Microsoft Word.

If you were working 20 years ago, you'd be editing on paper. After you finished, a typesetter would retype the entire manuscript (including your changes) by hand and run out typeset galleys. Then you'd assign a proofreader to check the typesetter's work against your edited manuscript. But today, after being edited in Microsoft Word, the manuscript will *not* be retyped. In fact, it will *become* the typeset galleys. So what's the point of proofreading the galleys against the edited manuscript?

Using an electronically edited manuscript for typesetting is a good thing. It completely prevents all of the errors that would be introduced if a typesetter retyped it. But it also eliminates the opportunity to have someone comb through the text of a book *in a different way* from what the editor has done. Comparing galley proofs and manuscript point by point forces proofreaders to slow down, so they catch errors that editors overlook in a straight read-through.

If you've figured out the solution to this dilemma, I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime, what can you do as you edit electronically to prevent some of the errors a proofreader might catch in a copy-to-copy read-through?

1. Use your spell checker. As I've pointed out before, a spell checker won't catch correctly spelled words that are misused. It *will,* however, catch the most elusive of typos, and you should use it to full advantage for this purpose.

2. Use Microsoft Word's find-and-replace feature to standardize every inconsistent spelling, capitalization, and punctuation mark. You may want to use some of our programs (such as FileCleaner and MegaReplacer) to help automate this task. Please *don't* do it by scrolling through the file over and over again, hoping you'll somehow spot everything.

3. Mark typesetting spec levels with styles (such as Heading 1, Normal, and so on) to minimize the amount of formatting typesetters have to do by hand.

Does all of this electronic editing mean the death of proofreading?

Well, not quite.

The point of proofreading is to see if an error has occurred *at any point an error can be introduced* in the publishing process. So, in the old days, a proofreader basically checked every typeset character against the edited manuscript, because every time the typesetter's finger hit a key, there was a possibility for error.

Similarly, a proofreader checked every correction the typesetter made at galley stage, because for every correction there was also the possibility that the typesetter would introduce a new error.

In your electronic production process, you need to identify the places errors can be introduced. Then have a proofreader check those places. For example:

1. Try editing in Word with revision marks (tracking) turned on. Then have a proofreader double-check your revisions to make sure *you* haven't introduced errors during your editing. You'll be surprised at how many things turn up.

2. Have a proofreader check corrections made by authors or reviewers (unless, as editor, you do this yourself).

3. After typesetting, have a proofreader check formatting, widows, orphans, and breaks--all of the things that typesetters still impose on a manuscript even though they no longer retype it. In fact, you should have a proofreader check the final output for every medium in which a document will be published: print, HTML, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat, and so on. Publishing in different formats is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: You never know what you're going to get.

4. Have a proofreader read slowly through the document looking for things you may have missed while editing. This isn't proofreading in the strict sense of the word, but I'm always glad to have a second pair of eyes review my work. Maybe you are too.