As you've edited various manuscripts, you've probably noticed the propensity of some authors to type headings in all caps, as I've done with the title of this article. This holdover from the days of typewriting is, to put it bluntly, bad practice. Why? Because in typesetting or desktop publishing, putting a heading in all caps is a design decision, not an editorial one. Headings are generally set apart from body text with a different font or point size, not with capital letters.

If you leave headings in all caps, designers are going to change them anyway--probably by *retyping* them, and *without* telling you. If you're lucky, you'll catch any new typos and improper capitalizations *before* the publication goes to press. Personally, I don't like the risk.

Fortunately, Microsoft Word makes it fairly easy to change an all-caps heading to title case:

1. Select the heading you want to change.

2. Click the "Format" menu.

3. Click "Change Case."

4. Click "Title Case."

5. Click "OK."

If you did that with the title of this article, for example, you'd get this: "The Case Against Caps."

Unfortunately, as you've probably noticed, you'll still have to lowercase articles, prepositions, and conjunctions by hand to get proper title case. For example, you'd need to lowercase "Against" in the title of this article: "The Case against Caps."

Wouldn't it be nice to have a macro that took care of that automatically? Our Editor's ToolKit program includes one. Just select the text you want formatted as title case and then run the macro (called "Make Selection Title Case"). Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs will be uppercased. Commonly used articles, prepositions, and conjunctions will be lowercased. Pretty neat! You can download and try the program free of charge for 45 days:

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

What if a design calls for all caps? The caps should be applied through formatting, not typing all-cap characters. As I've said before, you should format headings with one of Microsoft Word's built-in heading styles, such as Heading 1. Then if you want headings to be set in all caps, you can do this:

1. Place your cursor in a heading formatted with the style you want to be all caps.

2. Click the "Format" menu.

3. Click "Style."

4. Click the "Modify" button.

5. Click the "Format" button.

6. Click "Font."

7. Put a check in the "All Caps" checkbox.

8. Click the "OK" button.

9. Click the next "OK" button.

10. Click the "Close" button.

All of the headings formatted with that style will now be in all caps.

Changed your mind? You can change the headings back to title case by reversing the procedure. And that may be the strongest argument in the case against caps.

After reading our last newsletter, subscriber Debby English wrote: "In your latest issue, 'Creating New Documents,' you mentioned that you have modified Word's built-in invoice template. I would like to do the same but cannot find it in my Word template directory. Can you give me a clue about where it might be and what it's called? I'm running Word 2000."

I do much of my work in good old Word 95, so I hadn't realized that the Invoice template doesn't come with Word 2000 (at least *I* sure can't find it). However, Microsoft has several free Invoice templates available for download here:

http://search.officeupdate.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/ct104.asp

If you're a freelance editor, you'll probably find the Services invoice (for billing by the hour) and the Simple invoice (for billing by the job) most useful.

If you're bidding on a job or writing a proposal, you'll find other helpful templates here:

http://search.officeupdate.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/ct103.asp

Need more? You'll find many other templates in Microsoft's Template Gallery:

http://search.officeupdate.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/default.asp

All of these templates from Microsoft will work in Word 97, 98, 2000, and 2001.

Microsoft isn't the only game in town, however. KMT Software, for example, has sample templates that you can download for free if you register with them (and, of course, templates that you can buy):

http://www.kmt.com/

Baarns Consulting offers numerous templates and add-ins that can make your work easier:

http://archive.baarns.com/Software/index4.asp

If you'd like to see a template with lots of styles for writing and editing (especially for technical books), O'Reilly & Associates provides a truly excellent one for its authors, although anyone who visits the O'Reilly site can download it:

http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/author/ch02.html#tools

Impressions has another editing template and other resources for editors working in Microsoft Word--a most impressive Web site. You can download the Impressions template at the address below. Please open the template, read the requirements, and follow them if you're going to use it:

http://www.impressions.com/resources_pgs/edit_pgs/template.html

Whether you need a template for an invoice, a memo, or a complex editing job, one of these places should have exactly what you're looking for.

In our past few newsletters, we've been talking about templates--attaching them, creating them, and so on. There's still one area we haven't talked about: creating *new* documents based on existing templates. If you're an editor, you may be thinking, "I usually work on documents someone else has created." True enough. However, as an editor you probably also:

* send letters to clients.

* send invoices to clients.

* write jacket blurbs.

* write manuscript reviews.

* send out an occasional resume.

And so on. If you create such documents using templates that fit your needs, you'll save time and frustration, and you'll also look more professional. For example, I've created a letterhead template that includes the Editorium logo from our Web site, my business address, and a date field, and I've stored it in Microsoft Word's Templates folder. When I need to write a letter, I do this:

1. Click Word's "File" menu.

2. Click "New."

3. Click my letterhead template (Letterhead.dot).

4. Click the "OK" button.

Word creates a new document with the Editorium logo, business address, and the current date. All I have to do is type in the text of my letter. Slick! I've also modified Word's built-in invoice template and created templates for different kinds of writing projects. I seldom need to create a new document from scratch.

When you *attach* a template to an existing document (as explained in previous newsletters), the styles from the template will be copied to the new document. However, any *text* in the template will *not* be copied. You'll probably use this feature most for documents you're editing.

When you use a template to *create* a new document, any text in the template *will* be copied to the new document (along with styles). You'll probably use this feature most for documents you're writing.

For example, if you write rejection letters to authors, having some "boilerplate" text in a template will save you lots of time. Just create a new document based on your Rejection template, modify the document as needed (inserting the author's name and some specific comments, for example), and you're done!

Please note that if you create a document by pressing CTRL + N or clicking the "New" button (on the far left of the Standard toolbar), Microsoft Word won't let you select a template to use. It will simply create the new document based on your Normal template. Since that's the case, you should modify your Normal template to create the kind of document you need most often.

It's midnight at the publishing house. All the cubicles are dark--except one in the back corner, where a frazzled production editor struggles to finish formatting a 700-page book that's due at press in eight short hours. Can't we do something to help?

As we've seen in our newsletters the past few weeks, Microsoft Word documents get their overall formatting from the templates attached to them. By changing a document's template, you automatically change the document's formatting. *Every* document is based on a template. If you don't attach one, Word uses the Normal template. The relationship looks like this:

Template ---> Document

Styles and paragraphs have the same kind of relationship as templates and documents. Paragraphs get their overall formatting from the styles applied to them. By changing a paragraph's style, you automatically change the paragraph's formatting. *Every* paragraph is based on a style. If you don't apply one, Word uses the Normal style. The relationship looks like this:

Style ---> Paragraph

Why does Word work like this? To give you greater and faster *control* over a document's formatting. Using templates and styles, you can instantly change the look of an entire document--or certain parts of a document, such as block quotations or headings.

Many people never even think about this. They'll go through an entire manuscript, manually formatting every single heading as Arial, 14-point, bold, small caps, 1-point condensed, center justified, exact line spacing, keep with next. It makes me absolutely crazy!

To get fast, consistent formatting throughout a manuscript, you'll need to do two things:

1. Attach a template that includes the styles you need with the formatting you want them to have. To learn more about this, see Editorium Update for the past two weeks:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?sort=&mid=1704544112

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?sort=&mid=1704628448

2. Consistently apply styles as needed. For example, you might use the Heading 1 style for part titles, Heading 2 for chapter titles, Heading 3 for subheads, and so on. You can read more about style levels in the documentation for our WordSetter program, here:

http://editorium.com/Wordset.htm/#_Toc500857368

If parts of the manuscript still don't look right, they may have directly applied font and paragraph formatting (such as Arial, 14-point, bold, small caps, 1-point condensed, center justified, exact line spacing, keep with next). Directly applied paragraph formatting is easy to remove: just select the whole document (CTRL + a) and then press CTRL + q. Unfortunately, directly applied font formatting isn't so easy to get rid of. Yes, you can select the whole document and press CTRL + SPACEBAR, but that will also remove all character formatting, such as italic, presenting a serious problem. The only solution I know of is our FileCleaner program's Standardize Font Formatting feature, which you can learn more about here:

http://editorium.com/Fileclnr.htm/#_Toc500858918

Using templates and styles is the key to formatting that looks good and doesn't take all night to finish.

Now, go home and get some sleep.