An important part of editing is marking type specification levels in a manuscript. The Chicago Manual of Style describes the process like this:

"Each item in the opening of an article or of a preface, chapter . . . , appendix, or other section of a book (title, chapter number, etc.) is marked for its particular type size, style, and placement. . . . Specifications for text, subheads, block quotations, and similar elements must also be given, at least at the first occurrence of each. Thereafter, handwritten 'codes' added during editing identify similar elements for the typesetter. . . . Increasingly, however, a much more abbreviated form of markup is being used that relies on the typesetter to follow directly the design layouts and detailed list of specifications provided by the publisher's design department. All the editor need do is provide, during editing, the traditional codes for elements that would not be obvious to the operator. The various levels of subheads, for instance, must be indicated for the typesetter, usually by circled alphabetical or numerical codes (A, B, C or 1, 2, 3, etc.)." (14th edition, 2.135.)

A footnote adds this:

"Such codes written by hand on the manuscript correspond to the codes used on electronic manuscripts, which are part of the electronic files; both serve the same identifying function. If a manuscript (or printout) coded by hand is to be produced electronically, the handwritten codes are translated into electronic codes."

Now, if you're editing directly in Microsoft Word, you don't *have* any handwritten codes. So how are you going to mark spec levels?

@BODY:Some editors mark them by entering typesetting codes directly into the manuscript, as I've done at the beginning of this paragraph. If you're a QuarkXPress user, you'll probably recognize that code as an XPress Tag. QuarkXPress translates XPress Tags into style sheets, which work a lot like styles in Microsoft Word. Entering all those codes seems like a lot of work, though, even if you have each code in a macro and assign the macros to function keys. Those codes also mess up the pristine appearance of your beautiful Word document, and they may confuse authors and reviewers. There ought to be a better way.

Well, you could just mark spec levels with styles. For example, you could mark part titles with Word's Heading 1 style, chapter titles with Heading 2, and subheads with Heading 3. If you're typesetting in Microsoft Word (some people do), applying styles should take care of all of your paragraph-level formatting.

If you're typesetting in QuarkXPress, however, you may want to try our QuarkConverter program (which is also included with Editor's ToolKit Plus). QuarkConverter adds XPress Tags for all the styles in a document, for character formatting (such as italic and bold), and for various typographic niceties, and it converts special characters (which include dashes and quotation marks) from PC to Macintosh or vice versa. It also converts Word index entries into QuarkXPress index entries, which means you can index in Word but have page numbers in your index reflect the pagination in your QuarkXPress document. You can learn more about QuarkConverter here:

http://www.editorium.com/14846.htm

No matter what typesetting program you use, I'd love to know how you code your electronic manuscripts or otherwise prepare them for typesetting, and I'd be glad to include your comments in our next newsletter. If you're willing to share your procedure, please send an email message here: mailto:hints [at symbol] editorium.com. Thanks!

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READERS WRITE

Subscriber Audrey Dorsch (exchange@ica.net) sent this recommendation for a mouse:

"I put up with a temperamental mouse for years. (Don't ask me why except for ingrained thrift that resists replacing anything as long as it still functions.) When it finally gave up the ghost I treated myself to a Logitech cordless mouse with scrolling wheel and an extra, thumb-operated, button. All the buttons are programmable for whatever function I choose. What a joy. Worth every penny of the $85(CDN) it cost."

Maarten Reilingh (maarten@ulster.net) kindly provided the procedure for changing screen resolution and other settings on a Macintosh:

"To change screen resolution use the Monitor control in the Monitors and Sound control panel.

"To change menu and other display fonts and font sizes use the Appearance control panel (Fonts tab).

"Control panels may be accessed in various ways depending on how your OS is configured, but usually they are available from the Apple pull-down menu. Once you open these control panels, everything else is pretty intuitive; just select the desired settings."

Hilary Powers (hilarypowers@earthlink.net) described her interesting uses of voice-recognition software:

"I get a lot of mileage out of an elderly voice command program called Kurzweil Voice Pro. It doesn't do continuous dictation - but I'm not really into dictation anyway, and it's fine for three or four words at a time.

"It's brilliant for control of the machine, as it can fool virtually any Windows program into thinking its input is really coming from the mouse or the keyboard. "Page-down!" would do just what your correspondent wants, with no special programming or training (beyond the basic read-in of the voice).

"And you can record any sequence of keystrokes and call it anything you want. Fr'example, I have 'Style-that!' pick up the selected text, move to the style sheet document, and drop the text there. Then (after I enter the part of speech or do whatever note-taking I need re the style item) 'Head-on-back!' moves the insertion point in the style sheet to a new line, returns to the main file, and deselects the text.

"There needn't be any externally obvious relationship between what you say and what you get - if your author makes a consistent mistake that's too complex to correct with a search&replace operation or a macro that runs through the whole file, but always takes the same keystrokes to fix once you find it, you can call it something satisfying like 'Curl-up-and-die!' Then you put your insertion point where the sequence needs to begin, speak rudely to your computer, and watch it do the work. Very satisfying....

"I've actually bought L&H Voice Express, which is supposed to do all this and continuous dictation too, but haven't been able to make it work for me -- mainly because I'm too comfortable with Kurzweil to go through the learning curve, but also because it seems to be much more sensitive to its microphone input. Headsets drive me buggy, and KV works happily enough with a good desk mike cantilevered out so it sits close to my mouth. L&H VE gets confused and grumpy with the same system, so it's not predictable enough to feel worth working with. L&H bought Kurzweil a couple of years ago, and was at least for a while selling the Kurzweil product as well as its own. Dunno if it's still available, but it might be worth a try."

Thanks to all for their suggestions.

I finally went out and bought that new monitor I mentioned last week--a 19-inch Sony that looked great in the store (playing the Jurassic Park DVD!). But when I got it home and hooked it up, it didn't look so good. The characters in Microsoft Word looked jagged, and the toolbar icons were huge! Couldn't it do better than that? Then it struck me: on a monitor that was capable of 1600 by 1200 resolution, I was displaying 1024 by 768. No wonder! I quickly increased the resolution to the max, using the following procedure (I'm running Windows 98; if you're a Macintosh user and would like to explain how to do this on a Mac, I'd love to include your instructions in next week's newsletter):

1. Right-click the Windows desktop.

2. Click "Properties."

3. Click the "Settings" tab.

4. In the "Screen area" box, move the slider all the way to the right.

5. Click the "OK" button.

6. Follow any additional on-screen prompts.

Wow, were those characters ever fine! And tiny! Maybe I'd gone a little overboard. I repeated the procedure, this time setting the resolution at 1400 by 1050. Much better! And still beautiful to look at. After doing some editing in Microsoft Word, however, I decided that the lettering on Word's menus was still a bit small for my middle-aged eyes. But I liked that high resolution. What could I do?

I increased the menu font size with this procedure:

1. Right-click the Windows desktop.

2. Click "Properties."

3. Click the "Settings" tab.

4. Click the "Advanced" button.

5. Click the "General" tab.

6. In the "Font Size" box, select "Large Fonts."

7. Click the "OK" button.

8. Click the next "OK" button.

9. Follow any additional on-screen prompts.

Better, but the menus could still be easier to read. How about putting them in bold? I tried this procedure:

1. Right-click the Windows desktop.

2. Click "Properties."

3. Click the "Appearance" tab.

4. Click the "Normal" menu in the sample display window.

5. On the bottom right, click the "B" (bold) button.

6. Click the "OK" button.

(Actually, while I was in there, I also selected "Icon" in the "Item" box and set its font to bold.)

For the first time in years, reading my computer's menus and icon labels was easy. I should have adjusted those settings a long time ago.

If you spend most of your day editing on the computer, trying to differentiate between opening and closing quotation marks, between em dashes and en dashes, you too may benefit by setting your computer display exactly the way you want it.

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READERS WRITE

After reading last week's newsletter on hardware for editors, one subscriber wrote:

"I'm a big fan of the Kensington Turbo Mouse (aka the Expert Mouse, I think), which is really a trackball. It doesn't *look* ergonomically designed, but it seems to work for a great many people, and because it's got 4 programmable buttons you can create very useful shortcuts. I've used one for years at home and at work, and was horrified when a few months back it looked like they weren't going to produce a USB version, but they did.

"I haven't tried any of the newer Kensington trackballs (the things that have scroll rings, etc.) because the device itself does not fit a small hand.

"I'd be interested some time in discussion of voice-input software (or whatever you call it) for editors. (If you've dealt with this before, ignore this and let me know where!) This has been discussed briefly and intermittently on the copyediting list, and I know some people use it to cut down on repetitive motions. Me, I want it because (I confess) I knit while I'm doing the last read-through on a long project (it helps me stay focused, or at least awake), and I'd love a way to get the document to scroll up and down without having to put down my knitting!"

Thanks for this interesting suggestion. If you're an editor who uses voice-recognition software, we'd love to hear how you use it.

This week I've been shopping around for a new monitor. That got me thinking about what editors need in the way of computer equipment. If you work for a corporation, the powers-that-be probably think like this: "Editors just do word-processing, so they don't need much of a computer." Then they buy you something cheap and slow.

In reality, however, editors need something more than a garage-sale 486 with 16 megs of RAM. If you're serious about editing on the computer (which you should be), you'll need the fastest machine you (or management) can afford. Why? Because you're doing more than rearranging commas in a one-page letter. If you're like me, you're working on books with hundreds of pages, dozens of headings, complex formatting, and thousands of footnotes. And you're probably doing time-consuming stuff like this:

* Converting batches of files from one format to another (WordPerfect to Microsoft Word, for example).

* Running numerous search-and-replace routines to clean up text and make things consistent.

* Running macros (such as our add-in programs) to torture text and formatting into the form you need.

The most expensive resource you or your employer has is *your time.* If you have to sit for ten minutes while your computer huffs and puffs its way through some automated procedure, you need to invest in a machine that will make you more productive.

Don't focus solely on speed, however. For someone who's editing for many hours at a stretch, other things are equally (or more) important:

* Your monitor should be as large and as clear as you can get. Seventeen inches should be the *minimum* size. Back in the '80s, I wrote a book using a suitcase-sized "portable" with an eight-inch monochrome monitor. Never again. I've also worked on a 21-inch flat-screen beauty with .24mm dot pitch and a fast screen-refresh rate. Sheer bliss. If you have to choose between a bigger, better monitor and a faster processor, you should probably go for the monitor, which you'll be looking at all day long. Not convinced? How valuable is your eyesight? By the way, ten minutes of *looking* at monitors at your local computer store will give you a much better idea of what you like than two hours of researching the Internet.

* Your keyboard should be responsive, reliable, and comfortable to use. Keyboards are relatively cheap, so get yourself a good one. For example, you might like Microsoft's Natural Keyboard Pro:

http://shop.microsoft.com//Products/Products_Feed/Online/NaturalKeyboardPro%5B679%5D/ProductOverview.asp

Using a good keyboard may spare you the pain and expense of having carpal-tunnel surgery, which more than one of my colleagues has had to endure.

* Your mouse should feel good in your hand and not have to be babied along. If you have a bad mouse, you're probably not even aware of how much time you spend fighting it. Check out the Intellimouse Optical from Microsoft:

http://shop.microsoft.com//Products/Products_Feed/Online/IntelliMouseOptical%5B10037%5D/ProductOverview.asp

You might also be interested in a trackball, mouse-pen, or other input device.

There are many other things to consider: desks, chairs, wrist pads, screen filters, copy holders, and so on. You may not be able to afford everything you need all at once, but if you keep upgrading as you can, you'll be investing in your health, your comfort, and your productivity.