One of the problems of editing on-screen is that punctuation marks are harder to see than on paper. Is that speck on my screen a period or just spray from my Diet Coke? (Sorry. Didn't mean to gross you out.) There's an easy remedy for this--one I like a lot. Just create a character style that's big and bold and colorful. Then record a macro to find and replace punctuation marks with themselves, formatted with your character style. Here's how:

Creating the Paragraph Style

1. Click the "Format" menu.

2. Click "Style" (in Word 2002, "Styles and Formatting").

3. Click the "New" button (in Word 2002, "New Style").

4. In the "Name" box, type a name for your new style--"Punctuation," maybe, or "Jots and Tittles."

5. In the "Style type" box, select "Character."

6. Click the "Format" button.

7. Click "Font."

8. If it's not already selected, click the "Font" tab.

9. Under "Font," select a font you'd like to use, but make sure it has easily distinguishable punctuation marks. Times New Roman is my all-time favorite for this purpose.

10. Under "Font style," select "Bold."

11. Under "Size," select something nice and big. Try 18 points for starters (for text that is regularly 12 points). You can adjust this as you like.

12. Under "Font color," select red or blue--whatever you like.

13. Click the "OK" button.

14. Click the next "OK" button.

15. Click the "Close" button (except in Word 2002).

Recording the Macro

1. Click the "Tools" menu.

2. Click "Macro."

3. Click "Record New Macro."

4. In the "Macro name" box, give your macro a name, something like "BigPunctuation" (no spaces allowed in macro names).

5. If you like, assign the macro to a toolbar button or keyboard shortcut by clicking the appropriate buttons and following the prompts on your screen.

6. If necessary, click the "Close" button. You should now see the macro recording toolbar with its two buttons, which means Word is now recording what you do.

7. Click the "Edit" menu.

8. Click "Replace."

9. In the "Find what" box, enter some punctuation you want to include--let's say a comma.

10. In the "Replace with" box, enter the same punctuation you included in the "Find what" box.

11. Click the "Format" button (you may need to click the "More" button before this is available).

12. Click "Style."

13. Select your new style from the list.

14. Click the "OK" button.

15. Make sure the "Search" box says "All."

16. Click the "Replace All" button. That will replace all of your commas with themselves but formatted with your new style.

17. Repeat steps 7 through 16 for each punctuation mark you want to format with your new style. I recommend periods, commas, semicolons, colons, single quotation marks, double quotation marks, hyphens, en dashes, em dashes, and anything else you have trouble seeing. Don't overdo it, though. The point is to *see* the little stuff, not to get lost in a forest of overgrown punctuation.

18. Click the "Tools" menu.

19. Click "Macro."

20. Click "Stop Recording."

Now run the macro (Tools > Macro > Macros > [select the macro] > Run), and it will format your punctuation so it's easy to see. Of course, the macro will remain available for future use--you don't have to record it every time you do this.

A possible drawback to all of this is that the enlarged punctuation may expand your line spacing here and there, making your document look kind of funny. But if you can live with that, you'll probably come to like working with those "big commas." Another drawback is that any new punctuation you *type* in the document won't be big, bold, and colorful--unless you format it with the new style or run the macro periodically, but that seems like a lot of extra work to me. There is another solution, but that's a subject for another day.

"How do I get rid of the big formatting after I've finished editing?" you're now asking. The easiest way is just to delete the style from the document. But don't forget to do it! Otherwise, your client will think you're pretty weird. Here's the procedure:

1. Click the "Format" menu.

2. Click "Style" (in Word 2002, "Styles and Formatting").

3. Select the style you created earlier to format your punctuation.

4. Click the "Delete" button (in Word 2002, you must first click the dropdown arrow on the right of the style's name).

5. When Word asks if you really want to delete the style, click the "Yes" button.

6. Click the "Close" button (except in Word 2002).

Now all of your perfectly edited punctuation will be returned to its regular formatting.

You'll thank me when you go to the optometrist.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Charles Kenyon's Microsoft Word FAQ includes an astounding amount of information about Microsoft Word. You'll find tips, tutorials, downloads, links, and lots of other stuff. Explore and enjoy!

http://www.addbalance.com/word/index.htm

If you've done much editing in Microsoft Word, you've probably used Track Changes (Revisions), which marks deleted and added text so you can review (or let someone else review) your editing. If you haven't used it, here's how to turn it on:

1. Click the "Tools" menu.

2. Click "Track Changes."

3. Click "Highlight Changes."

4. Put a check in the box labeled "Track changes while editing." (While you're there, you can also decide whether or not to show ["highlight"] changes on your screen or in the printed document.)

5. Click the "OK" button.

Or, what the heck, just double-click the "TRK" box in the status bar at the bottom of your screen. You can also right-click the box to set various options.

One of the options is what color to use to designate deletions and additions--blue, turquoise, and so on (scroll down to see the more unusual colors). The most interesting color is the one labeled "By author." What's it do? Well, my own "author" color, by default, is red. If, however, I open a document from you, your tracked changes will show up in a different color, probably blue. So "By author" tells word to assign a different color to changes from a different user. How does Word know the document is from a different user? Because of the name that was specified under Tools > Options > User Information > Name when the document was created.

And that suggests an interesting trick. If you're going to track changes, why not track different *kinds* of changes in a way that will be helpful to you? The most obvious application of this idea would be to track big changes (such as moving paragraphs around) and small changes (such as moving commas around) separately. All you have to do is change the name under User Information to something like "Big Changes" before getting out the cleaver, and to something like "Little Changes" before getting out the tweezers. The obvious advantage of this is that little changes then show up in a different color *inside* of big changes, which doesn't happen if you make all of your changes using the same user name (and thus the same color).

You can even record each name change in its own macro and assign those macros to menus, toolbar buttons, or keyboard shortcuts for easy access. You can learn more about doing so here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706651129

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707286867

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707444986

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707100224

(Reader's Write column)

After you've finished marking big and little changes (or whatever), don't forget to set your user name back to your actual name.

Now, there are plenty of changes you probably don't want to track at all. For example, before I ever start reading a document, I first clean up multiple spaces, multiple paragraph breaks, and lots of other stuff that gets in the way of real editing. I do this with Track Changes turned off (using our FileCleaner and MegaReplacer programs) because I don't consider these to be significant changes. I don't want to review them, and I don't think my authors care about reviewing them. I do, however, want to have any significant changes available for review, and the tracking trick of changing the user name makes this eminently doable.

You can learn about FileCleaner here:

http://www.editorium.com/14845.htm

And you can learn about MegaReplacer here:

http://www.editorium.com/14843.htm

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

After reading about using background colors in last week's newsletter, Chuck Tucker (ctucker@ieee.org) wrote:

I don't know about your version of Word, but background colors (other than white on blue) only work in Normal view. They go away when you switch back to Print View.

I have a couple of other observations.

1. When I switch to Normal view with ToolsOptionsView Style Area Width set greater than zero I get the usual display of styles along the left margin.

2. When I set a new background color in the Normal view the styles in the margin disappear (Area Width = 0)??

3. Switching back to Print Layout view gets rid of the background.

4. Switching back to Normal view omits the background color and returns the Styles in the margin.

Go figure?

However, if you simply use the standard "white on blue background" option, then the Styles margin display remains when switching back and forth.

Thanks to Chuck for sending these "gotchas."

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

The Microsoft Office "Tools on the Web" site offers some terrific instruction on using the Track Changes feature:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/track%20changes.asp

Last week's newsletter suggested various ways to change the view in Word as a way to pick up errors missed during a first editing pass. You can read the newsletter here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1710581825

Unfortunately, I forgot to include one method that is both effective and easy to use--a feature called "Blue background, white text." Here's how to turn it on:

1. Click the "Tools" menu.

2. Click "Options."

3. Click the "General" tab.

4. Put a check in the box labeled "Blue background, white text."

5. Click the "OK" button.

That will display your document with white text on a blue background, just like the old WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS--definitely a new way to view your document. You may find that you actually prefer working with this feature turned on--it's certainly easy on the eyes. If so, when you're ready to give your document a second look for missed typos, just turn the feature off, reverting to black text on a white background.

If you want other background colors (bright green!), they're certainly available, at least since Word 97. Here's how to get them:

1. Click the "Format" menu.

2. Click "Background."

3. Click the color you want to use.

Note that using this feature overrides the blue background (but not the white text) of "Blue background, white text," if you have it turned on, so you'll probably want to turn it off before using a background color. Also, happily, background colors don't print; as the Help file notes, they're designed for "viewing documents only"--which is exactly what we want. (Background colors are also useful in creating Web pages, but that's another story.)

By the way, you may find that you like editing in some of the background colors. As I write this, I'm using the light green on the bottom row of standard colors--a nice change from Word's usual stark white. If the standard colors aren't enough, you can click "More Colors" and really get crazy. Furthermore, once you've set a color you like, you can save it in a template that you can attach to any document you like. Just be sure to reattach the regular template before sending the document out into the real world.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Several readers sent suggestions about reading documents in a new way to catch additional typos.

Nancy Newlin (nancynewlin@earthlink.net), who inspired this week's article, wrote, "Here's another one I learned many years back that 'tricks' the eyes into thinking they're seeing something new: print the document on something other than white paper--yellow, green, blue, etc. Then it all looks NEW. Works for me!"

Preston Earle wrote, "Another effective way to spot typos is to read the document backwards."

Dave Erickson suggested reading aloud as a way to catch errors.

In a follow-up to Lyon's Law of Typos, mentioned in last week's newsletter, Marie Shear wrote, "Shear's Law of Typos, discovered by a widely unheralded writer and editor, specifies that the number of errors is directly proportional to the number of copies that have just been distributed and to the rank of the recipients."

I'd seen the law in action, but now I know its discoverer!

Many thanks to Nancy, Preston, Dave, and Marie for their messages.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

After reading about Lyon's Law of Typos in last week's newsletter, Steve Dobney sent a link to a wonderful article, "Muphry's Law," by John Bangsund, who served for many years as editor for the Australian-based (Victoria) Society of Editors Newsletter. You'll find John's article here:

http://users.pipeline.com.au/bangsund/muphry.htm

You'll also enjoy John's Web site, Threepenny Planet, which features information about him and several delightful articles about the publishing world:

http://users.pipeline.com.au/bangsund/

For readers of Editorium Update, John particularly recommends "On Looking It Up":

http://users.pipeline.com.au/bangsund/ramble.htm)

and "How I Became an Editor":

http://users.pipeline.com.au/bangsund/howcomed.htm

If you're looking for a highly experienced freelancer, you'll probably be interested in John's services. You can reach him here:

mailto:bangsund [at symbol] pipeline.com.au

And you can see his curriculum vitae here:

http://users.pipeline.com.au/bangsund/cv.htm

Thanks to Steve and John.

Lyon's Law of Typos: On your first glance at a newly typeset document, you will immediately discover an error you missed while editing.

Why this maddening experience occurs is a mystery to me, but it's nevertheless true that when I see a document in a new form, I also spot "new" errors. If this is true for you, too, you can use Microsoft Word to turn it to your advantage. How? By changing the way you view a document in Microsoft Word.

Let's say you've already "finished" editing a document--you've made everything consistent, fixed errors of fact, run a spell-check, and so on. Ordinarily, you'd send it off to be typeset--*after* which you'd spot those additional typos. This time, however, why not try reading through the document again after changing the way it's displayed? You could try any of the following:

* If you've been working in Normal view, switch to Print Layout view (under the View menu)--or vice versa.

* Read the document in Outline view (under the View menu).

* Change the Zoom percentage to something radically bigger or smaller than what you've been using (View > Zoom).

* Attach a different template (using the same style names) to display your type in a different color and font. If you're going to do this, make sure you have a "real" template that you can attach later to restore the document's true formatting. You can learn more about this here:

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

* Switch to Draft font. You've never used Draft font? It shows text in a plain font with a minimum of formatting. Here's how to display it:

1. Click "View."

2. Click "Normal" (you must be in Normal view to use Draft font).

3. Click "Tools."

4. Click "Options."

5. Click the "View" tab.

6. Put a check in the box labeled "Draft font."

7. Click the "OK" button.

Word 2000's Draft font has a bug that prevents the display of bold and italic, as explained here:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q210585

But in other versions of Word, Draft font works fairly well and is definitely a different way to look at your documents.

Will using one of these methods eliminate typos in typesetting? Well, probably not. After all, Lyon's Law of Typos is a law. But another read-through in a different view should help catch some of those errors.

You can see a long list of other amusing (and often true) laws here:

http://www.cpuidle.de/edition.htm

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

After reading the article above, you may be interested in some other strategies for spotting errors. If so, you'll probably enjoy the Proofreading Strategies page at Purdue University Online Writing Lab. Much of the information is aimed at college students, naturally enough, but there are still some helpful tips here:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_proof.html

Sometimes to find or replace a Unicode character in Microsoft Word, you need the character's number, as explained in the June 12, 2002, issue of Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1710421080

If you know the name of the character, you can probably look up its Unicode number at Alan Wood's Unicode Resources site:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/search.html

But what if you don't know its name? Isn't there a way to find out the number of a Unicode character that's used in your Word document?

Fortunately, there is. Alan Wood has provided a terrific macro for that purpose, and you can get the macro here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_editors.html#word97

You may have to scroll down a little (past the first, short macro) to find the macro, which is introduced by the following text: "The following macro will attempt to identify a single character that you have selected, and display its Unicode decimal character reference."

Don't know how to use such macros? You can find out here.

I'd recommend that you put the macro on a menu, toolbar button, or keyboard combination for easy access. You can learn how here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707286867

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707444986

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707100224

(Reader's Write column)

Please note that you must select a character before running the macro. By the way, the macro also identifies ANSI numbers, which makes it a good substitute for the macro in the November 28, 2000, issue of Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704193319

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Melissa Bogen wrote, "I read with interest your recent newsletter on converting Unicode characters to Quark XPress Tags. Is there a resource you can suggest where I can see a complete list of XPress Tags?"

There's a particularly well-done list here, in PDF form:

Click to access XPressTagsList.pdf

Thanks to Meg for her question.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

All week I've been trying out a program named UltimaShell that completes words as you type. And you know what? I like it, especially because it has so many user-definable options. Here's the information from the program's publisher:

"FlashPeak UltimaShell makes you type as fast as thinking.

"UltimaShell autocompletes words/phrases and autoexpand shorthands in ANY applications on MS Windows. It also provides a wonderful collection of clipboard and shell enhancement functions together with many handy automation utilities."

You can learn more here:

http://www.flashpeak.com/ushell/ushell.htm

The publisher of UltimaShell is offering a 30% discount to readers of Editorium Update. If you'd like to take advantage of this offer, please use the following private purchase link:

http://www.regsoft.net/purchase.php3?productid=38940&pc=14W0n

You can learn more about word-expansion programs for both PC and Macintosh here:

http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/wordprediction2001/index.htm

In our last newsletter, I explained how to find and replace Unicode characters, which I'm seeing more and more in electronic manuscripts that come into my hands for editing. The problem is that our shop does typesetting in QuarkXPress, which, at least as of version 5.0, won't import Unicode characters. (This is also true of several other typesetting programs.) For manuscripts using lots of Hebrew, Greek, or other special characters, this is a real problem.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had no solution. Then, late one night, I was thinking about how to create a Word add-in that would search for formatting and replace it with user-defined tags. That's when it struck me: You can't search for all Unicode characters at once and replace them with something else, since there are thousands of them. But if you know which Unicode characters are being used in a document, you can certainly find and replace them with a combination of characters and tags that are meaningful in QuarkXPress.

To understand this, you have to know how special characters, such as Greek, are handled in QuarkXPress. They're just regular alphanumeric characters formatted in a special font. For example, to get alpha, beta, and gamma in QuarkXPress, you'd typically type a, b, and c and then format those characters with a Greek font:

a produces alpha

b produces beta

c produces gamma

So what you have to do in Microsoft Word is find a Unicode alpha and replace it with the letter a, tagged with an XPress Tag that indicates a Greek character style sheet in QuarkXPress. Here's how:

1. In Word, click the "Edit" menu.

2. Click "Replace."

3. In the "Find What" box, enter the following string, which tells Word to search for the Unicode character alpha:

^u945

You can learn more about finding and replacing Unicode characters here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1710421080

4. In the "Replace With" box, enter the character (a for alpha) and the surrounding XPress Tags you'll use to tell QuarkXPress to format the character with Greek:

<@Greek>a<@$p>

By the way, that's the standard format for XPress Tags that will create a character style sheet in QuarkXPress. The name "Greek" is arbitrary; call the style sheet whatever you'd like.

Now, to import the file into QuarkXPress:

1. In Word, save the file as a text document.

2. Open QuarkXPress and create a new file.

3. Click in the text box to make it active.

4. Click the "File" menu.

5. Click "Get Text."

6. Navigate to your text document.

7. Put a check in the box labeled "Include Style Sheets."

8. Click the "Open" button.

The file will be imported into QuarkXPress, and the XPress Tags you used will be imported as a character style sheet named "Greek." Now, in QuarkXPress, edit the character style sheet to use your Greek font. Presto! The character that used to be a Unicode alpha in Word will once again become an alpha in QuarkXPress.

For this to work, you have to know three things:

1. The Unicode numbers for the characters you want to convert. You can look up such numbers here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/search.html

2. The font (such as Greek) you'll be using to produce special characters in QuarkXPress.

3. The "ordinary" character (such as "a") that the font uses to produce each special character (such as alpha).

Then you can record a macro in which you find and replace each Unicode character with the ordinary character surrounded by the XPress Tags. Then, the next time you need to convert a bunch of Greek or Hebrew, just run the macro.

Of course, recording such a macro--or a series of them for different languages--is error-prone and tedious. A better solution is to use our MegaReplacer program, for which you can create a script that looks like this, with the Unicode numbers on the left (of the pipe symbols) and the XPress Tags and characters on the right:

^u945|<@Greek>a<@$p>

^u946|<@Greek>b<@$p>

^u947|<@Greek>c<@$p>

MegaReplacer also has the advantage of batch processing, so you can run the script on a whole folder full of documents. And, of course, the scripts are easy to change as needed.

You can learn more about MegaReplacer here:

http://www.editorium.com/14843.htm

You might also want to use our QuarkConverter program to automatically insert additional XPress Tags for style and character formatting:

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

However you decide to work, you now have a way to convert Unicode characters to special characters for QuarkXPress or any other typesetting program that uses tags.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Mark Pool (mark913@earthlink.net) wrote:

"I think you and your readers might be interested to know that Merriam-Webster now has a free toolbar. To read all about it and/or download it go to http://www.m-w.com/tools/toolbar/."

Thanks, Mark. Macintosh users should note that the toolbar works only with the Windows operating system. Sorry. But Windows users should find this to be a wonderful tool.

Mary C. Eberle wrote:

"Do you know if there is a way to convert the specialized keys on a typical Microsoft-friendly keyboard to do something useful? For example, I never launch programs from the start menu, at least not more than once. And if I needed to use the start menu, there is the trusty little mouse. Thus the start menu key is useless and even bothersome to me. But it would make a dandy key to run macros if I could redefine it. Do you know any tricks to make that key available to run macros in Word 97?"

I responded:

"Look in the Readers Write column (scroll down a ways) here for some possibilities: http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708382808."

Mary continued:

"Here is a mechanical hint that may be helpful to some readers: I put an aluminum cap over the CAPS LOCK key to make it nonoperational. The aluminum cap is made from the open-and-close spout on a box of dishwasher soap. The triangular sides slip down on either side of the key. The pointed ends need to be cut off a little bit at a time until the right height is achieved so that when one accidentally keys the cap on top of the CAPS LOCK key, the key doesn't press down. I glued the aluminum cap on with heavy-duty double-sided sticky tape, but if one sometimes needs CAPS LOCK, the gluing is not necessary.

"One other hint: I have written so many macros to use in my editing that many had to be assigned to hard-to-type key combinations. I recently purchased an X-keys auxiliary keyboard to which macros can be assigned. It has doubled my macro use and increased my productivity. Readers could check this product out at www.xkeys.com. I have even put the comma and colon on my X-keys keyboard because they often need to be inserted and are a pain because in using the regular keyboard for them, I have to take my hands off my mouse."

Thanks, Mary. Please note that the X-keys keyboard will work with both PC and Macintosh, as will Mary's aluminum cap. 🙂

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

If you've spent much time on email discussion lists that deal with Microsoft Word, Help authoring, or technical writing, you've probably noticed the brilliant, idiosyncratic posts of Steve Hudson, who has also contributed much to this newsletter. What you may not know is that now you can talk with Steve--live!--to get answers to your advanced questions about Microsoft Word, writing, document design, macros, templates, lists, master documents, documentation hierarchies, policies, standards, processes, graphics terminology, and much more. For more information, visit the Word Heretic's Church, here:

http://www.keen.com/memberpub/homepage.asp?user=The+Word+Heretic

Steve's time ain't cheap, but then, how cheap is it to spend hours of your time fighting a problem that Steve could probably fix in minutes? When you're having serious troubles with Word, it's nice to have a real expert available.

You may also want to check out Steve's blog (Web log), which features useful information about advanced Word topics, VBA, Help authoring, and Steve's customized macros and templates. Steve's colorful language is not always for the faint of heart, but there's lots of valuable information here:

blog.tdfa.com

I'm seeing more and more documents that use Unicode characters for all kinds of things--fractions, Greek, Hebrew--since these characters are so easy to use in Word 2000 and 2002. You can learn more about Unicode here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709529895

Sometimes I need to find and replace these characters with something else. How to do so isn't readily apparent, but there are actually two different methods that will work.

Method 1: Unicode number.

You're probably aware that you can find ASCII characters using numeric codes. For example, to find an e with an acute accent, you could do this:

1. Click the "Edit" menu.

2. Click "Find."

3. In the "Find What" box, enter ^0233 (on a PC) or ^0142 (on a Mac).

4. Click the "Find Next" button.

You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704081834

The procedure for finding Unicode characters is similar, but you'd use a "u" instead of a "0" in front of the number, and of course you'd need to know the Unicode decimal number for the character. You can look up Unicode numbers at Alan Wood's Unicode Resources site here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/search.html

For example, to find a small Greek alpha in Microsoft Word, you'd search for ^u945.

Method 2: Copy and paste.

If you can see an example of the character in your document (or insert one), you can actually copy the character and then paste it into the "Find What" box. Then just search as usual.

Replacing Text with Unicode Characters

Replacing text with Unicode characters can be a little trickier than finding them, as Word won't let you use a numeric code (like ^u945) in the Replace dialog's "Replace With" box. I've usually had success, however, in pasting the character into the "Replace With" box. If you can't do that with a certain character, you may be able to follow this procedure instead:

1. Find an example of the character in your document (or insert one).

2. Copy the character.

3. Click the "Edit" menu.

4. Click "Replace."

5. In the "Find What" box, enter the text you want to find.

6. In the "Replace With" box, enter ^c to tell Word you want to replace with the contents of the Clipboard--in other words, with the Unicode character you copied.

7. Click the "Replace All" button.

If you need to work with Unicode characters on a Macintosh, things get much tougher, but you'll find information about doing so here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_fonts_mac.html#apple

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_editors_mac.html

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_editors_macosx.html

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Last week's newsletter bewailed the state of comments and revision tracking in Word 2002. Responding to my complaint that there is no way to make comments print as they did in earlier versions of Word, Erika Buky wrote, "It's not much of a workaround for people with only one computer and the current version of Word, but I understand (from the vendor who supports my organization's Word macro package) that you can import files with comments into a previous version of Word (97 or 2000), and the comments will print in the old, rational way. Still using W97/98 myself, I haven't been able to verify this."

I tried this, and it works just as Erika said.

After all of my grumbling, Meg Cox offered an alternative point of view:

Don't take my balloons!

I love the balloons. I used to have a terrible time working with tracked changes showing. It was too hard to follow the final version in the middle of all that mess. But if I didn't show changes, I would forget to toggle track changes back on when I needed to, and I'd wind up with untracked paragraphs. Everything's much easier with the balloons, and I think much clearer for the reader--even the comments as long as they stay on the same page as the text.

I agree that the balloons become less useful when the changes become denser. Word should indeed provide an easy-to-find alternative.

Nancyann Ropke (ropke.nancyann@leg.state.fl.us) wrote:

Woody's Office Watch has had several articles about comments and tracking in Word 2002.

Go to http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/archives.asp and search for "balloons"

Here are two of the articles I found.

http://www.woodyswatch.com/wowmm/archtemplate.asp?v3-n06

http://www.woodyswatch.com/wowmm/archtemplate.asp?v3-n02

Thanks to all for their comments and suggestions.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Titivillus Tools for Copy Editors and Those Who Employ Them is a Web site operated by Timothy DeVinney of Titivillus Editorial Services. The site has many helpful resources, including:

* A business plan for a freelance copy editor

* A checklist for copyediting agreements

* Style checklists

http://www.titivillus-editorial.com/

Check it out! You'll be glad you did.

If you've started using Microsoft Word 2002, you've probably seen the little "balloons" that display your comments and tracked changes. In my opinion, these are pretty much useless in a professional environment. For example, if you get many deletions on a page, Word will abbreviate the balloon messages, so printing these for an author to review is of little help. Yes, you can print the changes separately (File > Print > Print what: > List of markup), but trying to compare this list with the document is cumbersome.

Online review isn't much better. An author can use the Reviewing toolbar to go from change to change or comment to comment in the Reviewing Pane, but that's not how real people read. I want to see the corrections and comments clearly marked inline--just as they were in previous versions of Word.

Good news: After mucking around in the bowels of the program, I've discovered a fix for revision tracking:

1. Click the "Tools" menu.

2. Click the "Track Changes" tab.

3. Under "Balloons," uncheck the box labeled "Use balloons in Print and Web Layout."

Wow, what an improvement! No more balloons, and revision tracking is handled inline the way it used to be. To print your document showing tracked changes, do this:

1. Click the "File" menu.

2. Click "Print."

3. Under "Print what:" select "Document showing markup."

Now for the bad news: There is no fix for comments--at least not that I can find. In previous versions of Word, each comment had an inline reference (like "[JML3]") and a corresponding reference at the beginning of the comment. That was a good system, easy to use and understand.

With Word 2002, these references have gone away, so it's now difficult to figure out what part of the text a comment refers to. You can move from comment to comment using the browser arrows at the bottom right of your screen, but that's a poor substitute. Even worse, there seems to be no way to print comments at all without enabling those stupid balloons. Microsoft, are you listening?

If you know of a way around this problem, please let me know. If not, you can always resort to typing coded inline comments [[like this one]] that can later be deleted with a wildcard Find and Replace:

Find what: [[*]]

Replace with: [nothing]

Maybe if we all wrote to Microsoft about this, they'd stop gumming up a perfectly useful word processor. Maybe we should send balloons.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Brad Hurley (bhurley@sover.net) wrote:

I usually use bibliographic software for references (EndNote, which integrates nicely with Word), but occasionally I have to edit documents that use Word's endnotes and footnotes. Is there any way to insert footnotes or endnotes into text boxes? We frequently prepare documents with sidebars, which we create with text boxes, but there doesn't seem to be any way to add footnotes to them if we need to cite a reference. Maybe there's a better solution for creating sidebars than using text boxes?

I replied:

As you've already learned, text boxes don't support footnotes or endnotes. However, frames do.

So if you can use frames rather than text boxes, that should solve your problem. To get a frame in Word 2000, you have to click Tools > Macro > Macros and then select "Word commands" in the "Macros in:" dropdown list. Then click "InsertFrame" in the "Macro name:" box. Then click the "Run" button. Finally, use your mouse to draw the frame in your document.

Please note that this kind of frame is not to be confused with the Format > Frames command, which creates HTML frames for use in Web pages.

Wordmaster Steve Hudson wrote:

So, you went and installed Word 2000 and set the templates and wizards to Run All from My Computer. Now when you go File > New there is a plethora of tabs and templates, none of which you use anyway. So now you want to clean them out.

Step 1 - Uninstall the templates. Otherwise Word will keep on replacing them when you delete them! Change Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add / Remove Programs > Microsoft Office > Change > Add / Remove Features > Microsoft Word for Windows > Wizards and Templates to Not Available. Update Now > OK > Close.

Step 2 - Dump the following lines into a new text file and rename it Killer.bat. Double-click it to run it. It gets rid of the last few problem children for you.

%HomeDrive%

cd "%ProgramFiles%Microsoft OfficeOffice"

rmdir Broadcast /s /q

cd 1033

del Feedback.htm

del Thankyou.htm

Thanks to Brad for his question and to Steve for his cleanup procedure.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Expertise Publications features "articles, tip sheets, white papers to guide you through all aspects of using Microsoft Word." Especially if you're migrating from WordPerfect, you'll find some useful information here:

http://www.microsystems.com/publications.htm

If you use styles to format text in Microsoft Word (which you should), the style of the currently selected paragraph is displayed in the Style dropdown list on the Formatting toolbar. To see what style is applied to a paragraph, you can click the paragraph and look at the list on the toolbar.

Wouldn't it be nice, though, if you could see all of the styles applied to all of the paragraphs on your screen all at the same time? Well, you can. You just have to display Word's Style Area. Here's how:

1. Open a document that contains a bunch of styled text.

2. Make sure your document is displayed in Normal view (click View > Normal). The Style Area isn't accessible in Print Layout (Page) view (but it is in Outline view).

3. Click the "Tools" menu.

4. Click "Options."

5. Click the "View" tab.

6. In the box labeled "Style area width," enter 1 inch or the equivalent.

7. Click the "OK" button.

Now, on the left side of your screen, you'll see the Style Area. In the Style Area, to the left of the first line of each paragraph, you'll see the name of the paragraph's style. Pretty slick!

You can change the size of the Style Area under Tools > Options > View, or simply by using your mouse to move the vertical line between the Style Area and the body of your document. If you've got lots of long style names, make it bigger.

Need to modify one of the styles listed in the Style Area? Just double-click it to open the Style dialog.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Martha Kohl (mkohl@state.mt.us) wrote:

"I've encountered a weird problem. The author put notes in his manuscripts using Word's automatic note numbering system. So far, so good. However, in this particular book, we won't be using notes. I have tried deleting the notes as I came across them in the text, but while the note numbers disappear in the text, the notes are still there. I can't get rid of them. Any suggestions?"

I replied:

"I suspect that the author has revision tracking turned on, right? If so, there's a bug in Word that keeps deleted notes from actually going away. The only way around this is to make the tracked revisions permanent. Then the struck-out notes will disappear."

Thanks to Martha for her question.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

LaShay Canady wrote:

Here are resources I use as a Virtual Assistant.

http://www.freetranslation.com/

helps to translate a website, phrase, or word into a different

language

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

helps to tell time for various clients in various time zones

http://www.mailwasher.net/download.php

An excellent anti-spam tool that is FREE!

Please note that MailWasher isn't available for Macintosh. If you're a Mac user and know of a similar program for Macintosh, please let us know.

Thanks to LaShay for the helpful tips.