Category Archives: Editing

Bookmarks in a Word document are useful for many things, such as, well, marking your place, marking ranges for index entries, and marking text for cross-references. But they can also get in the way–for example, if you’ve finished editing a document for a client and have several dozen bookmarks you’ve created but now need to […]

If you’ve spent much time in user groups related to Microsoft Word, Macintosh computers, or technical writing, you’ve probably seen postings and articles by Geoff Hart, one of the most prolific, respected, and helpful writers and Word experts I know. And now for the big news: Geoff has released his long-awaited book Effective Onscreen Editing! […]

In my last few years as a corporate employee, I felt compelled to edit faster and faster while still maintaining accuracy. (Could it have had something to do with the many rounds of layoffs in the company?) If you’re feeling the same squeeze, I have some suggestions that might help. 1. Choose the fast way […]

Word 2008, for Macintosh, isn’t out yet but will be later this year: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-09MacworldPR.mspx Like Word 2007 for Windows, it will feature the Ribbon interface, with all of the drawbacks I discussed in the previous newsletter: http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1720752173 But there’s one more drawback that will be utterly devastating: No more recording, programming, or even running of […]

Here it is, 2007 already. So it seems appropriate to look at Word 2007 and see if it’s something editors and other publishing professionals might find useful. You’ll find Microsoft’s sales pitch here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/FX100487981033.aspx You should know ahead of time that I’m jaded, biased, and curmudgeonly when it comes to Microsoft’s upgrades to Word. My […]

I’ve recently needed to help several people convert Microsoft Word text boxes to text. Is there something in the wind? Whatever is going on, if you’re having to copy and paste, copy and paste, to get that text out where you can use it, you’ll appreciate the following macro, which pulls text-box text out as […]

In our last episode, I provided a macro to make a list of misspelled words found in a document. You’ll find the macro here: http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1720027612 So you’ve got your list; now how do you use it? The way *I* recently used it on a multivolume typesetting project was to automatically fix a bunch of archaic […]

I’ve been working on a really big set of really big books that use odd, archaic spellings. Wanting to modernize those spellings, I decided to create a macro that would list every word that Microsoft Word sees as misspelled. You’ll find the macro a little farther down, but before using it, you’ll need to tell […]

Back in January 2003 I published an article called “WordPerfect Weirdness,” which featured a macro for converting “special” characters (dashes, quotation marks, and the like) in a file imported from WordPerfect to Word. You can read the article here: http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1711839353 Unfortunately, the macro isn’t reliable with more recent versions of Word, and I needed an […]

When I was in first grade, a magician came to our school, and I’ve been interested in magic ever since. One thing I’ve learned is that magic is largely psychological; it depends heavily on what magicians call “misdirection”–getting the audience to look at or think about something that furthers the magician’s deception. This principle can […]