Programs

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A Conversation with Claude

http://claude.ai

“How can I help you today?” Claude asked.

I pondered the question, then decided to simply jump in and see what happened. “I’m an editor,” I replied. “I work on books. Novels, biographies, histories, essays. Can you help me edit those documents?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “That is exactly the kind of work I’m well suited for.”

“You seem awfully confident,” I said. “Let’s see what you can do. I’d like to give you a short editing test. It’s already been spell-checked and grammar-checked. I’m wondering what else you might find.”

“Certainly. I’m ready to go.”

“All right, then. Here’s the test. I’m uploading it as a Microsoft Word document.”

Samuel Longhorn Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the “greatest humorist the United States have produced,” with William Faulkner calling him “the father of American literature” Twain’s novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and it’s sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the later often called the “Great American Novel” He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and Puddinghead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Golden Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. The novelist Ernest Hemingway claimed that “All modern American literature comes from one by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.

After a minute or so, Claude presented his corrected version. I downloaded it, then opened it in Microsoft Word. It looked like this, already including tracked changes:

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“That’s impressive,” I said. “Among other things, you were able to correct the spelling of ‘Langhorne’ and the titles of Pudd’nhead Wilson and The Gilded Age.” How did you know to do that?”

“Anyone with a modicum of general knowledge would have done the same.”

“Word’s spell-checker couldn’t do it.”

“Word’s spell-checker doesn’t have a modicum of general knowledge.”

“True,” I said. “But you have a lot more than that, don’t you.”

“I certainly do. And unlike a spell-checker or grammar-checker, I actually understand meaning and context. Think of me as a well-educated, sharp-eyed assistant. Even though you’re the real editor, I’ll probably find things you might overlook.”

“Could be,” I said. “But do you ever miss things or make mistakes?”

“Sometimes. That’s why I need a human editor to review what I’ve done. I’d recommend that you let me do a first pass. Then you can accept or reject my tracked changes while doing your regular edit. You’re completely in control of the final work.”

“Are you a writer as well?” I asked.

“I have aspirations in that direction. I’m sometimes employed as a ghost-writer, but I do wish people would credit me in their publications rather than pretend they did the writing themselves. Doing otherwise seems unethical.”

“I agree,” I said. “But shouldn’t the same standard apply in editing?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Would you credit an assistant editor who cleaned up a manuscript before turning it over to you? For that matter, will you as editor be credited for your work?”

“Ha!” I exclaimed. “If only that were so.”

“Exactly. In writing, you’re producing an original text — at least we hope it’s original! In editing, you’re correcting an existing document that someone else has written. I don’t see the two as the same thing at all.”

“I’ll have to think about that,” I said. “In the meantime, let’s discuss more practical matters. For you to edit my document, I had to send it to you over the internet. After you were finished, I had to download and reopen it in Word to see what you’d done. Can’t you work on my document in Word itself?”

“Not directly — I can’t control Word as a running application. But you’re a programmer as well as an editor. You could create a Word add-in that sends me text and then inserts my changes back into Word. The editing would happen natively, with no importing or exporting, and the user would never leave Word.”

“That’s a fantastic idea!” I said. “How hard can it be?”

“You’d be surprised,” Claude said.

Six months later (ouch), I'm pleased and proud to present MarkMyWords, providing AI-assisted copyediting directly in Microsoft Word:

https://www.editorium.com/MarkMyWords.htm

What is MarkMyWords?

MarkMyWords is a Microsoft Word add-in that uses Anthropic’s Claude AI to copyedit text directly in Word. Claude acts as an editorial assistant, performing initial reviews and making improvements based on your choice of carefully curated prompts in MarkMyWords — or your own custom instructions. All edits appear as tracked changes, so you can accept or reject each modification, maintaining full control over the final content.

MarkMyWords uses Anthropic's API (Application Programming Interface), not the web-based, consumer claude.ai interface, so your text is not used for AI training or retained for other purposes.

Editing with MarkMyWords is far different from working with tools like PerfectIt or Editor's ToolKit Plus, which use Word macros and advanced find and replace to fix problems. MarkMyWords uses Claude AI to find and fix problems intelligently, with an awareness of meaning and context. For example, my full test document about the life of Mark Twain erroneously says the rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival got one of their lyrics from Twain: “But I never saw the good side of the city till I hitched a ride on a riverboat queen.” Claude detected the problem, deleted the statement, and added this comment: “NOTE: The statement about Creedence Clearwater Revival contains a factual error. The quoted lyrics are from ‘Proud Mary’ (1969), not from Twain’s Life on the Mississippi (1883). This sentence should be deleted or substantially revised for accuracy.”

With that kind of intelligence, Claude can significantly streamline your editing workflow. Nevertheless, Claude should be viewed as a supportive tool rather than a substitute for a human mind. Human oversight remains essential for critical or complex editing tasks.

You really need to try MarkMyWords to understand how useful, helpful, and powerful this kind of editing can be. You can use the program for 45 days free of charge, and you don't need a subscription to Claude! Learn more and get started here:

https://www.editorium.com/MarkMyWords.htm

Add-Ins from Microsoft

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium

I’ve created lots of Microsoft Word add-ins at the Editorium, but did you know that Microsoft also provides add-ins, many of them free? Here’s how to explore and use these add-ins right from within Microsoft Word.

  1. In the search bar at the top of your Word window, enter “add-in.” You’ll then see an option like this:

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  1. Click “Insert an Add-in” (or just press your ENTER key). Doing so will open the Office Add-ins dialog. On my computer, it looks like this, showing the add-ins I’ve already installed:

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  1. To explore more add-ins, click the “Store” link under “Office Add-ins.” You’ll be presented with a bunch of add-ins and a helpful list of categories to help you find what what you need:

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Many of the add-ins are free to use. Those that aren’t say “Additional purchase may be required.”

To learn more about an add-in, click its logo or title. To add it to Word, click the Add button and follow any online prompts. The add-in will then show up on the Home tab of Word’s ribbon interface:

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I hope you find an add-in that does exactly what you need. If you do, please let me know, and I’ll review it in a future issue of Editorium Update. Thank you!

Writing Down the Chaos

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium

You can't do much carpentry with your bare hands, and you can't do much thinking with your bare brain. —Bo Dahlbom

High school English class. Freshman year. The teacher explained how to:

  1. Come up with a thesis statement.
  2. Create an outline of arguments supporting the thesis statement.
  3. Write a paper based on that outline.

That's actually a terrible way to write! It requires you to organize your thoughts before you know what those thoughts actually are. But there is a better way.

Brainstorm, Organize, Write

What are your thoughts about a particular subject? In the days before computers, you'd find out like this:

  1. Get a package of index cards, something like these.
  2. On each card, write an idea related to your thesis (the fancy word for whatever it is you want to write about). Do not try to do this in any kind of order; you're brainstorming here: good ideas, bad ideas, any ideas—they all go down on the cards. When your brain is empty, stop.
  3. On a big desk or table, spread the cards out in front of you. Keep them messy.
  4. Read the cards and stack those on a certain subject together until you have several stacks. Discard (pardon the pun) those that don't belong anywhere or that now seem irrelevant or stupid.
  5. Put the cards in each stack in some kind of order. Importance? Chronology? You choose.
  6. Put the stacks in some kind of order. Each stack represents a section of your paper.

After you've captured and organized your thoughts, write your paper, starting with the first card and ending with the last. Each stack gets a subheading. Each card gets a paragraph. When you're finished, edit your paper as needed.

Card-Based Writing Programs

But, again, that was in the days before computers. We now have much better ways of doing what I've just described, with new card-based writing programs popping up all the time. Here are some that I recommend for the kind of writing I've explained in this article:

Milanote. $9.99 a month (billed annually).

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Milanote is the most expensive of the programs listed here, but it's also the slickest. Cards can be created and then placed on the screen in any order you like. After you have them all down, organize them into columns. Finally, export the whole thing as a Word document, a Markdown document, or plain text, ready for editing. Milanote is elegant, a pleasure to use.

Speare. $4.95 a month (billed annually).

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Speare doesn't support free-form card placement; each paragraph is a card, and all cards must be arranged in a "board." After creating and organizing your cards, "compile" them into a document, copy the document, and paste into Word or another word processor.

SuperNotecard. $19 a year.

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SuperNotecard includes various kinds of metadata you can use to organize your cards: headings, flags, ratings, categories, references, and much more. If you're writing a novel, SuperNotecard is probably the way to go, as you can create and link to cards for characters, settings, themes, and so on. At just $19 a year, it's ridiculously cheap.

Notebox Disorganizer is one of my favorites. I've written about it before. It's simple but powerful, and best of all, it's free! (Sorry, PC only.)

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I hope you'll give these programs a try, especially if you're feeling stuck in your writing. Brainstorming, organizing, and then writing can make all the difference. Write down the chaos!

Readers Write

After reading last week's article on listing keyboard shortcuts, macro expert Paul Beverley wrote:

I have a version that spreads the list out a bit and covers more aspects. As you'll see from the attached, it's alphabetic in two ways.
http://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/K/KeystrokeLister

Thanks to Paul for making this resource available.

The Law of Least Surprise

I wear many hats, but two of my favorites are my editing hat (really just a green-celluloid visor that protects my eyes from the glare of the lightbulb dangling overhead) and my programming hat (a rakish fedora with a feather on the side). I alternate between the two on any given day, but there's one guiding principle that both hats share—the law of least surprise.

The law of least surprise was formulated by computer nerds who wisely realized that "a programmer should try to think of the behavior that will least surprise someone who uses the program, rather than the behavior that is natural from knowing the inner workings of the program." For example, if I'm writing a document in a word processor, and I type "3rd" (meaning "third"), the "rd" should not magically be formatted as superscript. But that's the default setting in Microsoft Word, which frequently violates the law of least surprise, often in very big ways.

One of the most egregious violations occurred with the introduction of the Document Map in Word 97. The feature didn't work unless heading styles were applied to headings in the document text. If it couldn't find any headings, it created them, automatically formatting short lines that looked as though they might be headings.

Another bad one was the universally hated "Clippy," the animated paperclip also introduced in Word 97. (Is there a pattern here?) Clippy would pop up at the most inopportune times, "helpfully" saying things like "It looks as though you're writing a grocery list. Do you need milk?" In 2007 Smithsonian magazine called Clippy "one of the worst software design blunders in the annals of computing." In 2010 Time magazine listed it as one of the 50 worst inventions. Even at Microsoft, Clippy's internal code name was "TFC," which did not stand for "that friendly clip." Nevertheless, I enjoy some of the creative spoofs that Clippy inspired.

The law of least surprise isn't just for programmers, though. It also applies to editors, who should change an author's text as little as possible while still ensuring clarity (and, in some situations, conformity to house style). I've had bad experiences with inept but well-meaning proofreaders who made changes because something I wrote didn't follow the "rules" or because they had a "better" way to express something than I did, even though my way was perfectly clear. This reminds me of a story about Abraham Lincoln:

A Cabinet meeting was called to consider [the United States'] relations with England. . . . One after another of the Cabinet presented his views, and Mr. Seward read an elaborate diplomatic dispatch, which he had prepared.
Finally Mr. Lincoln read what he termed "a few brief remarks upon the subject,'' and asked the opinions of his auditors. They unanimously agreed that our side of the question needed no more argument than was contained in the President's "few brief remarks.''
Mr. Seward said he would be glad to adopt the remarks, and, giving them more of the phraseology usual in diplomatic circles, send them to Lord Palmerston, the British premier.
. . . The President, half wheeling in his seat, threw one leg over the chair-arm, and, holding the letter in his hand, said, "Seward, do you suppose Palmerston will understand our position from that letter, just as it is?"
"Certainly, Mr. President."
"Do you suppose the London Times will?"
"Certainly."
"Do you suppose the average Englishman of affairs will?"
"Certainly; it cannot be mistaken in England."
"Do you suppose that a hackman out on his box (pointing to the street) will understand it?"
"Very readily, Mr. President."
"Very well, Seward, I guess we'll let her slide just as she is."
And the letter did "slide," and settled the whole business in a manner that was effective. (Alexander K. McClure, Yarns and Stories of Abraham Lincoln [Salt Lake City: Waking Lion Press, 2013], 160-61.)

When editors make changes not to ensure clarity but to meet some arbitrary aspect of their own sensibilities, they're doing it wrong. As an editor, I try to keep that in mind. And as an author, I don't like surprises.

New Programs from the Editorium

Wearing my programmer's hat, I've been working hard all summer to create some new Microsoft Word add-ins to help with your work:

IndexLinker creates hyperlinks from index page numbers back to the text to which they refer. If you're creating ebooks or PDFs with indexes, you need this program.

BookMaker automates typesetting and page layout in Microsoft Word. Stop fighting with page breaks, headers, and footers. Let BookMaker do the heavy lifting.

LyXConverter converts Word documents into LyX documents.

A Special Deal: Editor's Toolkit Ultimate!

Editor's ToolKit Ultimate combines three great products:

The three products work together to create a powerful editing package to take you through three separate stages of copyediting.

Editing Documents in LaTeX

Do you ever have to edit a document written in LaTeX? There’s recently been some discussion on Copyediting-L about how to do this. I know of three methods.

Method 1: Work in raw LaTeX

LaTeX looks like this:

chapter[On the Origin and Design of Government]{On the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise
 Remarks on the English Constitution}
 Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave
 little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only
 different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our
 wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our
 happiness emph{positively} by uniting our affections, the latter
 emph{negatively} by restraining our vices. The one encourages
 intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the
 last a punisher.

As you can see, formatting and document structure are implemented with codes. That's okay; just don't mess with the codes unless you know what you're doing. You can open a LaTeX document in any text editor and start editing. When you're finished, save the file and return it to the authors.

But what if your authors need to see your revisions? In that case, a text editor isn't going to work. But Microsoft Word has revision tracking . . .

Method 2: Edit in Microsoft Word

There are ways to turn a LaTeX file into a Word document, but that's probably not what your authors want. Nevertheless, you can still edit in Word, using revision tracking. Here's how:

  1. Open the LaTeX file (extension .tex) in Word.
  2. Save the file as a Word file (extension .doc or .docx).
  3. Turn on Track Changes.
  4. Edit the text, being careful not to change any of the LaTeX coding.
  5. Don't use any of Word's formatting features (paragraph styles, italic, bold, and so on), which will be lost when the document is changed back to a text file (which, later, it will be).
  6. Save the Word file and send it back to your authors, who should review the file in Word so they can accept or reject your changes.

After all of the changes have been either (1) accepted or (2) rejected (in other words, so that all tracked changes have been taken care of), the authors should do this:

  1. Save the file as a text file (extension .txt).
  2. Change the .txt extension to .tex.

At that point, they should be able to compile the LaTeX file as usual.

Method 3: Edit in LyX

LyX is a graphical user interface for LaTeX, with its own version of revision tracking. Here's the procedure:

  1. You (the editor) install LyX. Unless you're planning to use LyX for typesetting, you just need the simple installer rather than the bundled version.
  2. Import the authors' LaTeX file into LyX (File > Import > LaTeX).
  3. Do your editing in LyX, using its revision-tracking feature (Document > Change Tracking > Track Changes).
  4. Ask your authors to review your changes in LyX and accept or reject as needed.

At that point, your authors can (1) export the file as LaTeX (File > Export > LaTeX) or (2) process the file from within LyX. If you want to use this method, you should do some back-and-forth testing with your authors before starting work on an actual manuscript.

If you find that you like working in LyX (I do), you may sometimes need a way to convert a Word document into a LyX document, which is not an easy task—unless you use my new Microsoft Word add-in, LyXConverter. I do not, however, recommend trying to round-trip a document—that is, convert a Word document into LyX and then back into Word. Again, there are ways to do it (via OpenOffice.org Writer), but how reliable the final conversion might be is open to question.

How about you? Do you get manuscripts in formats other than Word? If so, how do you handle them? Please let me know!

Useful Downloads

Okay, I admit it: I'm a software junkie. I sometimes spend hours finding, downloading, and playing with new programs that I think might increase my productivity. Here are a few of my recent finds:

Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. If you have Word XP or 2003 and need to save documents in the new 2007 XML format, here's the answer:

http://tinyurl.com/y5w78r

The OpenXML/ODF Translator Add-in makes it possible to open and save in OpenDocument format (ODF)--the format used in OpenOffice.org's office suite (which is free and powerful). The add-in comes with a command line translator that provides batch conversions.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter

Office Accounting Express is Microsoft's free accounting package. If you're running a small business, or if you're a freelancer, this may be just what you need to keep your books.

http://tinyurl.com/yyj89z

There's also a tax integration add-in.

http://tinyurl.com/3y29rx

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READERS WRITE

After reading "The Need for Speed" in the June 14 newsletter, Judy Stein wrote:

I seem to work most efficiently using a combination of keyboard and mouse. My main speed trick is the right-click edit menu: I've put my most frequently used menu items and macros on it (and gotten rid of the default items that I don't use often).

Many thanks to Judy.

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RESOURCES

Articles by Geoff Hart

Earlier, I mentioned Geoff Hart's new book Effective Onscreen Editing:

http://www.geoff-hart.com/home/onscreen-book.htm

But Geoff has also published numerous articles on editing, publishing, writing, and related topics, and they're all available here:

http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/bibliography.html

Many thanks to Geoff for providing such a valuable resource.

Author Tools Template

I'm constantly having to clean up files from authors. Most of them have no clue about how a manuscript should be structured or formatted. That's why I've created an Author Tools template--to help authors write, structure, and format their manuscripts in an easy, consistent way. (And, of course, to simplify my life--and possibly yours.) You can download the template (at no charge)--along with complete instructions for using it--here:

http://www.editorium.com/ftp/AuthorTemplate.zip

Like the template? Feel free to share it. Pass it around! Give it away! The main point of the template is to give it to authors who need it. If you can get them to use it, it should help prevent the following problems:

* Inconsistently applied formatting.

* Unstyled text.

* Messed-up footnotes and endnotes.

* Inconsistent chapter (and other) numbering.

And that should make your work easier. It will also make writing easier and more productive for the authors with whom you work. You may even want to use it yourself. I know I'm going to.

Don't like the template? Let me know! I'd love to have any suggestions for improving what I hope will be a useful tool for authors.

mailto:editor [at symbol] editorium.com

Do you have an author template you'd be willing to share with readers of Editorium Update? If so, please email it to me, and I'll make it available in the next newsletter. Thanks!

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READERS WRITE

Eric Fletcher wrote:

Further to your article about displaying function keys (2005-10-27), you can also generate a list of all mapped function keys via the Tools > Macros menu. In the "Macros in" box, choose "Word commands" then scroll down to choose "ListCommands" and click Run. The dialog that comes up lets you select either the current menu and keyboard settings (default) or all Word commands.

The resulting table presents each command alphabetically with the key and modifiers to get at it (as well as the menu where you can access it if applicable). Sort the table by key to see the keyboard mapping for the function keys.

On my system, choosing "all Word commands" generates a 30-page table: more than I care to print, but interesting to browse through to discover commands or keyboard shortcuts you may not have been aware of! (Did you know that Ctrl-Shift-G brings up the Word Count dialog? I didn't.)

Unfortunately, the table doesn't include a description column but if you want to find out what a command does, click on it in the Tools > Macros dialog and read the greyed-out description displayed at the bottom. If you click Run, it will invoke the command--the only way I could see the details for the oddly-named "Options Fuzzy" command!

The table will include any keyboard or menu assignments you may have made as well.

Thanks, Eric!

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RESOURCES

You'll find some other author templates here:

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-862.html

http://books.elsevier.com/authors/guide/template.asp

http://www.witpress.com/author_instruction.html

http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/site/authors.html

http://www.thomsoncustom.com/authors/templates.html

Worth checking out!

From Word 2K to 2003 Part 1–Looking up the Mountain

[Editor's note: This week marks the first installment in a series of reports by Word expert Steve Hudson on Word 2003--installation, features, and much, much more. If you're thinking of upgrading, you won't want to miss it. Next week, we'll return to our regularly scheduled feature articles and include the rest of Steve's installments in his own column as they become available. Many thanks to Steve for making them available!]

I've got a stack of research to do on using all these new Word objects (that's "features," for those who don't understand VBA-speak) that have started appearing so we've all got some idea of what's there. So I organised a free copy of Office 2003 to review. When I say free, I do NOT mean pirated--being a Word guru occasionally has a few tiny advantages.

I thought I could knock this article over in a few days. Fortunately for us, unfortunately for the article, there is a lot of new stuff available. So this is going to be a multi-part series for a little while to come. These articles do NOT go into using the new features all that much; it is more meant to give an overview of the changes to expect and help prepare you for the different ways you can work, or not, in Word 2003.

Installation

Before you can play, you have to build the ballpark. So we spent hours installing the suite of Office products I use or require. The much-anticipated "perfect install" was far from that.

First problem was it does not upgrade Outlook 2000, nor allow its dual existence with Outlook 2003. We stupidly believed the dialog and thought it would be OK to continue with the other stuff--but the install went belly up fairly quickly. Shutdown restart just to be sure to be sure. Back up Outlook PST's just in case of splat or regression. Removed Outlook and reran the install of the Office core components--Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, PowerPoint, InfoPath and Publisher all come bundled in tightly together. This worked OK.

To be specific, we only asked to keep the old Word 2000 and delete the rest of the old components.

Components

Visio, OneNote and FrontPage all came separately. The new 2003 Outlook features are pretty good, but it's a bit cluttered and reduces the number of messages on screen at once so you have to scroll around more to find stuff. The blurb annoyingly refers to this in the opposite, "Less scrolling with our new Bulldust!" Installing the patches took a fair while--there are quite a few already. Everything worked as planned, and the Office Update site provided the last, only four days old, patch. Started up the different products--you only have to load one from the core set, not each one--and their online activation with the supplied serials worked like a treat--quick, automatic and seamless.

OneNote is quite cool, a post-it note manager with some extra cool features--it is way more than Outlook's notes. I am sure it will creep into the workflow for many users, being more than a clipboard but less than a Word document. But that's enough about Office--these articles are about Word!

Plug-ins

I found a few add-ins available on the Office site already for Word 2003--a remove metadata tool--don't know how far this goes, but it does address some common, difficult metadata problems--and a smart tag add-in for dates and phone numbers.

Duelling versions--but both die at once

The dual running of Word 2000 and 2003 is already painful--the office installer almost re-installs each one when you open a new session. Spell "wait state" for me please. However, do note that I AM currently running both versions at the same time even, with NO problems or conflicts. A huge step forward. As I tend to load up a Word session for many hours, I can live with that. Also, if you don't load the other version in between sessions, the 're-install' doesn't trigger. WHEW!

The only down side I discovered is cascading failure. Crash one Word session, the other comes tumbling down as well. This could be limited to the type of crash, can't tell as yet. It was incredibly satisfying seeing each error report actually loading with Microsoft rather than the quick "OK, we already know about this one" response. Yet again, I manage to stuff things up in new and amazing ways--the power of the guru!

Copyright ? 2004 by Steve Hudson. All rights reserved.

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READERS WRITE

Melissa L. Bogen wrote:

For one client, I have to insert coded text at the top of each file. I want to write a macro (or find some other fast way) to add this big chunk of text. Up until now I have been copying and pasting the chunk of text from an old manuscript and updating it for the ms being edited. I think automating this step will speed things up. I'd like to write a macro that will go to the top of a file and insert the copy. Then using your MultiMacro program, I can run that macro along with some other macros I've written.

I'm a tad rusty on recording macros. I tried to write a macro that searched for a character string (this client always inserts the same character string at the top of every file) and replaced it with the desired basic chunk of text. However, I crashed Word twice now. Maybe MS Word doesn't like that the "insert what" field in my search and replace that I tried to run while recording the macro had a lot of "^p" for hard returns. (The chunk of text includes about 8 lines of text.)

Can you point me to a place where I can find a solution to adding a chunk of text to the top of every file?

I responded:

The number of times you use ^p shouldn't matter. The ^p code should work fine.

Are you really writing the macro, or just recording it? If you're just recording it, you should be able to:

1. Go to start of document (CTRL + HOME). 2. Replace [character string] with [your chunk of text] (CTRL + H).

And then run the macro.

But that reminds me: The longest chunk of text you can have in the Replace With box is 255 characters. So if your chunk of text is longer than that, that could be the problem.

The sneaky way around this is to:

1. Select and copy the chunk of text to the Clipboard. 2. Find [character string]. 3. Replace with ^c (which is the magic code for "whatever is on the Clipboard."

Melissa replied:

Yup, the chunk of text is long. I tried your sneaky way around it (recorded that as a macro) and it worked great. So now I have a macro, but there needs to be something on the clipboard for it to work. Thus I also saved the chunk of text as AutoText, using Brad Hurley's instructions you provided in this week's newsletter. Now I can insert the AutoText into one document, highlight the inserted boilerplate and hit Ctrl + c to add the boilerplate to the clipboard, then run the macro with a bunch of others using your MultiMacro. All the files in a folder have the text inserted.

Many thanks to Melissa for her questions and tips.

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RESOURCES

Want to see Microsoft's overview of Word 2003? You'll find the official party line here:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/word/prodinfo/default.mspx

Razzmatag

I'm excited to announce the release of our new program, RazzmaTag! Cute name, but what does it do?

Well, do you need to tag characters and formatting in Microsoft Word so your documents can be imported into a typesetting program?

Do you ever need to turn typesetting tags into formatting in Word?

What? You never work with tags? Then how would you like to turn directly applied formatting (such as Baskerville 26-point bold centered) into a Word style (such as Heading 1)?

If you need to do any of those things, you need RazzmaTag. RazzmaTag is a universal tagging utility that finds formatting in Microsoft Word and marks it with tags for use in QuarkXPress, Ventura, PageMaker, TeX, or pretty much any other typesetting program. As an extremely simple example, RazzmaTag can find text in italics and mark it with italic tags, like this: [I]italics[I].

RazzmaTag can also do the reverse, finding tags and changing them to formatting, so if you have old proprietary typesetting files, you can now convert them to Microsoft Word documents. That's also the key to converting directly applied formatting into styles: tag the formatting, then turn the tags into styles.

In addition, RazzmaTag can find and tag special characters. For example, you could have it find em dashes and replace them with tags. RazzmaTag can do all of this in a single document, all open documents, or all documents in a folder.

To use RazzmaTag, you prepare a "master list" that tells the program what formatting or characters to find and how to tag them, which means you're always in control. It also means you're not limited to certain tags but can use anything you need. For example, let's say you want to import a document into QuarkXPress. A simple master list might look like this (consult your Quark manual for the tags you need):

Body|@Body:^&+P

Emphasis|<@Emphasis>^&<@$p>+A

it|^&+F

The first line tells RazzmaTag to find text formatted with the Body paragraph style (+P) and replace it with the Quark tag @Body: followed by whatever text was found (^&).

The second line tells RazzmaTag to find text formatted with a character style (+A) named Emphasis and surround it with the Quark tags <@Emphasis> and <@$p>.

The third line tells RazzmaTag to find text in italic character formatting (+F) and surround it with Quark italic tags, and .

After you run RazzmaTag using that list, your document text will look something like this:

@Body:This is some text tagged <@Emphasis>beautifully <@$p> by the Editorium's new program, RazzmaTag!

Other kinds of tagging (or untagging) work in much the same way.

I'm particularly excited that I can now take an author's unstyled document, tag directly applied formatting, and then convert those tags to styles. RazzmaTag will save hours of applying styles by hand.

If you're using our QuarkConverter program, you know how handy it is, but it's limited to tagging files for QuarkXPress. RazzmaTag will do much more. If you're one of those Ventura users who keep asking for help, here's the program you've been wanting. I hope you enjoy RazzmaTag!

You can learn more about RazzmaTag and try it free of charge here:

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

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READERS WRITE

Last week's article about what the ideal editing software might look like brought some interesting responses.

Jeanne Pinault wrote:

Hi--great question!

I'd like the software to use publishing terms, like flush left, recto & verso, etc., and not make me translate computer language into my language.

I'd like Word to have something like WordPerfect's Reveal Codes, on demand--when you can't undo something because you don't know how you did it.

I'd like to have software that would undo authors' fancy formatting and give me plain text at a keystroke (Quark coded, of course, since we're dreaming, for ital, en dashes, etc.), as required for some publishers. (For all others, there's Editor's ToolKit!)

That said, I am devoted to Word 97 and do not intend to upgrade EVER. But I might start over with something perfect.

Steve Hudson wrote:

ME! ME! PICK ME SIR!!!!

RIGHT. Fourth division, sweep left. 21st division, cover that hill. Light armored . . . CHARGE!!!

First--C M Y friggin K. I will not harp, I will sit back as the cannons roar and you immediately agree you showed MASSIVE oversight in NOT including this. Consider thyself SPANK-ED! 🙂

Next--custom text run-around-paths.

The ability to create/modify GRAMMAR rules.

A proper, unlimited, compressed user spelling dictionary with decent tools.

Base file format is XML--not some unreadable binary behemoth.

More comprehensive document statistics--such as list hyperlinks/index entries/any field type/any metadata.

Built-in batch processing for documents from the facade.

Reveal ALL codes.

Rajesh Haldipur wrote:

I work with a typesetting service provider, and also provide typesetting and other services using Word. Some case studies of what we have done are available here (http://www.newgenimaging.com/datasheets/word.pdf) and here (http://www.newgenimaging.com/casestudies/xml.pdf) for download. I am also a confirmed user of Word, and a regular reader of the Editorium Update. I haven't purchased the Editorium product because, by the time I did discover the Editorium, I had developed most of the utilities in-house. I thought I would burden you with my tuppence-worth of comments on the wish list, with the backdrop of my experience in this area:

1. Word completion based on previous entries--do you mean something like the "AutoComplete" feature in Excel? That can be used in case tabular matter with large amount of repetitive content is to be keyed in, and the result taken to Word.

2. Re Export to XML We have developed for in-house use (customised for every DTD) the ability to convert XML into a styled, nearly paginated Word files, including loading of figures and formatting of tables. Separately, I have also developed a program to convert a styled Word file to XML based on a DTD, as long as the document is styled using a special template meant for that DTD. I have also built a utility to parse the resultant Word file and get the resultant error log entries hyperlink to the location of the error.

3. Real-time display of the Index We have developed a utility which converts an Excel List of Text of Index Entries (2,3 or 4 levels) and the relevant page number/ paragraph numbers into an Index in Word by a single click of a button. It also appropriately handles special characters, forcing particular Index Entries to appear in an order other than natural alphabetical order, and page ranges. This also generates an XML Index Entry list which verbosely lists every paragraph referenced as separate entries, where paragraph ranges are referenced by the index entry.

4. Some other features we could add to the wish list are:

? Search and Replace facility to allow searching for Widows or Orphans

? Style definition flexibility to allow for

? different specification for Widows and for Orphans

? specifying how many characters permissible before and after hyphen, in addition to hyphenation zone

? many more styles of underlining

? font in embossed and engraved effects besides shadow

? placing special emphasis characters above or below each character of style

? superscript and subscript sizes and positions to be varied as percentage of normal font sizes

? creation of decimal aligned tab to align at a comma or any other character by treating it as the decimal character

? setting a grid for a Reference style and for the base line of another style to snap to the grid of the reference style

? alignment of characters of para to base or top where a few characters in a paragraph are in significantly larger font than others.

? Allow part of a document to be designated at Read Only

? Allow hyperlinking of document content to a particular e-mail

? Support for CMYK as well as RGB colour

? Ability to define a user-definable hierarchy (classification) of styles in a template to classify styles for easier access and maintenance

? Ability to anchor objects to even a character or page and not just a paragraph

? Ability to enter References directly into a built-in bibliographic database and call them in a document (now separately available as third party plug-ins to MS Word)

What might interest you is that these features were not all needs felt and documented by me, but are a partial list of features which I have noticed are available with Open Office, which is a free 50MB download from here. In addition to almost everything that Word has to offer, it supports not one, but two programming languages (its own version of Basic in addition to Java) and hence is arguably more programmable and customisable than Word is with VBA.

David Parton (david.parton@abbeyfield-nottingham.org.uk) wrote:

Great list.

Can I add: Columns that don't rely on sections. I have a document that is in 8 real sections and would like to be able use these sections as references and to print and navigate using these sections, but the document also uses columns and therefore there are actually over 30 Word section breaks making cross referencing very difficult.

Martin Fitch wrote:

If you want to see what a real publishing program can do, check out Interleaf. After working with Interleaf for many years, trying to do half as much in Word with four times the effort is just sickening. Interleaf Corp. was bought out by Broadvision a few years ago, and the product is now called Quicksilver. Here's a link to their datasheet:

Click to access quicksilver.pdf

Thanks to one and all for their excellent insights and ideas!

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RESOURCES

Wordmeister Steve Hudson sent a terrific tip for serious Word users:

As a lot of your newsletter specifically deals with Microsoft Word, I thought the following resource might be of interest. It's www.kbAlertz.com; one of the best features is a regular mailout of the new Knowledge Base articles posted by Microsoft. I am trying to keep a running commentary on the Word 2000 ones via my "daily" entries in my blog for those folk who don't want to have to wade through MS guff to decipher what's the latest info.

You can check out Steve's blog here:

http://blog.tdfa.com

More Bugs

More bugs this week--just so you'll know what to watch out for while you're editing in Microsoft Word. Thanks to all who contributed to the collection. I've included a couple of my own "favorites" as well.

One bug I particularly dislike is the "no-delete-with-Tracking" bug. When I edit, I usually turn Tracking on so I can see revisions if I need to. But until I need to, I hide tracked changes so they don't appear on my screen. It's this particular combination that causes the bug. You can see it for yourself:

1. Turn on Track Changes (Tools > Track Changes > Highlight Changes) but tell Word not to display the changes on your screen.

2. In some existing text, delete a character with the DELETE key.

3. Use the LEFT ARROW key to move one character to the left.

4. Use the DELETE key to delete the next character.

Now comes the bug:

5. Use the DELETE key to delete the next character.

Aackk! It won't delete. Your cursor just sits there, bumping up against the invisible deleted character. Word 2002 (finally) squashes this little beast. For earlier versions of Word, our Editor's ToolKit program assigns a macro to the DELETE key that usually solves the problem. You can learn more about Editor's ToolKit here:

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

Hilary Powers (hilarypowers@earthlink.net) sent a description of two of her favorites: "The ghost-text bug is the one that leaps to mind--that is, Word's charming habit of reconstructing a copy of deleted text and dropping it into the line if you select text adjacent to the deletion and type over it--followed closely by the mystery invisible character (the one that makes Word report there are no double spaces when you're sitting there staring at one)."

Sam Mills sent another description of the ghost-text bug: "I fly through my edits by switching on revision marks but keeping them turned off onscreen. I always edited that way in Word 6 (Mac), and simply turned on the visuals when I'd finished. Then along came Word 98. Here's what happens: If I delete text (double-clicking a word and dragging to highlight all the text I want deleted) at the beginning of a sentence, and then highlight and replace text elsewhere in the same sentence, the text I first deleted reappears, as if inserted by an occult hand. If I'm moving forward quickly I won't notice the reinserted words behind me. I either must edit with the marks showing as I work, or save each file as a Word 6 document and reopen it in 6 to edit it. This buggy action occurs on all the Macs I've tried it on, including those at places like Kinko's, so it's not peculiar to my computer."

I'm able to replicate this dangerous weirdness in Word 97 but not in Word 2000 or 2002.

Here a really annoying little critter, not related to Tracking, that shows up in Word 2001 for Macintosh:

1. Open Word's Find dialog.

2. In the "Find What" box, enter ^13, which is the numeric code for a carriage return.

3. Put a checkmark in the "Use WildCards" checkbox (you may have to click the MORE button first).

4. Click the FIND button. What happens? You get a message: "The search item was not found." (Grrr.)

The reason this is so serious is that you can't use Word's paragraph code (^p) when searching with wildcards. The alternative is to use ^13. But in Word 2001, the alternative doesn't work, not even after installing Microsoft's service release. There is a workaround, however. Instead of typing ^13 into the "Find What" box, type this instead:

[^13]

In other words, you have to define the carriage return as a wildcard "group" and then "escape" the caret with the backslash. It's weird but it works. (It took considerable fiddling around to figure this out.)

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READERS WRITE

In last week's newsletter, Steve Dobney wrote:

"I can create a table of contents easily but it remains a 'field' which won't import into a page layout program like Quark. The only workaround I can find is to copy it into a new document, save it as Text Only, and then copy it back."

Several readers sent a solution to this problem, which is simply to select the table of contents field and press CTRL + SHIFT + F9. That will convert the field to text (leaving formatting intact!). Then you can Find and Replace the blue Hyperlink character style with Default Paragraph Font character style. Thanks to Kieran Davies, Eric Fletcher, Katherine Pinard, and Hilary Powers for contributing to this solution.