Doing the Splits

One of the advantages of editing on paper is that you can lay out the various pages, one here, one there, for reference and comparison with each other. For example, you may need to refer to a certain paragraph on page 10 while editing a paragraph on page 300. On the computer, this is a problem. You can scroll back to page 10 for reference, but then you'll have to scroll forward again to page 300 to make your changes.

If you do this kind of thing a lot, you may want to try using Microsoft Word's Go To feature (CTRL + G) to jump to the specific pages you need. Many editors never even think about this; they just hold the Page Down key and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll until they reach their destination. Go To may get you around more efficiently.

However, switching from one page to another over and over can get pretty tedious. Wouldn't it be nice if you could open the *same* document twice, with page 10 on the top of your screen and page 300 on the bottom? You can, with an often-overlooked feature called New Window. To use it, click the Window menu; then click "New Window." To see both windows at once, click the Window menu again; then click "Arrange All." You can tell the windows apart by looking at the title bar at the top of each one. Your original window's title will end with a 1. The new window's title will end with a 2.

You can move around each window freely, and you can have page 10 visible in the top window and page 300 visible in the bottom. Because each window contains the *same* document, any changes you make in one window will be reflected in the other. If you need to refer to more than two pages at the same time, you can open another new window. (If you're like many editors, you'd prefer to see the windows side by side, not one above the other. Our Editor's ToolKit program includes an "Arrange Windows" feature that puts one window on the left and the other on the right for easy comparison.)

You can also compare different pages with Word's Split feature, which lets you split a single window and scroll the two halves independently. To use it, click the Window menu; then click "Split." Position the split by moving your mouse and clicking the left mouse button. You can switch from one pane to the other by pressing SHIFT + F6. To get rid of the split, click the Window menu; then click "Remove Split."

If you work on long documents (such as books) and need to compare pages often, you may need a larger monitor. I recommend 17 inches at a minimum. Once you've tried a 21-inch monitor, you'll never want to go back. With a monitor that large, you can see a full page on your screen, and working on two documents side by side is a pleasure. You may never work on paper again.

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