Many of the books I edit in Word are loaded with footnotes, and I've often wished I had a way to see notes and text at the same time while scrolling through them independently. Comes the dawn! It's easy:
1. Open your footnote-laden document.
2. Make sure you're looking at the document in Normal view (View > Normal.)
3. Open your document in a new window by clicking Window > New Window. You'll now have two instances of your document open. Any change you make in one will be reflected in the other, but you can scroll through them independently.
4. Arrange and size your two windows so they're displayed on your screen side by side. (If you have our Editor's ToolKit program, click Windows > Arrange Documents to do this automatically.)
5. In one of the windows (I like the one on the right) open the Notes pane so you can see your notes (View > Footnotes).
6. Use your mouse to grab the divider bar between the Notes pane and the body text. Drag the bar to within about half an inch of the top of your Word window. (If you go too far, the Notes pane will close.) Now most of that window will be taken up by your notes.
7. Use CTRL + SHIFT + F6 to jump back and forth between the two windows while scrolling independently through them to your heart's content.
Now you can see and edit your notes and text at the same time.
You can learn more about Editor's ToolKit here:
http://www.editorium.com/14857.htm
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RESOURCES
Literary Machine is one of the most interesting programs I've looked at in quite a while. If you need a way to store free-form notes and ideas, retrieve them at will, and compile them into a document, Literary Machine may be just what you're looking for:
http://www.literarymachine.com
This powerful program comes in two versions: 2000 and Pro. The 2000 version is free but lacks some of the Pro features, and at $20 the Pro version is a bargain. Both versions have a fairly steep learning curve, but I'd like to share some tips that may make things easier if you're interested in trying the program.
The basic element in Literary Machine is the Item, which is simply an independent text note. Literary Machine is designed to hold lots of these. When you're planning your novel and have a plot idea, you'll create a new Item and type your idea into it. When you have another idea, you'll create another Item and type away.
But how will you find your Items again after you've put them away? Before you put them away, you'll assign one or more Concepts to each Item. Concepts are represented by words in a window on the Literary Machine desktop. Drag a Concept word to an Item, and the Item will be associated with that Concept. Drag a Concept word to the desktop, and the Items associated with the Concept will be displayed as small note cards, which you can move around at will.
The idea of associating Concepts with Items is a little difficult to understand, because it's exactly the opposite of how we usually think. Ordinarily, we think of documents as being *under* a certain category. In Literary Machine, categories (Concepts) are *associated* with documents (Items).
Another idea that's a little difficult to grasp is that Concept words and Concepts aren't really the same thing. Here's why: Let's say you have a bunch of Items that discuss cats and a bunch of other Items that discuss canaries. These Items are categorized appropriately using the separate Concepts "cats" and "canaries." Now let's say you have a single Item that discusses the *interaction* of cats with canaries. Yes, you could file it under "cats" and you could also file it under "canaries." But what if that was the *only* Item you wanted to find among a whole bunch of Items on either cats or canaries? You'd have to create a "hybrid" Concept that contained *both* words, "cats" and "canaries," and assign the new Concept to that Item. Then, when you drop the Concept word "cats" or the Concept word "canaries" on the desktop, this "hybrid" Concept will appear along with the two separate Concepts. If you then drop one of the words (it doesn't matter which) from the hybrid Concept onto the desktop, you'll get *only* the Item that discusses both cats *and* canaries. In other words, a hybrid Concept is a way to file and retrieve an Item by combining Concept words. In computer language, it's an "AND." I want to find *only* the Items that are filed under "cats" AND "canaries." The separate Concepts would find the Items filed under "cats" OR "canaries." Remember, though, that you have to *assign* the hybrid Concept to the Items you want to retrieve rather than just dropping the two separate Concept words on the desktop.
Once you've got the Items in the order you want, how can you save them in that order? That's where Projects come in. You create a Project and add your selected Items to it. Then, by dropping the Project on the desktop, you'll display the same *Items* in the same *order* that you had before. You can export a Project, or multiple Projects (think "chapters"), as a separate file (think "book"). You can arrange Projects hierarchically as folders and subfolders, and if you export a group of Projects as an HTML file, the file will include the Project names as Word Heading paragraph styles.
There's one more way to find stored Items--by using the Find function, just as you would in Microsoft Word or other programs. The Items or Concepts containing the search word will be displayed on the desktop.
The program has many other terrific features, but they'll take time and thought to master. You'll probably find, however, that the result is worth the effort.
Another thing I like about Literary Machine is that its genius (literally) creator, Gunnar Sommestad, is open to suggestions about how the program should work, and he's constantly improving it. I, for one, am planning to support his efforts. In fact, I've created a macro that will convert Word documents to Items in Literary Machine. If you're interested in having the macro, let me know:
mailto:editor [at symbol] editorium.com
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