Boilerplate is text you can use over and over again as needed. For example, the Fine Print section of this newsletter is boilerplate. Here's a little-known but useful way to create boilerplate in Microsoft Word:
1. Create a new document to hold all of your boilerplate text.
2. Paste your boilerplate text into it (obviously enough).
3. Select each chunk of boilerplate text and apply a bookmark to it (Insert > Bookmark). Make the bookmark names short and easy to remember. You may even want to keep a list of the bookmarks for reference. (You'll see why in just a minute.)
4. Save your document with a name like "Boilerplate" in an easy-to-find folder.
Now, when you're working on some document and want to insert some boilerplate text, here's what to do:
1. Click Insert > File.
2. Navigate to your Boilerplate file and click it.
3. Click the "Range" button.
4. Enter the name of the bookmark for the chunk of boilerplate you want to use. Unfortunately, Word won't give you a dropdown list of the bookmarks, which is why you should use short, memorable bookmark names and keep a list of what they are.
5. Click the "Insert" button.
The boilerplate for the bookmark you entered will be inserted into your document.
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READERS WRITE
Answering the question "How many pages per hour should someone be able to edit on-screen?" expert word-whacker Hilary Powers wrote:
"Should" is a hard word to apply, as the work varies so much according to the condition of the manuscript and the skills of the editor. But one thing I can say: pages-per-hour production should not be lower than the equivalent paper speed.
For the purposes of pricing, paper speed expectations remain the standard, much as 250 words remains the standard page decades after the demise of the 10-pitch typewriter.
For doing the work, I find that I'm reliably between 150% and 300% of the paper speed expectations--but I've been counting keystrokes and squeezing electrons till they scream for ten years now. It'd be a very reasonable first goal to try to match paper speed on-screen--without rushing. Rather, look for ways to get the effects you want as easily as possible . . . and keep looking after you get back to your paper level, as by that point you'll probably have no more than scratched the surface of what's possible.
A job I finished a bit ago--a near-300-page manuscript in very good shape, well written and with a charming subject--had a net thruput of 14.5 pages per hour. That's close to the top I've achieved thus far for straight editing, but not the absolute max if memory serves.
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Hilary also wrote:
Here's another wrinkle on the title-case macro:
Sub SentenceTitle()
' Macro written 3/20/2004 by Hilary Powers
Selection.Range.Case = wdLowerCase
Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.text = ":"
End With
Selection.Find.Execute
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=2
Selection.Range.Case = wdNextCase
End Sub
It's for converting two-part title-case titles to sentence case: Select everything but the first word and hit the hot key, and it all goes lowercase except the word following the colon. . . . A godsend for a 50-page reference list with mixed formatting that needs to go to APA. (A refined version would let you select the whole title and then uppercase both the first word and the word after the colon, but I got lazy.)
If you don't know how to use macros like that one, you can find out here:
Many thanks to Hilary for her terrific tips.
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RESOURCES
Where does the term "boilerplate" come from? You can find out at World Wide Words and The Word Detective, both wonderful sites for those interested in words:
http://www.quinion.com/words/index.php
http://www.word-detective.com/index.html
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