Tips and Techniques for Publishing Professionals

In our last newsletter, I explained how to find and replace Unicode characters, which I'm seeing more and more in electronic manuscripts that come into my hands for editing. The problem is that our shop does typesetting in QuarkXPress, which, at least as of version 5.0, won't import Unicode characters. (This is also true of several other typesetting programs.) For manuscripts using lots of Hebrew, Greek, or other special characters, this is a real problem.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had no solution. Then, late one night, I was thinking about how to create a Word add-in that would search for formatting and replace it with user-defined tags. That's when it struck me: You can't search for all Unicode characters at once and replace them with something else, since there are thousands of them. But if you know which Unicode characters are being used in a document, you can certainly find and replace them with a combination of characters and tags that are meaningful in QuarkXPress.

To understand this, you have to know how special characters, such as Greek, are handled in QuarkXPress. They're just regular alphanumeric characters formatted in a special font. For example, to get alpha, beta, and gamma in QuarkXPress, you'd typically type a, b, and c and then format those characters with a Greek font:

a produces alpha

b produces beta

c produces gamma

So what you have to do in Microsoft Word is find a Unicode alpha and replace it with the letter a, tagged with an XPress Tag that indicates a Greek character style sheet in QuarkXPress. Here's how:

1. In Word, click the "Edit" menu.

2. Click "Replace."

3. In the "Find What" box, enter the following string, which tells Word to search for the Unicode character alpha:

^u945

You can learn more about finding and replacing Unicode characters here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1710421080

4. In the "Replace With" box, enter the character (a for alpha) and the surrounding XPress Tags you'll use to tell QuarkXPress to format the character with Greek:

<@Greek>a<@$p>

By the way, that's the standard format for XPress Tags that will create a character style sheet in QuarkXPress. The name "Greek" is arbitrary; call the style sheet whatever you'd like.

Now, to import the file into QuarkXPress:

1. In Word, save the file as a text document.

2. Open QuarkXPress and create a new file.

3. Click in the text box to make it active.

4. Click the "File" menu.

5. Click "Get Text."

6. Navigate to your text document.

7. Put a check in the box labeled "Include Style Sheets."

8. Click the "Open" button.

The file will be imported into QuarkXPress, and the XPress Tags you used will be imported as a character style sheet named "Greek." Now, in QuarkXPress, edit the character style sheet to use your Greek font. Presto! The character that used to be a Unicode alpha in Word will once again become an alpha in QuarkXPress.

For this to work, you have to know three things:

1. The Unicode numbers for the characters you want to convert. You can look up such numbers here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/search.html

2. The font (such as Greek) you'll be using to produce special characters in QuarkXPress.

3. The "ordinary" character (such as "a") that the font uses to produce each special character (such as alpha).

Then you can record a macro in which you find and replace each Unicode character with the ordinary character surrounded by the XPress Tags. Then, the next time you need to convert a bunch of Greek or Hebrew, just run the macro.

Of course, recording such a macro--or a series of them for different languages--is error-prone and tedious. A better solution is to use our MegaReplacer program, for which you can create a script that looks like this, with the Unicode numbers on the left (of the pipe symbols) and the XPress Tags and characters on the right:

^u945|<@Greek>a<@$p>

^u946|<@Greek>b<@$p>

^u947|<@Greek>c<@$p>

MegaReplacer also has the advantage of batch processing, so you can run the script on a whole folder full of documents. And, of course, the scripts are easy to change as needed.

You can learn more about MegaReplacer here:

http://www.editorium.com/14843.htm

You might also want to use our QuarkConverter program to automatically insert additional XPress Tags for style and character formatting:

http://www.editorium.com/14846.htm

However you decide to work, you now have a way to convert Unicode characters to special characters for QuarkXPress or any other typesetting program that uses tags.

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READERS WRITE

Mark Pool (mark913@earthlink.net) wrote:

"I think you and your readers might be interested to know that Merriam-Webster now has a free toolbar. To read all about it and/or download it go to http://www.m-w.com/tools/toolbar/."

Thanks, Mark. Macintosh users should note that the toolbar works only with the Windows operating system. Sorry. But Windows users should find this to be a wonderful tool.

Mary C. Eberle wrote:

"Do you know if there is a way to convert the specialized keys on a typical Microsoft-friendly keyboard to do something useful? For example, I never launch programs from the start menu, at least not more than once. And if I needed to use the start menu, there is the trusty little mouse. Thus the start menu key is useless and even bothersome to me. But it would make a dandy key to run macros if I could redefine it. Do you know any tricks to make that key available to run macros in Word 97?"

I responded:

"Look in the Readers Write column (scroll down a ways) here for some possibilities: http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708382808."

Mary continued:

"Here is a mechanical hint that may be helpful to some readers: I put an aluminum cap over the CAPS LOCK key to make it nonoperational. The aluminum cap is made from the open-and-close spout on a box of dishwasher soap. The triangular sides slip down on either side of the key. The pointed ends need to be cut off a little bit at a time until the right height is achieved so that when one accidentally keys the cap on top of the CAPS LOCK key, the key doesn't press down. I glued the aluminum cap on with heavy-duty double-sided sticky tape, but if one sometimes needs CAPS LOCK, the gluing is not necessary.

"One other hint: I have written so many macros to use in my editing that many had to be assigned to hard-to-type key combinations. I recently purchased an X-keys auxiliary keyboard to which macros can be assigned. It has doubled my macro use and increased my productivity. Readers could check this product out at www.xkeys.com. I have even put the comma and colon on my X-keys keyboard because they often need to be inserted and are a pain because in using the regular keyboard for them, I have to take my hands off my mouse."

Thanks, Mary. Please note that the X-keys keyboard will work with both PC and Macintosh, as will Mary's aluminum cap. 🙂

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RESOURCES

If you've spent much time on email discussion lists that deal with Microsoft Word, Help authoring, or technical writing, you've probably noticed the brilliant, idiosyncratic posts of Steve Hudson, who has also contributed much to this newsletter. What you may not know is that now you can talk with Steve--live!--to get answers to your advanced questions about Microsoft Word, writing, document design, macros, templates, lists, master documents, documentation hierarchies, policies, standards, processes, graphics terminology, and much more. For more information, visit the Word Heretic's Church, here:

http://www.keen.com/memberpub/homepage.asp?user=The+Word+Heretic

Steve's time ain't cheap, but then, how cheap is it to spend hours of your time fighting a problem that Steve could probably fix in minutes? When you're having serious troubles with Word, it's nice to have a real expert available.

You may also want to check out Steve's blog (Web log), which features useful information about advanced Word topics, VBA, Help authoring, and Steve's customized macros and templates. Steve's colorful language is not always for the faint of heart, but there's lots of valuable information here:

blog.tdfa.com

I'm seeing more and more documents that use Unicode characters for all kinds of things--fractions, Greek, Hebrew--since these characters are so easy to use in Word 2000 and 2002. You can learn more about Unicode here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709529895

Sometimes I need to find and replace these characters with something else. How to do so isn't readily apparent, but there are actually two different methods that will work.

Method 1: Unicode number.

You're probably aware that you can find ASCII characters using numeric codes. For example, to find an e with an acute accent, you could do this:

1. Click the "Edit" menu.

2. Click "Find."

3. In the "Find What" box, enter ^0233 (on a PC) or ^0142 (on a Mac).

4. Click the "Find Next" button.

You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704081834

The procedure for finding Unicode characters is similar, but you'd use a "u" instead of a "0" in front of the number, and of course you'd need to know the Unicode decimal number for the character. You can look up Unicode numbers at Alan Wood's Unicode Resources site here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/search.html

For example, to find a small Greek alpha in Microsoft Word, you'd search for ^u945.

Method 2: Copy and paste.

If you can see an example of the character in your document (or insert one), you can actually copy the character and then paste it into the "Find What" box. Then just search as usual.

Replacing Text with Unicode Characters

Replacing text with Unicode characters can be a little trickier than finding them, as Word won't let you use a numeric code (like ^u945) in the Replace dialog's "Replace With" box. I've usually had success, however, in pasting the character into the "Replace With" box. If you can't do that with a certain character, you may be able to follow this procedure instead:

1. Find an example of the character in your document (or insert one).

2. Copy the character.

3. Click the "Edit" menu.

4. Click "Replace."

5. In the "Find What" box, enter the text you want to find.

6. In the "Replace With" box, enter ^c to tell Word you want to replace with the contents of the Clipboard--in other words, with the Unicode character you copied.

7. Click the "Replace All" button.

If you need to work with Unicode characters on a Macintosh, things get much tougher, but you'll find information about doing so here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_fonts_mac.html#apple

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_editors_mac.html

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_editors_macosx.html

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READERS WRITE

Last week's newsletter bewailed the state of comments and revision tracking in Word 2002. Responding to my complaint that there is no way to make comments print as they did in earlier versions of Word, Erika Buky wrote, "It's not much of a workaround for people with only one computer and the current version of Word, but I understand (from the vendor who supports my organization's Word macro package) that you can import files with comments into a previous version of Word (97 or 2000), and the comments will print in the old, rational way. Still using W97/98 myself, I haven't been able to verify this."

I tried this, and it works just as Erika said.

After all of my grumbling, Meg Cox offered an alternative point of view:

Don't take my balloons!

I love the balloons. I used to have a terrible time working with tracked changes showing. It was too hard to follow the final version in the middle of all that mess. But if I didn't show changes, I would forget to toggle track changes back on when I needed to, and I'd wind up with untracked paragraphs. Everything's much easier with the balloons, and I think much clearer for the reader--even the comments as long as they stay on the same page as the text.

I agree that the balloons become less useful when the changes become denser. Word should indeed provide an easy-to-find alternative.

Nancyann Ropke (ropke.nancyann@leg.state.fl.us) wrote:

Woody's Office Watch has had several articles about comments and tracking in Word 2002.

Go to http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/archives.asp and search for "balloons"

Here are two of the articles I found.

http://www.woodyswatch.com/wowmm/archtemplate.asp?v3-n06

http://www.woodyswatch.com/wowmm/archtemplate.asp?v3-n02

Thanks to all for their comments and suggestions.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Titivillus Tools for Copy Editors and Those Who Employ Them is a Web site operated by Timothy DeVinney of Titivillus Editorial Services. The site has many helpful resources, including:

* A business plan for a freelance copy editor

* A checklist for copyediting agreements

* Style checklists

http://www.titivillus-editorial.com/

Check it out! You'll be glad you did.

If you've started using Microsoft Word 2002, you've probably seen the little "balloons" that display your comments and tracked changes. In my opinion, these are pretty much useless in a professional environment. For example, if you get many deletions on a page, Word will abbreviate the balloon messages, so printing these for an author to review is of little help. Yes, you can print the changes separately (File > Print > Print what: > List of markup), but trying to compare this list with the document is cumbersome.

Online review isn't much better. An author can use the Reviewing toolbar to go from change to change or comment to comment in the Reviewing Pane, but that's not how real people read. I want to see the corrections and comments clearly marked inline--just as they were in previous versions of Word.

Good news: After mucking around in the bowels of the program, I've discovered a fix for revision tracking:

1. Click the "Tools" menu.

2. Click the "Track Changes" tab.

3. Under "Balloons," uncheck the box labeled "Use balloons in Print and Web Layout."

Wow, what an improvement! No more balloons, and revision tracking is handled inline the way it used to be. To print your document showing tracked changes, do this:

1. Click the "File" menu.

2. Click "Print."

3. Under "Print what:" select "Document showing markup."

Now for the bad news: There is no fix for comments--at least not that I can find. In previous versions of Word, each comment had an inline reference (like "[JML3]") and a corresponding reference at the beginning of the comment. That was a good system, easy to use and understand.

With Word 2002, these references have gone away, so it's now difficult to figure out what part of the text a comment refers to. You can move from comment to comment using the browser arrows at the bottom right of your screen, but that's a poor substitute. Even worse, there seems to be no way to print comments at all without enabling those stupid balloons. Microsoft, are you listening?

If you know of a way around this problem, please let me know. If not, you can always resort to typing coded inline comments [[like this one]] that can later be deleted with a wildcard Find and Replace:

Find what: [[*]]

Replace with: [nothing]

Maybe if we all wrote to Microsoft about this, they'd stop gumming up a perfectly useful word processor. Maybe we should send balloons.

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READERS WRITE

Brad Hurley (bhurley@sover.net) wrote:

I usually use bibliographic software for references (EndNote, which integrates nicely with Word), but occasionally I have to edit documents that use Word's endnotes and footnotes. Is there any way to insert footnotes or endnotes into text boxes? We frequently prepare documents with sidebars, which we create with text boxes, but there doesn't seem to be any way to add footnotes to them if we need to cite a reference. Maybe there's a better solution for creating sidebars than using text boxes?

I replied:

As you've already learned, text boxes don't support footnotes or endnotes. However, frames do.

So if you can use frames rather than text boxes, that should solve your problem. To get a frame in Word 2000, you have to click Tools > Macro > Macros and then select "Word commands" in the "Macros in:" dropdown list. Then click "InsertFrame" in the "Macro name:" box. Then click the "Run" button. Finally, use your mouse to draw the frame in your document.

Please note that this kind of frame is not to be confused with the Format > Frames command, which creates HTML frames for use in Web pages.

Wordmaster Steve Hudson wrote:

So, you went and installed Word 2000 and set the templates and wizards to Run All from My Computer. Now when you go File > New there is a plethora of tabs and templates, none of which you use anyway. So now you want to clean them out.

Step 1 - Uninstall the templates. Otherwise Word will keep on replacing them when you delete them! Change Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add / Remove Programs > Microsoft Office > Change > Add / Remove Features > Microsoft Word for Windows > Wizards and Templates to Not Available. Update Now > OK > Close.

Step 2 - Dump the following lines into a new text file and rename it Killer.bat. Double-click it to run it. It gets rid of the last few problem children for you.

%HomeDrive%

cd "%ProgramFiles%Microsoft OfficeOffice"

rmdir Broadcast /s /q

cd 1033

del Feedback.htm

del Thankyou.htm

Thanks to Brad for his question and to Steve for his cleanup procedure.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Expertise Publications features "articles, tip sheets, white papers to guide you through all aspects of using Microsoft Word." Especially if you're migrating from WordPerfect, you'll find some useful information here:

http://www.microsystems.com/publications.htm

If you use styles to format text in Microsoft Word (which you should), the style of the currently selected paragraph is displayed in the Style dropdown list on the Formatting toolbar. To see what style is applied to a paragraph, you can click the paragraph and look at the list on the toolbar.

Wouldn't it be nice, though, if you could see all of the styles applied to all of the paragraphs on your screen all at the same time? Well, you can. You just have to display Word's Style Area. Here's how:

1. Open a document that contains a bunch of styled text.

2. Make sure your document is displayed in Normal view (click View > Normal). The Style Area isn't accessible in Print Layout (Page) view (but it is in Outline view).

3. Click the "Tools" menu.

4. Click "Options."

5. Click the "View" tab.

6. In the box labeled "Style area width," enter 1 inch or the equivalent.

7. Click the "OK" button.

Now, on the left side of your screen, you'll see the Style Area. In the Style Area, to the left of the first line of each paragraph, you'll see the name of the paragraph's style. Pretty slick!

You can change the size of the Style Area under Tools > Options > View, or simply by using your mouse to move the vertical line between the Style Area and the body of your document. If you've got lots of long style names, make it bigger.

Need to modify one of the styles listed in the Style Area? Just double-click it to open the Style dialog.

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READERS WRITE

Martha Kohl (mkohl@state.mt.us) wrote:

"I've encountered a weird problem. The author put notes in his manuscripts using Word's automatic note numbering system. So far, so good. However, in this particular book, we won't be using notes. I have tried deleting the notes as I came across them in the text, but while the note numbers disappear in the text, the notes are still there. I can't get rid of them. Any suggestions?"

I replied:

"I suspect that the author has revision tracking turned on, right? If so, there's a bug in Word that keeps deleted notes from actually going away. The only way around this is to make the tracked revisions permanent. Then the struck-out notes will disappear."

Thanks to Martha for her question.

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RESOURCES

LaShay Canady wrote:

Here are resources I use as a Virtual Assistant.

http://www.freetranslation.com/

helps to translate a website, phrase, or word into a different

language

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

helps to tell time for various clients in various time zones

http://www.mailwasher.net/download.php

An excellent anti-spam tool that is FREE!

Please note that MailWasher isn't available for Macintosh. If you're a Mac user and know of a similar program for Macintosh, please let us know.

Thanks to LaShay for the helpful tips.

This week I received the electronic manuscript of a book I'm going to edit--a collection of talks presented by various scholars at a symposium. Looking through the first talk, I noticed that the footnotes were a mess. The author had used Microsoft Word's automatically numbering notes, sure enough, but then he'd typed a period after each automatically numbered superscript note number. What *was* he thinking? Those periods after the superscripts sure looked weird. How could I get rid of them? A wildcard search! Here's the procedure:

1. Switch to Normal view (View > Normal) if you're not already there.

2. Open the notes pane (View > Footnotes).

3. With your cursor at the top of the notes pane, open the Replace dialog (Edit > Replace).

4. In the "Find What" box, enter this:

(^02).

The parentheses consititute a wildcard "group" containing the ASCII code for automatic note reference numbers. And, of course, they're followed by a period. You can learn more about wildcard grouping here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706267069

And you can learn more about searching with codes here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1703875043

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1703968584

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704081834

Why not just use ^f to find the footnote numbers? Because the wildcard search engine will give you an error message if you try.

5. In the "Replace With box, enter this:

1

That's the "find what expression" code, and it represents whatever was found with (^02)--in other words, a note number. But we've excluded the period since we want periods to go away.

6. Put a check in the "Use Wildcards" (or "Use Pattern Matching") checkbox. (You may need to click the "More" button before this is available.)

7. Click the "Replace All" button.

In my bad, bad document, that did the trick.

I opened the next chapter and looked at the notes first thing. Wow, messier still. Incredibly, this author had used Word's automatically numbered footnotes to create the note reference numbers in the text, but then she'd typed her notes after the body text, leaving the footnotes pane completely empty (except for the now-meaningless note numbers). Good grief! How was I supposed to fix that? Well, at least the note text was intact at the end of the document. Now I had to replace those automatic reference numbers with superscript text numbers. Time to write a macro! Here's the version for Word 97 or higher:

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting

With Selection.Find

.Text = "^02"

.Replacement.Text = ""

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False

End With

Selection.Find.Execute

Do While Selection.Find.Found

i = i + 1

Selection.TypeText Text:=Str$(i)

Selection.Find.Execute

Loop

If you don't know how to use macros like that one, see the article here.

You may recognize this macro as a "repeating macro," as described in the March 20, 2002, issue of Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709891370

Here's the version of the macro for Word 6 and 7 (95):

EditFind .Find = "^02", .Direction = 0, .MatchCase = 0, .WholeWord = 0, .PatternMatch = 0, .SoundsLike = 0, .Format = 0, .Wrap = 1, .FindAllWordForms = 0

While EditFindFound()

i = i + 1

Insert LTrim$(Str$(i))

EditFind

Wend

The macro finds an automatic footnote reference number (^02), increments a plain old number in the computer's memory (i = i + 1), and then types over the top of the reference number with the incremented number (Selection.TypeText Text:=Str$(i)). *Don't* use this macro on documents that have properly working notes. It will delete the notes (and thus the note text), leaving only superscript numbers in their place.

Running the macro took care of my problem but left me with another: how to turn those text notes into automatically numbered ones so I didn't have to manually renumber as I edited the piece. I could have created a bunch of new footnotes by hand, pasting the note text into each one--if I'd wanted to be inefficient. Luckily, there's a better solution: the "Text to Notes" feature of my trusty NoteStripper program, which I used, and which you can learn more about here:

http://www.editorium.com/15078.htm

Gritting my teeth, I opened the third article and looked at the notes. Yes, also messed up. This guy had used Word's automatic notes feature but then opened the footnotes pane, *deleted* the note number (an invitation to file corruption if there ever was one), and *manually typed in* note numbers and periods. Grrrr. *Now* what? This one needed drastic measures. I selected all of the notes in the footnotes pane, copied them (they were nothing but text, so why not?), and pasted them at the end of the document. Then I used that macro again to turn the note reference numbers into superscript text. Finally, I used NoteStripper's "Text to Notes" feature to turn the text notes into automatically numbering ones.

And the rest of the articles? About a third of them used notes correctly. The rest were a mess, just like the first three. If you're ever faced with this kind of stuff, maybe this article will help.

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READERS WRITE

After reading last week's article on cross-referencing footnotes (which used gibberish text in the examples), Toni Knapp wrote:

Jack Lyon's information would have been very useful if it had been written in English. What was the purpose of the (foreign?) gibberish? The cross-referencing process made no sense to me.

I replied:

The foreign gibberish is just nonsense text used as an example, so readers don't confuse what the example paragraphs *say* with the text of the article itself. For example, I could have written the examples like this:

This is some text^1 that you might use in your document. When you use that text^2 you'll see what it looks like.^3

But in doing so, there's a danger that readers won't see the text as an example but rather as part of the article itself. So the safer route (and actually the traditional route) is to use nonsense text, like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,^1 consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy^2 nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.^3

Sorry if that was confusing. Using nonsense text is actually a publishing tradition that goes back nearly to the time of Gutenberg, when type samples were printed in garbled Latin so that readers would pay attention to what the type samples *looked* like rather than what the type samples said. You can read more about sample text in my newsletter here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1705763701

Toni responded:

I'm quite familiar with (and use) nonsense text, but primarily as filler material in book dummies, layouts, etc. Used in an example for cross referencing, however, it did not work for me personally. I was too busy trying to decipher the nonsense. :o)

Probably a good point. If you, gentle reader, sometimes use nonsense text, you might want to be sure that it's not confusing in the context where you're using it.

Thanks to Toni for her question and response.

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RESOURCES

Knopf Online offers a great "Tips & Resources" page for "technical writers, Help authors, and other information developers." See especially the article "Coping with Word's Autonumbering 'Feature'" on the right side of the page:

http://www.knopf.com/resources.html

If you're like me, you love Microsoft Word's note feature--in particular, being able to insert or delete a footnote or endnote and have all of the subsequent notes renumber automatically. Have you ever wondered, though, how to create a note reference number that refers to a note that already exists?

For example, let's say the following text is a Word document with notes (I've indicated note reference numbers with carets, like this^1):

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,^1 consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy^2 nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.^3

1 Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam.

2 Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate.

3 Delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

We have a reference number for note 1 after "amet," but let's say we want to refer to note 1 again, this time after "elit," like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,^1 consectetuer adipiscing elit,^1 sed diam nonummy^2 nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.^3

1 Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam.

2 Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate.

3 Delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Is that even possible in Word? Yes, it is, and it's called cross-referencing a note. The procedure is basically the same for footnotes or endnotes, although here I'll use footnotes for the example. Here's how to do it:

1. Open a document that has footnotes.

2. Put your cursor in your text where you want to cross-reference an existing note.

3. Click the "Insert" menu.

4. Click "Cross-reference."

5. Click the "Reference type" drop-down list.

6. Click "Footnote" in the list.

7. Click the "Insert reference to:" list.

8. Click "Footnote number (formatted)"--probably the last item in the list.

9. In the "For which footnote:" list, click the number of the footnote you want to cross-reference.

10. Click the "Insert" button.

These instructions sound more complicated than the procedure actually is--it's fairly easy. Be careful, though. If you insert a new note before your original note, the cross-referenced note won't change automatically. For example, here's our document with the cross-referenced note 1:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,^1 consectetuer adipiscing elit,^1 sed diam nonummy^2 nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.^3

1 Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam.

2 Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate.

3 Delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Now, if we insert a new note after "ipsum," our original note 1 reference number will change to "2," but our cross-referenced note number after "elit" will remain as "1":

Lorem ipsum^1 dolor sit amet,^2 consectetuer adipiscing elit,^1 sed diam nonummy^3 nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.^4

1 Accumsan et iusto odio dignissim.

2 Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam.

3 Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate.

4 Delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Why? Because the cross-referenced note number is what Microsoft calls a "field," and fields don't update automatically. To update the field (the cross-referenced note number), select it and press the F9 key. The document will then look like this, with the number after "elit" updated to a "2":

Lorem ipsum^1 dolor sit amet,^2 consectetuer adipiscing elit,^2 sed diam nonummy^3 nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.^4

1 Accumsan et iusto odio dignissim.

2 Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam.

3 Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate.

4 Delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

If you want to update all of the fields in your document (if you've got lots of cross-referenced note numbers, for example), select all (Edit > Select All) and then press F9. You can also set fields to update when you print by clicking Tools > Options > Print and putting a checkmark in the box labeled "Update fields."

Incidentally, these cross-referenced notes work beautifully with the "Notes to Text" feature of our NoteStripper program and, after being stripped, with our QuarkConverter program. You can learn more about these programs here:

http://www.editorium.com

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

If you're creating custom VBA projects, you'll appreciate the following information from Wordmeister Steve Hudson, who wrote:

The "Disk Full on template save" error and "Network Lag on Document Open" error AND "Setting Digital Certificate" error.

Hah. Three problems in one. To cut to the chase, it's caused by a missing reference which can be located via the VBE (ALT+F11) > Tools > References dialog. Get rid of that reference by clearing the checkmark. If you had anything using that reference you need to relink it to its new destination.

A simple way to cause this is to not provide the original document template. This causes a missing reference to that template to appear in this list. It will try and hunt it down across your paths in the Tools > Options > File Locations dialog, thus causing shocking lag when some of these locations are network addresses.

It also causes problems when the VBA project is forced to recompile. The compile process fails as it cannot resolve the reference. VBA projects are forced to recompile when given a new digital signature or a new object is added.

Thanks to Steve for this important tip.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

The Word-PC list and archives are, in my opinion, some of the finest Microsoft Word resources available anywhere. You can join the list or search the archives here:

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/word-pc.html

You're typing along, and suddenly the short line you entered a couple of paragraphs earlier has turned big and bold. Who does it think it is, anyway? When you investigate, you discover that the line has somehow been formatted with Word's Heading 1 style.

You've just discovered one of the wonders of Word's AutoFormat feature, which should be firmly beaten into submission before it takes over your whole document. If you want to see how it works, try this:

1. Click the "Format" menu.

2. Click "AutoFormat."

3. Click the "Options" button.

4. Click the tab labeled "AutoFormat As You Type."

5. Under "Apply as you type," put a check in the box labeled "Headings." If there's already a check there, you've found the source of your anguish.

6. Click the "OK" button.

7. Click the "Close" button.

Now, in a new document, do this:

1. Type "My Heading" (without the quotation marks), and be sure not to type any punctuation after it.

2. Hit the Enter key twice.

Wow, the text is now formatted with the Heading 1 style. You might think that's kind of neat, but what if you didn't *want* the text to be a heading? What if you were just typing a list of items without ending punctuation (which, by the way, seems to be the defining factor here)? Then you need to turn the feature off.

See, the whole issue is one of control. How much "help" do you want Microsoft Word to give you? If you're editing, your answer may be "none," because editors need to have complete control over what's happening, and they can't have Word introducing changes that they may not even be aware of. When I'm editing, I allow one AutoFormat option--replace "straight quotes" with "smart quotes" as I type--and I watch it like a hawk.

If you turn off the AutoFormat option to apply headings as you type, and you *still* get automatic formatting, you may still have the last "AutoFormat As You Type" option turned on. It's labeled "Define styles based on your formatting," and the Tooltip Help explains its function:

"Create new paragraph styles based on the manual formatting you apply in your documents. You can apply these styles in your document to save time and to give your documents a consistent 'look.'"

The idea that Word is creating new styles as I work just gives me the heebie-jeebies. This is one option I'm definitely going to keep turned off.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

On April 10, Editorium Update featured a macro to convert typed-in fractions (like 1/2) into typographically acceptable ones (like 1/2). You can read the article here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1710035169

In the article, I wrote, "I owe my thanks to Wordmeister Steve Hudson for the idea. Steve would probably take a more elegant approach, but this macro will definitely work." Well, by golly, Steve did create a beauty of a macro (the Fractionator) that even watches out for dates (4/10/2001, for example) and URLs and leaves them alone, while still creating beautiful fractions. Many thanks to Steve for this useful tool, and for his comments throughout the macro to explain what is going on.

If you don't know how to use macros like this one, you can learn more here.

You might also want to create a toolbar button for the macro, which you can learn about here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707286867

And now, the macro:

'THE MACRO STARTS HERE
Private Const msgNoFraction As String = "No fractions found."
Private Const hitInfo As String = "Information"
Public Sub TextFormatAllFractions()
System.Cursor = wdCursorWait
If FractionFormatting = 0 Then MsgBox msgNoFraction, , hitInfo
System.Cursor = wdCursorNormal
End Sub
Public Function FractionFormatting(Optional Scope As Range) As Long
'returns the number of entries formatted
'formats 123/456 with super and subscript
'The Word Heretic
Const Search As String = "[0-9]@^47[0-9]@"
Dim Fractionator As String
Dim Divisor As Range
Dim Dividend As Range
Dim Slash As Range
Dim Finder As Range
Dim TestStart As Range
Dim TestEnd As Range
Dim IsFraction As Boolean
Dim StartChar As String
Dim EndChar As String
Const UrlText As String = "?%#_|$/"
If Scope Is Nothing Then Set Scope =
ActiveDocument.StoryRanges(wdMainTextStory)
Fractionator = ChrW$(8260) 'unicode
Set Finder = ActiveDocument.StoryRanges(wdMainTextStory)
Finder.Collapse
With Finder.Find
.Text = Search
'only search forwards
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
.MatchWildcards = True
While .Execute(replace:=wdReplaceNone)
FractionFormatting = True
Set Divisor = Finder.Duplicate
Set Dividend = Finder.Duplicate
'divisor is the bit at the end
'so move start until we find a slash
Divisor.MoveStartUntil cset:="/"
'then move just past it
Divisor.MoveStart unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
' now make sure we get the rest of the number
' (Word's Find wildcards feature sux)
Divisor.MoveEndWhile cset:="0123456789"
'dividend is the bit at the start
'so start from the beginning
Dividend.Collapse
'include everything up to the slash
Dividend.MoveEndUntil cset:="/"
'The slash is right after our dividend
Set Slash = Dividend.Duplicate
'so start at the end
Slash.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
'and move forward 1!
Slash.MoveEnd unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
'Now, test if it is a fraction or part of a bigger formula.
'First, get the chars immediately before and after
Set TestStart = Dividend.Duplicate
TestStart.Collapse
TestStart.MoveStart unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1
Set TestEnd = Divisor.Duplicate
TestEnd.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
TestEnd.MoveEnd unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
StartChar = TestStart.Text
EndChar = TestEnd.Text
IsFraction = True 'innocent until proven guilty
'Check if this is a field. Its probably a hyperlink or similar
'So don't process it
If Slash.Fields.Count > 0 Then IsFraction = False
'Test for some obvious false positives
If (LCase$(EndChar) >= "a" And LCase$(EndChar) <= "z") Or _
(LCase$(StartChar) >= "a" And LCase$(StartChar) <= "z") Or _
InStr(1, UrlText & ".", StartChar) > 0 Or _
InStr(1, UrlText, EndChar) > 0 Then IsFraction = False
If IsFraction Then
'set the styles at LAST!
Dividend.Font.Superscript = True
Divisor.Font.Subscript = True
Slash.Text = Fractionator
FractionFormatting = FractionFormatting + 1
End If
'Now, set the find range so we find
'the next fraction
Finder.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
Wend
End With
End Function
'THE MACRO ENDS HERE

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Speaking of Steve Hudson, Steve sent a bunch of his favorite resources, one of which is the Qwik and Dirty Task Guide for Microsoft Word:

http://www.oootraining.com/QwikAndDirty/QwikAndDirtyWordWeb/qwikword.htm

The Web site notes, "We'll show you how to do multi-step tasks in Microsoft Word by guiding you through the screen sequences. Scroll down, as needed. We use very few words, but realistic examples."

The site features clear, illustrated, step-by-step instructions for using various features of Microsoft Word, and a handy table of contents for easy navigation. Especially if you're just starting out with Word, you'll find this site invaluable.

Here's the scenario: You've just opened a new document from a client, and you italicize the first paragraph, which is a short quotation introducing the chapter. But suddenly *all* of the chapter text is italicized. What in the world is going on?

You've just bumped into Word's "Automatically update" feature for styles. (This is different from the "Automatically update document styles" feature discussed in last week's newsletter.) If you don't know about the "Automatically update" feature, you can spend hours trying to adjust formatting, only to have everything in sight messed up beyond belief.

To turn the feature off, do this:

1. Click the "Format" menu.

2. Click "Style" (in Word 2002, that's "Styles and Formatting").

3. Click the style that's giving you fits (such as Heading 1). (In Word 2002, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the style in the Task Pane.)

4. Click "Modify."

5. Remove the checkmark from the box labeled "Automatically update."

6. Click the "OK" button.

7. If necessary, click the "Close" button.

Now, when you modify some formatting in your document, you'll change only the local selection and not everything that's formatted in the same style. But really, you should avoid using directly applied formatting anyway. Using paragraph and character styles is much more efficient--the True Way--and avoids a multitude of problems.

So what's the point of the "Automatically update" feature? It allows you to modify styles without drilling down, down, down through the Styles dialog. Well hey, that's good! It means you can change formatting directly, see the result immediately, and have the styles updated automatically to reflect that formatting. Pretty neat!

So here's my recommendation:

1. If you're *designing* a document, use the "Automatically update" feature with a bunch of junk text to set your styles exactly the way you want them (be sure to select the whole paragraph before changing the format). Once you've got them set, turn off "Automatically update." Then copy the styles to your real document, or save the junk document as a template that you attach to your real document. You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704544112

2. If you're *writing* or *editing* a document, make sure the "Automatically update" feature is turned off. You'll have a happier day.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Rhana Pike (Rhana@ctc.usyd.edu.au) wrote:

"I was interested to read the tip on automatic updating of styles. A related issue is the box that appears sometimes when I try to apply a style to a paragraph: it says something like 'Update the style to match selection?' (I can't get it to appear now). Is there a way of getting rid of this or applying a default, because I set styles through the menu and never want to update the style to match the selection."

Here's how this works: When you apply direct formatting to a paragraph (such as formatting it in bold with CTRL + B), and then immediately click the paragraph style (such as Heading 1) in the Styles list on the Formatting toolbar, Word asks if you want to:

1. Update the style to reflect recent changes, or

2. Reapply the formatting of the style to the selection.

If you click option 1, Word will modify the style to match the manual formatting you've applied to the paragraph. This is a quick way to modify styles--similar to the technique explained in the main article in today's newsletter.

If you click option 2, Word will override all of that lovely manual formatting you've just done and reapply the existing formatting of the style.

Is there a way to get rid of these options and just apply the style? The only way I know of is not to click the Styles list after applying formatting directly--or, better yet, to avoid using directly applied formatting altogether.

Thanks to Rhana for her question.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Mark Pool (mark913@earthlink.net) wrote:

I really like the Google toolbar. It's a free download at

http://toolbar.google.com/

It occupies no more space than the address bar. Whenever I'm online and want to do a search it's always handy. Some of the advanced features are pretty cool, too, such as "Highlight".

Thanks to Mark for this helpful hint.