Tips and Techniques for Publishing Professionals

In our past few newsletters, we've been talking about templates--attaching them, creating them, and so on. There's still one area we haven't talked about: creating *new* documents based on existing templates. If you're an editor, you may be thinking, "I usually work on documents someone else has created." True enough. However, as an editor you probably also:

* send letters to clients.

* send invoices to clients.

* write jacket blurbs.

* write manuscript reviews.

* send out an occasional resume.

And so on. If you create such documents using templates that fit your needs, you'll save time and frustration, and you'll also look more professional. For example, I've created a letterhead template that includes the Editorium logo from our Web site, my business address, and a date field, and I've stored it in Microsoft Word's Templates folder. When I need to write a letter, I do this:

1. Click Word's "File" menu.

2. Click "New."

3. Click my letterhead template (Letterhead.dot).

4. Click the "OK" button.

Word creates a new document with the Editorium logo, business address, and the current date. All I have to do is type in the text of my letter. Slick! I've also modified Word's built-in invoice template and created templates for different kinds of writing projects. I seldom need to create a new document from scratch.

When you *attach* a template to an existing document (as explained in previous newsletters), the styles from the template will be copied to the new document. However, any *text* in the template will *not* be copied. You'll probably use this feature most for documents you're editing.

When you use a template to *create* a new document, any text in the template *will* be copied to the new document (along with styles). You'll probably use this feature most for documents you're writing.

For example, if you write rejection letters to authors, having some "boilerplate" text in a template will save you lots of time. Just create a new document based on your Rejection template, modify the document as needed (inserting the author's name and some specific comments, for example), and you're done!

Please note that if you create a document by pressing CTRL + N or clicking the "New" button (on the far left of the Standard toolbar), Microsoft Word won't let you select a template to use. It will simply create the new document based on your Normal template. Since that's the case, you should modify your Normal template to create the kind of document you need most often.

It's midnight at the publishing house. All the cubicles are dark--except one in the back corner, where a frazzled production editor struggles to finish formatting a 700-page book that's due at press in eight short hours. Can't we do something to help?

As we've seen in our newsletters the past few weeks, Microsoft Word documents get their overall formatting from the templates attached to them. By changing a document's template, you automatically change the document's formatting. *Every* document is based on a template. If you don't attach one, Word uses the Normal template. The relationship looks like this:

Template ---> Document

Styles and paragraphs have the same kind of relationship as templates and documents. Paragraphs get their overall formatting from the styles applied to them. By changing a paragraph's style, you automatically change the paragraph's formatting. *Every* paragraph is based on a style. If you don't apply one, Word uses the Normal style. The relationship looks like this:

Style ---> Paragraph

Why does Word work like this? To give you greater and faster *control* over a document's formatting. Using templates and styles, you can instantly change the look of an entire document--or certain parts of a document, such as block quotations or headings.

Many people never even think about this. They'll go through an entire manuscript, manually formatting every single heading as Arial, 14-point, bold, small caps, 1-point condensed, center justified, exact line spacing, keep with next. It makes me absolutely crazy!

To get fast, consistent formatting throughout a manuscript, you'll need to do two things:

1. Attach a template that includes the styles you need with the formatting you want them to have. To learn more about this, see Editorium Update for the past two weeks:

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

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?sort=&mid=1704628448

2. Consistently apply styles as needed. For example, you might use the Heading 1 style for part titles, Heading 2 for chapter titles, Heading 3 for subheads, and so on. You can read more about style levels in the documentation for our WordSetter program, here:

http://editorium.com/Wordset.htm/#_Toc500857368

If parts of the manuscript still don't look right, they may have directly applied font and paragraph formatting (such as Arial, 14-point, bold, small caps, 1-point condensed, center justified, exact line spacing, keep with next). Directly applied paragraph formatting is easy to remove: just select the whole document (CTRL + a) and then press CTRL + q. Unfortunately, directly applied font formatting isn't so easy to get rid of. Yes, you can select the whole document and press CTRL + SPACEBAR, but that will also remove all character formatting, such as italic, presenting a serious problem. The only solution I know of is our FileCleaner program's Standardize Font Formatting feature, which you can learn more about here:

http://editorium.com/Fileclnr.htm/#_Toc500858918

Using templates and styles is the key to formatting that looks good and doesn't take all night to finish.

Now, go home and get some sleep.

Microsoft Word comes with several templates for creating reports, press releases, resumes, and other documents. These templates can come in handy, but, as subscriber David Ibbetson writes, "The best way to use templates is to make your own according to your tastes and needs. Built-in templates can be valuable as a source of ideas, and can sometimes be modified to meet your requirements. An off-the-shelf template is unlikely to be as satisfactory as one made-to-measure."

This is especially true of templates for editing and typesetting, which Microsoft's off-the-shelf templates simply aren't equipped to handle. Their main drawback is not having enough styles, especially for something as complicated as a book, which needs styles for everything from epigraphs to endnotes. If you'd like a template with lots of styles, please feel free to use, modify, and rename the highly generic Typespec template that comes with our Editor's ToolKit program, which you can download here:

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

The other drawback to Word's templates is that they don't provide enough variety. In my opinion, nearly every publication is worthy of its own design--one that fits its subject and style. For example, Moby Dick needs a different typeface (something wild and rough-hewn) than Paradise Lost (which calls for something dignified and classical). Book design is a little beyond the scope of this newsletter, so you may want to consult such books as these:

The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst.

The Printed Word, by David A. Kater and Richard Kater.

The Art of Desktop Publishing, by Tony Bove, Cheryl Rhodes, and Wes Thomas.

Desktop Publishing with Word for Windows, by Tom Lichty.

The Non-Designer's Design Book, by Robin Williams.

The Non-Designer's Type Book, by Robin Williams.

Besides the templates that you use for final formatting, you'll also need a template that you use with every document--but only while you're *editing* the document. That template should include all of the styles you'll use for final formatting (typesetting) but with typefaces, point sizes, and paragraph formatting that make editing easy. Currently, my favorite typeface for editing is Times New Roman, because its hyphens and dashes are so easily distinguishable from each other, as are its opening and closing curly quotation marks. You can download Times New Roman (and other useful fonts) free of charge from Microsoft here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm?fname=%20&fsize=

To create a custom template, follow this procedure:

1. Create a new document.

2. Paste in a bunch of text that you can play with.

3. Create and format the styles you'll need, experimenting on the pasted text (this will require time and care).

4. Delete the pasted text, leaving only the styles in your document.

5. Click the "File" menu.

6. Click "Save As."

7. In the "File name" box, give your template a name that will help you remember its purpose ("Editing.dot," "MobyDick.dot," or whatever meets your needs).

8. In the "Save as type" box, select "Document Template (*.dot)."

9. Click the "Save" button to save the template.

I recommend using the same style names in all of your templates, even though the styles will be formatted differently from template to template. Someday when you're converting hundreds of publications into a giant XML archive (or simply attaching a different template to a document), you'll be glad you did. I also recommend using Word's built-in heading styles (Heading 1 through Heading 9), which make it possible to navigate and rearrange whole sections of a document in Outline view.

Once you've created a template that you like, you can modify it as needed for other publishing projects, saving it with a new name for each one. After a while, you'll have a wide variety of templates designed specifically for *your* projects and needs.

Last week we used Microsoft Word's Style Gallery to understand one of the main reasons for using templates: to change the formatting of all of the styles in a document. You can read last week's newsletter here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704442036

Why would you want to change the formatting of all of the styles in a document? Let me suggest some reasons:

1. You're sick of editing in Garamond Ugly, which is the typeface your client has used. Why not (a) save your client's document as a template and then (b) go back to the original document and attach your own template that defines the styles in a typeface you like? When you're finished editing, you can simply attach the "client" template that you saved, which will restore your client's formatting in all of its hideous glory. For suggestions of typefaces that work well for editing, see our June 6, 2000, newsletter:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?sort=d&mid=1700934923

2. You've finished editing and you want to apply the final format to a document that's otherwise ready for printing. In the past you've saved certain elegantly designed documents as templates, so now you can attach one of those templates to your current document and create an instant masterpiece.

3. As the editor of an academic journal, you're pulling together a dozen papers from various scholars and want to give all the papers the same format. You attach your standard template, and voil?!

Note that for these scenarios to work, the documents in question must use styles that are also used in the templates you're going to attach. For example, if your document includes certain paragraphs formatted with the Heading 1 style, when you apply a *template* that uses the Heading 1 style, the formatting from the template will be copied to the headings in your document.

That is, it will if you've turned on the option to automatically update document styles. Here's the whole procedure:

1. Open the document to which you want to attach a template.

2. Click the "Tools" menu. (In Word 6 or 7, click the "File" menu instead.)

3. Click "Templates and Add-ins."

4. Click the "Attach" button.

5. Click the name of the template you want to attach.

6. Click the oddly-named "Open" button. (You'll now see the name and path of the template in the "Document template" box.)

7. Put a check in the box labeled "Automatically update document styles."

8. Click the "OK" button to attach the template to the current document and update the styles to match the formatting in the template.

I still haven't said why you should attach a template rather than use Word's Style Gallery to change your styles' formatting. Actually, the Style Gallery works just fine for that purpose. But attaching a template does more than just change the formatting of styles. It also makes certain items available in the document to which it is attached. Those items include AutoText entries, macros, and customized toolbars, menus, and key combinations--some very useful stuff! But that's a topic for another time.

A hundred years ago when I switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word, there was one thing I just didn't understand. That thing was templates. What the heck were they, anyway? How was I supposed to use them? And what did they have to do with editing?

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines "template" as a "pattern . . . used as a guide to the form of a piece being made"--a pretty good description of a template in Microsoft Word.

In my opinion, the best way to see what that means is to play around with Word's Style Gallery for five minutes. Never heard of it? Try this:

1. Open a document you've been working on (make a backup first, just in case).

2. Click the "Format" menu at the top of your Word window.

3. In Word 2000 or 2001, click "Theme."

4. Click "Style Gallery."

5. In the "Preview" box (on the lower left), click "Document" (if it's not already selected).

6. In the "Template" window (on the upper left), click the name of a template.

Now, look at the "Preview of" window on the right. You'll see what your document would look like if you were using the template you selected in the "Template" window. For example, let's say your original document uses 12-point Times New Roman for its Normal text style. If you select the "Elegant Report" template in the "Template" window, the Normal text style will suddenly be displayed in 11-point Garamond. If you've used the Heading 1 style in your document, formatted as 16-point Arial bold, let's say, the text styled with Heading 1 will be displayed in 9-point Garamond bold. Quite a difference!

Now you see one of the main things that a template does: *It changes the formatting of all of the styles in a document.* It does that, however, only if the styles in the template are the ones actually *used* in the document, which is an excellent reason to use the same, standardized style names in every document you work on. For example, if you create a style named ChapHead for chapter headings in a certain document, that style definitely *won't* pick up the formatting from the Heading 1 style in the "Elegant Report" template.

Try clicking some other templates in the Style Gallery. Each template will change the look of your document in the "Preview of" window. If you want, you can click the "OK" button to copy the styles from the selected template into your document, which will actually change your document formatting. (You can't just "undo" this, by the way. You've got that backup, right?) Or, you can click the "Cancel" button to close the Style Gallery without changing your document.

As useful as it is, the Style Gallery isn't the *real* way to use templates. The real way, especially for editing and publishing, is to *attach* them to your documents. We'll talk about that next week.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Last week we discussed "the death of proofreading." Subscriber James Spear was kind enough to send some proofreading tips he's found useful. They're quoted here with his permission:

"As a technical writer, I typically find my self flying solo through the document creation process. Proofing my own work is a part of this process dominated by one major pit-fall--I read through certain errors, because I know what I intended to say. So, what I have actually put 'on the page' doesn't always register.

"Conversations with other tech writers have reinforced my suspicions that our brains have this marvelous ability to unconsciously interpret and correct errors as we read through our own work. This is fascinating stuff for a study of the human cognitive processes. But--it can become a major obstacle when you are working alone against a deadline.

"I have adopted two techniques for tackling my proofreading dilemma. These are recruiting my sources as proofreaders and manually inserting/reviewing the table of contents.

"In technical writing, I typically report information from engineers, technicians, and programmers. This process starts with interviewing these technical types, then concludes with writing the documents.

"I am able to keep the technical people in the process as proofreaders, simply by asking. They are often extremely reliable proofreaders for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I find that these people are generally glad to review documents that are based on information they have provided, under one condition. You have to dole things out in small chunks! If you ask someone to read through 5 or 10 pages, they will almost always say yes. If you ask someone to read 300 pages, you may gain a reputation as a nut case.

"The other technique that I have adopted for solo-proofreading affects my approach to the table of contents.

"I try to avoid using Word's automatic table of contents feature. I know this is contrary to the notion of using automatic word-processing features to save time. But--I have found that manually entering each entry into the table of contents forces me to look at each page of a document, individually.

"Rather than just reading headings and typing them into the table of contents, I use the opportunity to read each page. This forces me to slow down and address each page. I find that this type of careful reading, in small chunks, produces the best proofreading results. Once I have entered an individual item in the table of contents, I use Word's Cross-reference feature to insert automatic page numbers for each entry."

Thanks to James for his comments.

Here's the scenario: You open a giant document from a client and start looking through it. But what's this? The same odd character at the beginning of every paragraph. Must be some kind of file translation error. Odder still, Microsoft Word won't let you paste the character into its Find and Replace dialog, so how are you going to get rid of them all? By hand? Horrors!

If you knew the character's numeric code, you could search for it, as explained in our last newsletter:

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

But this character isn't on the usual list. How can you find out its numeric code? By using our trusty NextCharacter macro:

FOR MICROSOFT WORD 6 OR 7 (95):

'THE MACRO STARTS HERE
NextChar$ = Str$(Asc(Selection$()))
MsgBox "The code for the next character is " 
+ NextChar$ + ".", "Next Character"
'Macro ends here
FOR MICROSOFT WORD 8 (97 OR 98) OR 9 (2000 OR 2001):
'Macro starts here
Dim NextChar$
NextChar$ = Str(Asc(WordBasic.[Selection$]()))
WordBasic.MsgBox _
"The code for the next character is " + NextChar$ + ".", _
"Next Character"
'THE MACRO ENDS HERE

TO CREATE THE MACRO

1. Copy the appropriate macro from this newsletter.

2. Click the "Tools" menu at the top of your Word window.

3. Click "Macro."

4. In Word 97, 98, 2000, or 2001, click "Macros."

5. Make sure "Macros Available In" shows "Normal.dot."

6. Type a name for the macro in the "Macro Name" box--"NextCharacter" should do nicely.

7. Click "Create."

8. Paste the macro at the current insertion point.

9. In Word 6 or 7, click "File," then "Close," then "Yes." In Word 97, 98, 2000, or 2001, click "File," then "Close and Return to Microsoft Word."

TO RUN THE MACRO:

1. Put your cursor in front of the character whose numeric code you want to know.

2. Click the "Tools" menu at the top of your Word window.

3. Click "Macro."

4. In Word 97, 98, 2000, or 2001, click "Macros."

5. Make sure "Macros Available In" shows "Normal.dot."

6. Select the macro (probably "NextCharacter") in the "Macro Name" box.

7. Click "Run."

After you run the macro, a message box will appear on your screen with the numeric code you need.

Our last newsletter explained how to search for special characters (such as carriage returns and section breaks) using character codes. You can read the newsletter here:

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

Why should you, as an editor, writer, or publisher, care about something as "technical" as searching with codes? Because they make it possible to find and replace things you ordinarily couldn't, such as paragraph breaks, dashes, and symbols. This can be a big help in cleaning up all kinds of editorial and typographical problems that you'd otherwise have to fix by hand.

After reading the last newsletter, subscriber Bruce White wrote: "Next obvious question: Where can we find a full list of codes?"

There are actually two different kinds of codes:

1. Microsoft Word's built-in codes (such as ^p for paragraph breaks and ^t for tabs).

2. ANSI character codes (such as ^013 for paragraph breaks and ^009 for tabs).

Both kinds of codes are useful, but the list of ANSI codes includes every character you can use in Microsoft Word. Next week I'll provide a list of these codes and explain how to use them.

This week, I'll give you a list of Word's built-in codes, which you can use in Microsoft Word's Find and Replace dialog (Edit/Replace). For example, if you wanted to find an em dash, you'd enter the following code in the "Find what" box:

^+

To replace it with an en dash, you'd enter this in the "Replace with" box:

^=

You can also insert Word's built-in codes by clicking the Special button in the Find and Replace dialog and then selecting the item you need. Please note that you can use some of the codes only in finding text, others only in replacing, and others in either one.

You can also use combinations of codes. For example, you could search for tabs followed by paragraph breaks (^t^p) and replace them with paragraph breaks alone (^p).

And now, here's the list. Enjoy!

CODES YOU CAN USE IN THE "FIND WHAT" BOX

Annotation mark ^a

Any character ^?

Any digit ^#

Any letter ^$

Caret character ^^

Column break ^n

Em dash ^+

En dash ^=

Endnote mark ^e

Field ^d

Footnote mark ^f

Graphic ^g

Line break ^l

Manual page break ^m

Nonbreaking hyphen ^~

Nonbreaking space ^s

Optional hyphen ^-

Paragraph mark ^p

Section break ^b

Tab character ^t

White space ^w

CODES YOU CAN USE IN THE "REPLACE WITH" BOX

Caret character ^^

Clipboard contents ^c

Column break ^n

Contents of the Find What box ^&

Em dash ^+

En dash ^=

Line break ^l

Manual page break ^m

Nonbreaking hyphen ^~

Nonbreaking space ^s

Optional hyphen ^-

Paragraph mark ^p

Tab character ^t

In our last newsletter, I explained how to find Microsoft Word footnote numbers using the character code ^02. You can read the newsletter here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1703696660

There are other character codes you can use to find certain items:

* For a carriage return, you can use ^013.

* For a section break, you can use ^012.

* For a word space, you can use ^032.

Of course, you can also use Word's built-in codes, which you can insert into the Find dialog's "Find what" box by clicking the "Special" button:

* For a carriage return, you can use ^p.

* For a section break, you can use ^b.

* For a word space, you can use ^w for a word space (actually, any white space).

So why would you want to use the first codes?

Because if you're finding something by using wildcards, the second ones won't work. For example, let's say that (for some reason) you're searching for "wh" followed by any other character (the wildcard for which is "?"), followed by a carriage return. In the Find dialog's "Find what" box, you enter this:

wh?^p

And to make Word search for the wildcard rather than an actual question mark, you put a check in the box labeled "Use wildcards."

Finally, you click the Find button. What happens? You get an error message:

"^p is not a valid special character for the Find What box or is not supported when the Use Wildcards check box is selected."

"Well then, how," you politely ask your computer, "am I supposed to find what I'm looking for?"

As usual, it doesn't reply, but here's the answer anyway. In the "Find what" box, you enter this:

wh?^013

And that will do the job.

Ordinarily, you should probably use Word's built-in codes, such as ^p and ^b. But when those don't work, now you've got an alternative.

In our last newsletter, I explained how to use the "Find What Text" code to change formatted text in Microsoft Word. You can read that newsletter here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?sort=d&mid=1703525514

(If that address breaks, you may have to put it back together again in your browser's address window.)

This week, I'll show you how to use the "Find What Text" feature to change the format of note numbers. (I'm going to use footnotes as an example, but you can do the same thing with endnotes.)

When you create footnotes in Microsoft Word (Insert menu/Footnotes/Footnote), the footnote numbers are formatted in superscript, like this (I'm using carats [^] to indicate superscript formatting):

^1^ This is the text of note 1.

^2^ This is the text of note 2.

And so on. But sometimes you might want your footnote numbers to have regular formatting and be followed by a period, like this:

1. This is the text of note 1.

2. This is the text of note 2.

Microsoft Word has no numbering option that will do this. Nevertheless, there *is* a way to do it, using "Find What Text":

1. Open a document containing footnotes (be sure to keep a backup copy of the document, just in case).

2. Make sure you're viewing the document in Normal mode (View menu/Normal).

3. Open the footnote pane (View menu/Footnotes).

4. Make sure your cursor is at the top of the footnote pane.

5. Open the Find and Replace dialog (Edit menu/Replace).

6. In the "Find what" box, enter "^02" (don't include the quotation marks). ^02 is the code that represents a footnote number.

7. In the "Replace with" box, enter "^&." (don't include the quotation marks). Be sure to include the period after the ampersand. Also, in earlier versions of Word, you may need to follow the period with a space. The ^& code itself represents any text that was found, or in other words, the "Find What Text."

8. With your cursor in the "Replace with" box, click the "Format" button. (You may need to click the "More" button first.)

9. Click "Font."

10. In the Find Font dialog, clear the "Superscript" checkbox so that the replacement text won't be formatted in superscript.

11. Click the "OK" button to close the dialog.

12. In the Find and Replace dialog, click the "Replace All" button.

Your footnotes will now be formatted like this:

1. This is the text of note 1.

2. This is the text of note 2.

Pretty neat! Remember, however, that if you now add another footnote, its number will be formatted in the superscript default, and you'll have to fix it by hand. To do so:

1. Select the number.

2. Press CTRL + SPACE to remove the superscript format.

3. Type a period after the number.

WARNING: Be careful not to delete a note number or type a note number by hand. Microsoft Word uses a special code to represent a note number, and if you fool around with this code, you risk corrupting your file. You can, however, delete or move a note *reference* number that appears in the *body* of your document, like this,^3^ and Microsoft Word will automatically renumber your notes, leaving their new formatting intact.

I ordinarily advise people not to mess around with automatic note numbers, because it's fairly easy to corrupt a document by doing so. If you know what you're doing, however, you can at least change the formatting of the note numbers if you really need to. Now you know how!