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.
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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.
