Re: Process Management advise, please

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From: jg70124 (jg70124_at_nospamyahoo.com)
Date: 11/07/04

  • Next message: Suzanne S. Barnhill: "Re: Rebellious tables" 
    Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 12:24:11 -0500

    Ah ha - this may indeed help me out.

    Question: are toolbars created in Word XP compatible (and transferable) to
    Word X.2 (for Mac)?

    The primary author is wedded to the Mac, which he thinks is easier. It may
    be, but it's also easier for him to invent klugey work-arounds to do things
    as he thinks they ought to be done.

    J

    "Jonathan West" <jwest@mvps.org> wrote in message
    news:elyoLNYwEHA.1392@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
    > With regard to trying to persuade the other authors to use styles, this
    > article might help you
    >
    > Creating Custom Toolbars for Templates
    > http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=262
    >
    > Once you have created a Styles toolbar in the way described in the
    article,
    > point out to theother authors that clicking on the appropriate button is
    > quicker & easier than doing manual formatting.
    >
    >
    > --
    > Regards
    > Jonathan West - Word MVP
    > www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
    > Please reply to the newsgroup
    >
    > "jg70124" <jg70124@nospamyahoo.com> wrote in message
    > news:%23CgXJGSwEHA.3292@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
    > >I have been working with a university professor on a marketing text book
    > > made up of 20 chapters, each about 100 pages long. Originally, he
    created
    > > the entire thing on his Mac using character formatting, hard returns,
    and
    > > spaces instead of tabs. I spent a couple of weeks reformatting using
    > > styles
    > > (we have about 30 styles to cover all the situations). Although I was
    > > never
    > > able to teach him to use styles, it was ok, because it only took a few
    > > minutes for me to reformat his changes after each iteration.
    > >
    > > Now, however, the publisher has hired a freelance editor and a marketing
    > > consultant, both of whom are contributing new material and editing
    > > existing
    > > material. Strangely, none of these new users (publisher, editor,
    > > consultant) understands styles - in fact, it turns out they don't even
    > > know
    > > styles exist. Nor do they know about the collaboration aids in Word, or
    > > about bullets, or about automatic caption, or self-updating fields.
    > >
    > > So when one of these new people wants to change a figure number, for
    > > instance, they delete the caption including the figure number field I
    > > inserted, and type in a new line, using whatever style was in the
    previous
    > > paragraph. Then they manually reformat the caption to make it look like
    > > they want.
    > >
    > > As a result, the process of managing the formats has become much more
    > > difficult.
    > >
    > > Additionally, I've used Word's equation editor to create equations
    > > throughout the text, but somewhere (at the Mac?) the equations are
    getting
    > > crushed; when the documents come back to me, they've been replaced with
    > > error codes and grey boxes.
    > >
    > > The final product must be more or less "camera ready" - the publisher
    will
    > > reset the text using something other than Word, and so they don't care
    > > about
    > > styles, formats, or any of that. They just want it to look like how we
    > > want
    > > it. In fact, they would be happier if we just did the whole thing in
    > > plain
    > > text, and used ASCII codes at the beginning of each 'graph to say how we
    > > want that one formatted.
    > >
    > > Given how complex Word is, and how few people really understand how to
    use
    > > it, my guess is that other people here have faced similar situations.
    > > (For
    > > instance, Sandra Jensen has posted a similar request just a few days
    ago).
    > >
    > > So I would very much appreciated any process management advise people
    can
    > > give.
    > >
    > > Thanks,
    > > jeremy
    > >
    > >
    >

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