The Notes That Wouldn’t Die
Editors who use Microsoft Word’s revision-tracking feature in documents with footnotes (or endnotes) have often complained of an annoyance: If you delete a note (which you should do only by deleting the reference mark in the text), the reference mark is struck out, but the text of the note itself is not struck out. This can be really confusing to clients who want to review your work:
“I thought we agreed to delete note 47.”
“Right! I did delete it.”
“Then why is it still there?”
Why Microsoft hasn’t fixed this problem in, lo, these many years is beyond me. But since they haven’t, I thought it might be possible to create a macro that would do the job. So here it is:
Sub NoteMarker()
'Courtesy of The Editorium, www.editorium.com
Dim NumNotes
Dim RevType
Dim n
On Error Resume Next
'Set tracking to on
ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = True
'Count the notes
NumNotes = ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count
'Select each note reference and see if it's been deleted
For n = 1 To NumNotes
RevType = "" 'This must be reset each time through
ActiveDocument.Footnotes(n).Reference.Select
RevType = Selection.Range.Revisions.Item(1).Type
If RevType = wdRevisionDelete Then
ActiveDocument.Footnotes(n).Range.Delete 'Delete the note's text
End If
Next n
End Sub
If you don’t know how to use such macros, you can learn how here:
http://blog.editorium.com/2001/05/30/using-found-macros/
You should run the macro on a document only *after* you’ve finished editing the document and have already deleted note references as needed. Why? Because the macro looks at each note reference in your document. If the reference has been deleted, the macro also marks the corresponding note text as deleted.
Enjoy! (But enjoy responsibly! Always back up your work before running a macro.)
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RESOURCES
Resources: wordsnSync–again! Because you really should look at it.
If you’ve been reading Editorium Update very long, you’ll recognize the name of Richard H. Adin, who frequently contributes useful tips for the Readers Write column. Rich has recently released a Microsoft Word add-in, EditTools, that works very well with those I offer at the Editorium. His add-in is both useful and ingenious. You’ll find it here:
http://www.wordsnsync.com/edittools.php
Rich sent me the following explanation about two specific EditTools features, and if you’re an editor, you’ll want to pay close attention:
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The MultiFile Find & Replace works similar to your MegaReplacer in that it replaces all instances of a word or phrase in all documents in a directory. However, MultiFile Find & Replace is complementary to MegaReplacer. MegaReplacer works when you have a known list of changes you want to make globally; MultiFile Find & Replace is designed to do the replacement as you come across it while editing and to do one replacement at a time.
Smart Highlighter does the typical highlighting. For example, if you want to highlight “gizmo,” it highlights all instances of “gizmo.” But the reason it is “smart” is this: Suppose you come to “Escherichia coli” in a manuscript. You want to note that you have (1) already seen it spelled out and that (2) when you come to “E. coli,” there is no need to spell it out. If you select “Escherichia coli” and run Smart Highlighter, all of the subsequent instances of the following will be highlighted–
Escherichia coli
E. coli
Escherichia
–giving you visual cues that subsequent instances of “Escherichia coli” should be changed to “E. coli” and that “Esherichia” has already been spelled out, as well as that “E. coli” is okay because it has been previously spelled out.
—————————————-
Now those are both *very* cool features. Imagine this: You’re editing along and come to a misspelled name. You fix it in the current chapter, but then EditTools fixes it in *all the other chapters,* so when you open one of them to start working, the misspelling is already fixed! Yeah, I’ll definitely be using that one.
I know what you might be thinking: “How come you’re promoting a competitor’s product?” Simple: It’s a great product! And Rich has been a great supporter of mine over the years. Other than that, I’m not getting anything out of this. So what are you waiting for? Check out EditTools today!
http://www.wordsnsync.com/edittools.php
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Feed the hungry and test your vocabulary–everybody wins! My high score is 47. What’s yours?
If you’d like to share a resource that others might find useful:
mailto:resources@editorium.com
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HELP WANTED
If you need help with Word, there are actually lots of places to go. Some of the best include:
Allen Wyatt’s WordTips:
http://WordTips.VitalNews.com
The Word-PC List:
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/word-pc.html
The McEdit list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/McEdit/
Microsoft’s Word discussion groups:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/FlyoutOverview.mspx#13
(Look in the lower right of the page.)
The Word MVP site:
http://word.mvps.org/
Woody’s Lounge:
http://www.wopr.com/cgi-bin/w3t/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=wrd
But if you can’t find what you need in those places, send your question here:
mailto:help@editorium.com
I’ll put your question in the newsletter to see if some astute reader knows the answer.
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I *love* SpamArrest. After unsuccessfully trying to fight the battle against junk email with a couple of top-notch programs, I decided to try SpamArrest, and I’m thrilled to say it’s actually won the war. Boy, has my email been quiet! When people send me an email message, they receive a message in return asking them to click a link to register themselves (a one-time operation) as someone who can send me email. Spammers, of course, won’t bother to do this, which basically means no more spam! It’s easy to preregister family, friends, associates, and email newsletters. The online program (no software installed on your computer) provides complete control over how spam is handled, and it’s very easy to use. You can try SpamArrest for 30 days at no charge. To learn more, click here:
http://spamarrest.com/affl?1403707
And if you decide to sign up, please do so through that affiliate link. Your support will help keep Editorium Update alive and kicking. Thanks!
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THE FINE PRINT
Editorium Update (ISSN 1534-1283) is published by:
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http://www.editorium.com
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