Archive for the ‘Editing’ Category

The Notes That Wouldn’t Die

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

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 ...

Setting Up Microsoft Word for Use in Publishing

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Out of the box, Microsoft Word is set up for the most generic of users--someone who needs to type an occasional letter or compose a memo for the boss. It works well for such purposes, offering lots of automated corrections and formatting for someone who doesn't want to think about ...

Deleting Multiple Comments

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

While editing in Word, you may use Word's Comments feature (Insert > Comment) to insert questions for your client--or possibly your client has used comments to insert questions for you. In either case, there will probably come a time when you need to remove the comments so the file can ...

Deleting Multiple Bookmarks

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

Bookmarks in a Word document are useful for many things, such as, well, marking your place, marking ranges for index entries, and marking text for cross-references. But they can also get in the way--for example, if you've finished editing a document for a client and have several dozen bookmarks you've ...

Effective Onscreen Editing

Friday, June 22nd, 2007

If you've spent much time in user groups related to Microsoft Word, Macintosh computers, or technical writing, you've probably seen postings and articles by Geoff Hart, one of the most prolific, respected, and helpful writers and Word experts I know. And now for the big news: Geoff has released his ...

The Need for Speed

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

In my last few years as a corporate employee, I felt compelled to edit faster and faster while still maintaining accuracy. (Could it have had something to do with the many rounds of layoffs in the company?) If you're feeling the same squeeze, I have some suggestions that might help. Share ...

Microsoft Word 2008

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Word 2008, for Macintosh, isn't out yet but will be later this year: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-09MacworldPR.mspx  Share

Microsoft Word 2007

Friday, January 5th, 2007

Here it is, 2007 already. So it seems appropriate to look at Word 2007 and see if it's something editors and other publishing professionals might find useful. You'll find Microsoft's sales pitch here: Share

Converting Text Boxes to Text

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

I've recently needed to help several people convert Microsoft Word text boxes to text. Is there something in the wind? Whatever is going on, if you're having to copy and paste, copy and paste, to get that text out where you can use it, you'll appreciate the following macro, which ...

Correcting Misspelled Words

Friday, March 24th, 2006

In our last episode, I provided a macro to make a list of misspelled words found in a document. You'll find the macro here: Share