RE: Word _Please Help

["Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com>]

>I know that this subject is tiresome, but I really need some advice before
I
>go crazy!
>I just started a new job as the Documentation Manager. During my
negotiation
>period, I expressed my concern about their DTP tools (namely, the only tool
>that they use is Word). No flames please.
>The manager said, "No problem; we're gadget lovers, and we'll get you
>anything that you need."

Oh. Dear.

>On Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent all hours of the night hashing through
the
>ins and outs of adding hyperlinks, TOCs and just plain numbering the darn
>document correctly. I was truely in tears.

Calm down! Don't cry! Do not spend all hours of the night trying to fix a
document, you will get stressed and become sad and miserable and vent on
TECHWR-L. Saying that, I have spent a full day this week doing nothing but
fixing a document from the eternal mess that a developer got it into... this
guy can write but he has no Word training but, hey, who needs Word training?
Using Word is easy...

Except, it's not. Using Word is easy to start with: you open up a blank file
and you type. But the more complex purposes you have for Word, the harder it
is to use. Word has its faults and its bugs, but the first thing that you
need to remember about Word is that it's a high-end tool bolted on to a
low-end tool. You can do practically *anything* in Word (except use Master
Documents) but, like all high-end tools, you do need to learn how to do it.

For outline numbering, I strongly recommend reading The Seven Laws of Word
Outline Numbering:
www.microsystems.com/fra_sevenlawsofoutlinenumbering.htm (plus there's a
cool workaround for Word's awful autonumbering "feature" to be found at
www.knopf.com/tips/autonumber.html)

If you're stuck with using Word for the next while, you might want to
consider joining the WORD-PC list.
mailto:word-pc-subscribe-request -at- liverpool -dot- ac -dot- uk to join (no subject or
command text required).

The archives are at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/word-pc.html

Jane Carnall
"Didn't you know that Word has it in for people with paranoia?"
Apologies for the long additional sig: it is added automatically and outwith
my control.


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