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Peggy Lucero said...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-219327 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:bounce-techwr-l-
> 219327 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Lucero, Peggy
> Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 1:02 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Adobe Acrobat 6.0 VS WORD 2003
>
>
> This is a two part question:
>
> 1. Are most of you who are doing tech writing using WORD or Adobe for your
> formal documentation? I understand that the major plus of working with
> Adobe is that no one can alter the content of the document (that is not
> suppose to!) But, I believe this is now a feature of WORD '03, being
> able to lock/password protect a document, so this can't really be THE
> reason someone chooses Adobe over WORD.
> 2. I have been using WORD '03, per bosses' direction, for everything so
> far. Today a developer sent me 12 Adobe documents, each one is a few
> pages in length, and I'm wondering if these can be placed into the system
> design document by a cut/paste with success?
>
In answer to the first part of your question, "yes" and "not so fast, my friend." The answer is "Yes" you can password protect documents in MSW2k3, but all that does is prevent someone from "actively" changing your document. The "not so fast, my friend" refers to this: the real crime of MS Word always has been (and probably always will be) it's contemptible normal.dot template. If I make a document in Word and send it to you, whether or not it is locked, one of two scenarios plays out when you open it (I say one of two because I don't know for sure, I just know what happens as a result): (1) If a style name I have in my document is the same as one in your "normal.dot" but they have different attributes, the style you see on your screen changes to the attributes you defined, not the ones I saved, or (2) Any styles I have in my document that you just opened automatically get sucked into your "normal.dot" and you can't get rid of the blasted things whether you want them there or not.
And Word does all this without so much as a peep to you to alert you that something funky is going on. It's this kind of inexcusable behavior that has made me call Word insidious, deceitful, spiteful, obnoxious, and altogether unsuitable as anything other than a bloody text editor. It's a pathetic excuse for a desktop publisher and unworthy of being called a serious authoring tool. Until Microsoft banishes that hideous "normal.dot" back to whatever unholy plane of the nine hells it came from, then the only type of TW who had ever better CONSIDER using Word is one who is a lone writer that never has to share any electronic documentation with SMEs, managers, colleagues outside the company, or anyone else within a five hundred yard radius of another copy of MS Word of any version or any flavor.
Other than that minor criticism, I think Word is just peachy.
In answer to the second part of your question, I believe there is a simple way of accomplishing the task. I believe you simply open the Adobe document, highlight and copy the text you want, then switch to your Word template and "Paste without formatting." That should just drop it in as whatever your default text style is, then you can apply the styles you wish from your template as required.
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