Re: Working with large documents in Word

[Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>]

Regarding the corruption of a Word file by unwise importing of text, Jim Pinkham says:

>>At a minimum, I would want to Paste Special the copied information as unformatted text and then apply the carefully created styles from my template. This can mean extra effort if you wish to replicate the formatting from the copied document, but it can save a lot of grief, too.

I need to experiment with Paste Special; sounds like it might save me a few steps. My preferred way to add new text hast been to copy it from its source file, paste into Notebook, then select and copy the Notebook text into my Word file. (Oops, just typed "Word vile." HA!)

Letting multiple authors work in a structurally sophisticated Word document is the express route to disaster. A friend of mine ultimately had to send out a document with section numbering that went something like this:

1: Chapter title

1.1 How You Doing?
1.2 I'm Great
4.3.7 Greatness Variables
4.3.8 Frustration Variables
1.3 It's Been Real

Her client company believed in free collaboration in the source document and allowed no time for her to rework the document before it was sent out to clients. Someone pasted in an autonumbered section from another document, and my friend tried everything under the sun to get the two autonumbering schemes to talk to each other, but she ran out of time.

I believe both source documents used Word's Outline numbering feature, too, so it should have meshed. But -- it didn't! Surprise!

Anyway, my two cents on many hands in one doc. If you have lots of reviewers with itchy hands, try to convince them to use the Comment function. They can cut and paste into the Comment pane to their hearts' content.

--Nancy


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