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Nancy Allison reports: <<I should explain that documents go between
the US and Israel, and sometimes when I select an entire doc and
press F9 to update, at the end I get a message like "Hebrew character
set not supported" or "Arabic character set not supported." The
documents are entirely in English, and I have never seen any scrap of
Hebrew or Arabic lettering anywhere, so whatever is generating those
notices is deeply hidden. In addition, I painstakingly created my own
templates from scratch, but then I did copy and paste content in from
existing documents.>>
That's likely part of the problem. If the text from the other
documents was defined to use Hebrew or Arabic (a logical choice for
people working in the Middle East), the text will carry that property
with it when you paste the text into your own document. The solution
is to open the Edit menu, select Paste Special, and select
"Unformatted text" (so that the pasted text takes on the properties
of the surrounding paragraph). If you do this a lot, bind this to a
keystroke or create a macro. You'll save yourself a lot of grief.
Alternatively, once you've pasted the copied text, reapply the
correct paragraph style to strip out any external formatting. This is
less reliable, since some of this formatting seems too deeply rooted
to be removed*, but it will generally work. If you paste text into
the middle of a paragraph, I believe the Windows Word shortcut to
remove the additional formatting is to select the pasted text and
press Control + Spacebar.
* For example, this won't always fix problems related to the Japanese
and Chinese character grid, for instance. Very annoying.
<<This startup is so busy (not to say chaotic), that there's no way I
will be able to get compliance with any kind of standards, regarding
either the use of the template, or the versions of Word or operating
system used.>>
Make a business case for standardization. Document the number of
hours you have to spend fixing problems, cost out that time, and
estimate a payback period.
Also note that friendly communication with your colleagues will let
you teach them how to use templates effectively. Also explain the
problems that result when people work around the templates instead of
using them. Give your Israeli colleagues copies of your templates and
teach them how to use the templates so that you can eliminate
problems right from the start instead of trying to solve them later.
For a few thoughts: http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/2000/dynamicstyle.htm
----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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