RE: Using Word for book publishing

["Porrello, Leonard" <lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com>]

Hi Edwin,

Would you mind briefly outlining the type of "discipline" you are talking about as well as the paradigmatic differences (if any) between writing small documents versus large documents in Word? I've only ever used Word for small to medium (<100 page) documents.

Thanks!

Leonard

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Edwin Skau
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 11:20 PM
To: McLauchlan, Kevin
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Using Word for book publishing

> 1)  Learn Word completely.  Like other tools, Word has its way of doing

> > things.  If you just bash away with manual formatting and so on, you
> > will be frustrated.  If you try to use such features as sections
> > without truly understanding them, you will have bad surprise after bad
> > surprise.  Master the principles and you'll be fine.  If you want to do
> > columns and sidebars and such, Word can do it but you have to do it
> > Word's way using the right features in the right ways.
>
>
I'd modify that slightly to say, learn how the Word object model works.

The problem with Ms Word is that when you first encounter the software, you
can click it open and start typing almost immediately.
And then you can tamper with the menus and do awesome stuff to text all over
the place. and then when you use these same principle that work so well with
small documents when you create large documents, Word gets cantankerous.

If we understand that using Word for large documents need more planning and
discipline that when working on small ones, I think things work out quite
well.

Almost all problems with word seem to map to the application of superficial
attributes (text formatting, numbering, etc.).

Then there are the infrequent tasks like mail merge or writing/recording
macros. Yes, they require referencing the user documentation, but if you
could do it once, chances are you can do it again.

Edwin
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