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Thanks so much, Scott. This is all great information!
(Iâve been trying to get back on the Word-PC list at the new post, but I canât seem to get through to them. Thatâs a good list too.)
Steve
On Friday, October 31, 2014 4:05 PM, Scott Bulloch wrote:
Glad to help. Let me know if you have any other questions about Acrolinx. We've been using it for a few years now, through various versions of Word.Â
Another thing that I find helpful in working on documents is Paul Beverley's macros, particularly FRedit. It lets me quickly handle multiple find/replace queries. When I find common problems, I write up the find/replace pair in a 'rules' document that contains many such pairs, then run the macro. For example, I always replace "in order to" with "to", so that's one of the rules I have. Same with "the the" to "the". I can put a whole bunch of those rules in a document, run the macro, and it'll do the replacements all at once.
On Fri Oct 31 2014 at 3:57:24 PM Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> wrote:
Thank you so much, Scott.
This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to hear.
I really appreciate your sharing this -- it helps big-time.
And thank you for having the courage to voice these things even in the face of the current climate of oppression and suppression that seems to characterize this discussion list.
Steve
On Friday, October 31, 2014 3:45 PM, Scott Bulloch wrote:
Hi Steven,Â
Our company uses Acrolinx software. I'm generally pleased with it.Â
Acrolinx flags parts of our document with colored highlights that bring attention to possible issues with the document, such as verb tenses, number issues, extraneous words, and so on. It can also look for proper usage of branding. I find this helpful because it gives me a quick visual cue to see what I need to look at first. That said, it's just one tool in my set. I'll run Acrolinx and go through its issues, but I'll also to a read-through to catch stuff that Acrolinx doesn't or can't. I can also do a batch check of many documents to get a point score for each document. Higher scores mean more issues, so I look at those first.Â
As far as what I don't like? At least in Office 2013, it's somewhat slow. When I save my document, it has to unflag and reflag the issues, which takes some time. I wish there were some way to tell it not to check for certain issues (for example, I don't worry too much about passive verb tense).
Hope this helps,
Scott
On Fri Oct 31 2014 at 3:07:02 PM Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> wrote:
Considering there are, what, maybe 1,000 to 10,000 people subscribed to this discussion list, I'll consider that one opinion out of -- and I'll be generous here -- 1,000.
That means there are at least 999 other people on this list with equally valid opinions, and they deserve to be heard as well. And I hope they will speak up and express their own opinion, be it pro or con.
But I don't really care about the merits of STE, although anyone who wants to is welcome to comment on that if they feel the desire.
More importantly, there are perhaps two dozen people on this list who have actually fought for, implemented, and used a content optimization solution in their department, and those are the people I most want to hear from. I really want to hear their experiences with these solutions, pro and con.
Armchair critics are fine, they have a place. But if they obstruct the free flow of information, and if they impede the kind of progress that can be achieved on this list by the sharing of information, experiences, and actual wisdom that comes from experience, then they have no purpose.
Thanks,
Steve
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