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If you have SharePoint you can set up a workflow. Else, use PDFs if you can, but you might get pushback. Some (sometimes influential) people prefer Word docs.
In Word, don't use manual page breaks. Either set a heading (or other beginning to a section) to have a page break before, or use keep with next for paragraphs that should be on the same page. There's less damage to be done that way. For quick editing, these and other commands can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar. And you can set up keyboard shortcuts, which are faster than point and click with a mouse.
I would also keep a copy of the original, and then use compare documents with the marked up copy. A small monitor is annoying, though, for this.
As for someone else sending it on without a final edit, all you can do is apologize for them if you get the chance. And tell the responsible party that you were hoping for a final once-over before submitting to the client. Who knows, there's a chance it will make a difference next time.
tims
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+timothy -dot- slager=dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+timothy -dot- slager=dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Chris Morton
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 8:22 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: [RMX:NL] Into the Frying Pan
Hi All,
*BACKGROUND:* I'm but one publications specialist on a very large scale, corporate-run program in contract with New York. Although the corporation is known worldwide as an entity intimately involved with business documents, it has no official style guide. Well, marketing kinda sort has one... but then we've come across several variants on our own. And they even formally published one in 1988 that was offered for sale; it smacks of very early DTPitis (I was part of the DTP vanguard at the time).
Our four-person publications department has a lot resting on its shoulders, and is (not) being managed by a person who has never run a pubs department before. Like half of our small dept., she's been on this job less than one full month and is learning as we go along. (Yet there is no time for that, as the horse is already out of the barn.)
(BTW, corporate has equipped each of us with a single, tiny monitor, so attempting to speed edit with two docs up side-by-side is a real challenge, never mind the fact that we're all stuffed into study carrels (not even a normal cubicle). Some are on Office 2013, others 2010, so there's no telling why the disparity in system images and licensing.)
As with any state gig, I suppose, many things are in a quandary (I previously saw it while on a Deloitte project withe the CA Dept. of Workers' Comp.). Apparently several deliverables were already supposed to have been created and approved, including an overall outreach plan that includes many items pubs is charged with creating.
Last week the pubs manager was still taking a leisurely approach to that doc, thinking that we only needed to have it roughed out, that the state would help us finalize dates and whatnot. It was up to us to first discover, then appropriate and thoroughly rewrite, a similar plan created in California for a sister program in that state (it was written by a bunch of youngsters who still write as if to impress their university professor.).
No SME was involved, so much of the translation of that doc was by guess and by golly.
Surprise! As of Tuesday afternoon, the state was up in arms that the plan had not already been finalized, submitted and approved.
From the roll of her eyes, sighing, and other body language clues, the pubs manager knows she's in over her depth but continues with the struggle.
*PROBLEM*: The version of the 15-pp doc I had created, minus dates, was carefully formatted in Word with section breaks, numbered headers and a TOC (plus a lot of other pro touches). Unbeknownst to me, it was sent around to other departments for markup. There was little agreement among the players there, and several did not use Track Changes to mark it up.
Yesterday morning I was urgently (everything's become URGENT!) instructed to sit in on a Webex call with two SMEs, who wanted to do yet another line edit. I was supposed to help guide them, collect inputs, and then magically assimilate all changes into a perfectly formatted, state-"presentation ready" doc by 2:30. The SME conference lasted until noon, and I'm required to "punch out" for an hour lunch (I cut my lunch break way short anyway).
But I soldiered on, being less than pleased with the resultâalthough I gave it the yeoman's effort.
BUT... I found out later in the afternoon that, once I was done, pubs mgr had given it to another in our department to reformat it from Arial 11 pt.
(the true corporate std.) to Arial 10 pt.(what the pubs mgr. found in a some PPT, origin unknown). That would have thrown off all of my careful page breaks and other typesetting finesses. I didn't see the final product before it went back to the state for their OK.
*SOLUTION*: Other than getting the heck out of there ASAP, what process could we have employed in the intra-departmental doc review so as to maintain the integrity of the Word doc each step of the way?
(I've considered distributing a PDF and letting others comment on it, but we don't so much as have access to Acrobat Pro. Corporate endorses CutePDF, but I've never worked with it. Would the standard Acrobat Reader suffice?
What other methodologies have worked for you in such a situation?
Thanks much,
> Chris
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