RE: Discussion of MS Word for FrameMaker users?

Subject: RE: Discussion of MS Word for FrameMaker users?
From: "Paul Neshamkin" <pauln -at- helpauthors -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 16:46:57 -0400


One clarification on point number 5 -- the "Automatically Update Document
Styles" under Tools | Templates and Add-Ins is quite different than the
"Automatically Update" under the Modify Style dialog box. I agree with Dan
that the latter should be avoided at all costs. However, I recommend the
former to anyone who needs to impose document standards in a workgroup.

"Automatically Update Document Styles" is what I refer to as the Style Nazi
checkbox. If checked in a document, that document will always reflect the
current styles contained in the template it is attached to. This is the
logical setting if you are working in an environment where styles guidelines
and templates are modified periodically, and you want all your existing
documentation to reflect these recent changes. This is a good thing, and it
is one of the many things that does work in Word.

As for Modify Styles | Automatically Update, I don't know who to blame on
the Word team, but this has always been a bad idea. I hate to tell you how
many support problems it has caused me over the years. If a user adds that
attribute to a style by unwittingly checking the Automatically Update box,
the next time he adds local formatting to a single paragraph in that style,
that local formatting will be added to the style, and all paragraphs of that
style will be modified in the document. Think of the innocent bulleting of a
single Body Text paragraph. Bad News.


Regards,

Paul Neshamkin
pauln -at- helpauthors -dot- com

MS Help MVP
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help MVP and Certified Trainer
WexTech MVP, Certified Doc-To-Help Trainer

The Paul Neshamkin Group
http://www.helpauthors.com
201-714-9525


-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-20560 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-20560 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Dan Goldstein
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 4:16 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Discussion of MS Word for FrameMaker users?


Seven random signposts to start with:

1. Laurel Hickey's TECHWR-L post from last year at http://tinyurl.com/dmsnk.
Read the whole post -- she goes way beyond graphics.

2. Claire Conant's TECHWR-L post from yesterday (RE: Clarification on "word
bloat"), which quotes sage advice from the Word MVP site.

3. Never use Word's auto-numbering functions. AutoNumLgl, ListNum, and SEQ
fields will serve you better.

4. A hint from the Word MVP site: "If you use any of the following features,
your documents are likely to corrupt: Master Documents, Nested Tables,
Versions, Fast Saves, Document Map, and saving to a floppy."

5. Disable Automatically Update Styles, not only in the Templates and
Add-ins dialog box, but also for every single style that you use (in the
Modify Style dialog box).

6. Create your own styles and templates -- "Normal.dot" isn't. See Suzanne
Barnhill's "Creating a Template" on the Word MVP site at
http://tinyurl.com/8tpsg.

7. That's three times that I've mentioned the Word MVP site (oops, now
four). Go there. Other good Web resources include the Word-PC site at
http://tinyurl.com/ch7lh and Shauna Kelly's Word site at
http://tinyurl.com/e29mr.

-- Dan Goldstein


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References:
RE: Discussion of MS Word for FrameMaker users?: From: Dan Goldstein

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