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Subject:Re: MS Word 2003 - Working without a template From:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:"SB" <sylvia -dot- braunstein -at- gmail -dot- com>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:50:43 -0800
There is no such thing as "working without a template" in MS Word. If you haven't created a unified document template, you're
working in Word's default "Normal" template, or even worse, in multiple versions of "Normal" as a document moves from one person's
system to another. Not having a unified template means that as your team grows you will be doomed to having to constantly reformat
documents as they chaotically reformat themselves at seemingly random moments, forever. If you can't do anything else, at the very
least make a copy of the stock Word "report" template, give it a new name, mark it read-only and have everyone use that.
A Word template is not "a major development project." It should not take one person more than one month full-time, including
testing, to create a reasonably workable Word template, so long as the result does not contain 100 different style tags (I'm not
kidding, I've seen this). If your template has more than two dozen differnet style tags (not counting stepped tags for multilevel
documents), you're digging yourself into a hole.
Priorities for documentation are set by whoever's in charge of documentation. That may sound like one of those "duh" statements,
but if you don't know who's setting your documentat priorities, it's a clear sign that nobody is in charge, even if there's someone
who supposedly is.
Who writes, reviews and formats is up to whoever's in charge of documentation. See above.
Nobody but writers ever thinks of "expecting" a certain number of pages from writers. What management expects of writers is that
all the company's projects will be documented "well enough," but they generally will have no idea what "well enough" is.
Unless your management are total idiots (never exclude that possibility), they don't need to be convinced that you are understaffed,
they alreay know it. The real issue is that they need to be convinced that the consequences of leaving documentation understaffed
are comparable to those of leaving development, manufacturing, QA or any other company function understaffed. Based on my
experience, you may have already lost your chance to do that when you didn't quit last year. If anyone has any ideas how to do it
without quitting and leaving the company behind to experience the consequences, I'm all ears.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "SB" <sylvia -dot- braunstein -at- gmail -dot- com>
> I would be happy if I could hear a couple words of advice.
Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
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