confused about word templates

[mack]

hi,
I have about 60 textedit files that I want to put into a book. A
couple of them are complete chapters. The rest have to be stuck
together to make chapters. I don't need tables, footnotes, or anything,
as it's fiction. I would like page numbers, I suppose starting from the
second page as per 'Word Templates' by John McGie.
I seem to have completely muffed things up. Can't get rid of underline
on first page;(not all that important); Not sure if my default section
break is set up properly (very important); now seem to have 6 pages
instead of three- not sure exactly what tabs to press to 'insert break
after the front cover'...then 'immediately insert a blank
paragraph'...??(which tabs please?)...'and another section
break'...)I'm sure I'm doing it wrong because my page numbers are:-
page1=nothing(correct); page 2=nothing (wrong); page 3= '4'
(wrong);page 4= nothing (wrong); page 5= '6' (wrong); and page 6= '7'
(wrong).
I am sure this is hilarious to you, but not so to me! I understand
that it is impossible to write an accurate instruction manual for more
than one version of a piece of software, so please forgive my lack of
savvy. Also tabs worked before bur they don't seem to now. I am sorry
to bother you as I feel that this is microsoft's responsibility- surely
they need to provide John's template as a built-in feature-
Thank you.
P.S. I am perfectly happy to try another way if there is a simpler one,
as I am only wanting a double-spaced book manuscript and don't want to
take up anyone's time.

I am using a G4 powerbook with OSX 10.37 & Office 2004, + a Kyocera
FS1010 printer.

 

[mack]

maybe another way to put this is "Exactly how to put a paragraph in a
document in Word 2004; and Exactly how to enter section breaks in Word
2004 + clean up old ones.

 

[Bill Weylock]

The good news is that nothing sounds really hard to fix.

The bad news is that you¹re going to have to read some help files about your
software. You just can¹t do decent work in Word without a basic
understanding of how page numbers and headers and footers work.

However ...

First thing I would do is forget about a template. It gives you things to
manage that you don¹t understand.

Start a new Word doc. Go into Page Setup and Format/Document and set the
pages up the way you want them. I recommend left and right margins of 1.25²
and top/bottom of 1² with header and footer at .5².

Do NOT copy ANYTHING (!!) from the current Word doc!!

Why you have only six pages in your ³book² is a mystery to me, but that can
wait.

Go back to the TextEdit files. Open them and copy/paste the text into the
new Word doc (we won¹t look at the old one again) where you want it. Don¹t
worry about chapters or anything else yet, although you should put some kind
of note to remember where they start.

Got all of your text into your book? Save. Make sure you go into preferences
and select an autosave every few minutes, by the way.

Select all of your text at once (Cmd-A). Go to Format/Paragraph and set up
indents and spacing the way you want them. I recommend 12pt ³before² spacing
and 0 ³after². Also set double for line spacing. If you know how to do
hanging indents and stuff like that, go for it if you want. Otherwise leave
the indents at 0. Make sure text is aligned the way you want it (justified
or left). Also make sure that the Outline Level is set to Body Text.

Go to Line and Page Breaks in that dialog. Make sure Widows/Orphans is
selected and that nothing else is selected. Click OK to accept. While you
still have the text selected, make sure you like the font and size. Deselect
the text.

Now for chapter numbers.

Since you don¹t seem to need a table of contents, keep chapter headings very
simple. Type the first one where you want it. Make it look good by adjusting
font and alignment and stuff.

When you have the first chapter heading the way you want it, copy it and
paste it where you want the second chapter heading. (Change One to Two or I
to II or 1 to 2.) For the second chapter heading (NOT the first one) select
the heading paragraph and go to Format/Paragraph. Change ³before² spacing to
0. Change ³after² spacing to 12. Go to Line and Page Breaks and deselect
Widow/Orphan. DO click on Page Break Before (assuming you want a new page
for each chapter beginning).

Copy Chapter Two paragraph and paste it where you want each of the other
chapter headings, correcting the number manually each time.

You should now have a decent looking manuscript. Save.

Do page numbers: Go to Insert/Page Numbers... Select Bottom (footer) and be
sure NOT to check Show Number on First Page. Click on format and make sure
you have the kind you want (arabic, roman, etc). Don¹t change anything else.

Go to View/Header and Footer. Select footer paragraph mark and set a tab at
6.5 (Format/Tab or on the ruler at top of page). While your cursor is still
in the paragraph, hit Tab key to put cursor at the 6.5 tab. Go to the little
icon ribbon that pops up when you start viewing headers and footer and click
the page number icon (##). That inserts a page number at that tab stop. Exit
header/footer view.

Take out your check book or go online and send $15 to one of the tsunami
relief agencies.

If you decide you want a title page, you¹re going to have to accept a page
number 2 on the Chapter One page or learn to use sections, which I just
can¹t deal with. If you¹re sending a hard copy, just do a separate title
page. If you have acrobat use that to insert a title page in the pdf
version.

Hope this helps. Somebody just wrote three custom macros for me to solve a
problem I was having in an Excel spreadsheet, and this is a little
give-back.

Let us know how/whether this works for you? Hope it does, and I¹ll be happy
to answer questions.


Best,


- Bill

hi,
I have about 60 textedit files that I want to put into a book. A
couple of them are complete chapters. The rest have to be stuck
together to make chapters. I don't need tables, footnotes, or anything,
as it's fiction. I would like page numbers, I suppose starting from the
second page as per 'Word Templates' by John McGie.
I seem to have completely muffed things up. Can't get rid of underline
on first page;(not all that important); Not sure if my default section
break is set up properly (very important); now seem to have 6 pages
instead of three- not sure exactly what tabs to press to 'insert break
after the front cover'...then 'immediately insert a blank
paragraph'...??(which tabs please?)...'and another section
break'...)I'm sure I'm doing it wrong because my page numbers are:-
page1=nothing(correct); page 2=nothing (wrong); page 3= '4'
(wrong);page 4= nothing (wrong); page 5= '6' (wrong); and page 6= '7'
(wrong).
I am sure this is hilarious to you, but not so to me! I understand
that it is impossible to write an accurate instruction manual for more
than one version of a piece of software, so please forgive my lack of
savvy. Also tabs worked before bur they don't seem to now. I am sorry
to bother you as I feel that this is microsoft's responsibility- surely
they need to provide John's template as a built-in feature-
Thank you.
P.S. I am perfectly happy to try another way if there is a simpler one,
as I am only wanting a double-spaced book manuscript and don't want to
take up anyone's time.

I am using a G4 powerbook with OSX 10.37 & Office 2004, + a Kyocera
FS1010 printer.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Bill Weylock]

Forgot one thing....

You will probably have extra paragraph returns throughout your document, and
they will make space between paragraphs too large.

Go into Edit/Replace and Find ^p^p. Replace it with ^p. (^p describes a
paragraph end mark). You¹ve just told it two replace any two consecutive
paragraph marks with one.

If you have any left over, there is probably a space in front of it that
interfered with the find.


Best,


- Bill

maybe another way to put this is "Exactly how to put a paragraph in a
document in Word 2004; and Exactly how to enter section breaks in Word
2004 + clean up old ones.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Take out your check book or go online and send $15 to one of the tsunami
relief agencies.

Nice touch!

Beth

 

[Bill Weylock]

Actually, my advice is only worth $12.50, but he doesn¹t know that.

(Thanks!)


Best,


- Bill

Nice touch!

Beth

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[mack]

Bill,
Thank you for your vey detailed help. {Have selected autosave; all
textedit files are in word format and open in Word}

I have followed John McGie's instuctions as best as I could, and am up
to page 13 in "Word Templates"- Section Breaks...> "Setting up the
Default Section Break" (the most important bit)

I managed to insert a break after the front cover, but I know that
John's doc. was written on word 2003, so I'm not sure whether it
specifies which type of section break to add first...i.e. in Word 2004,
there are Four types of section break in the pull-down menu- 'Next
page', 'Continuous', 'Odd page', and 'even page'. In John''s example,
the section breaks appear to be:- 'Even page'- (appears on the first
page); 'odd page' (appears on the second page); and "Next page'
(appears on the third page)

On my second attempt, I had 5 pages, then did some deleting, and ended
up with three pages- the only problem is I have also deleted the
headers, which the manual helped me set up perfectly.[will try to set
them up again] It seems silly to give up now, BUT may need advice from
a section-break person. I will have another try, and see if it works.
Have been reading lots of help files! Thank you very much for all the
trouble you went to to answer my question at my level- I have saved the
answer, so I can refer to it if my third attempt doesn't work/ and all
else fails.
Thanks once again for help above & beyond the call of
duty.

 

[Bill Weylock]

You¹re welcome. It¹s considerate to give feedback.

Why are you using sections? You didn¹t mention wanting either headers or a
front cover.

Do you want to send me the file and let me see if I can fix it? Honestly,
that might be less work than going back and forth; and you have me kind of
intrigued.

Please know that managing section breaks is not easy. Sections should be
used only if you have complex page numbering schemes and/or want an
automatic Table of Contents or index that reflects chapters or want
different page layouts within the document.

I use outline headings for my chapter headings, and getting the TOC to
behave properly and get pagination just right is something of an art form.

What article are you torturing yourself with? I don¹t even know what you
are referring to.

And I do reserve the right to go for a long walk and leave you to your pain
if I can¹t make simplicity attractive.


Best,


- Bill

Bill,
Thank you for your vey detailed help. {Have selected autosave; all
textedit files are in word format and open in Word}

I have followed John McGie's instuctions as best as I could, and am up
to page 13 in "Word Templates"- Section Breaks...> "Setting up the
Default Section Break" (the most important bit)

I managed to insert a break after the front cover, but I know that
John's doc. was written on word 2003, so I'm not sure whether it
specifies which type of section break to add first...i.e. in Word 2004,
there are Four types of section break in the pull-down menu- 'Next
page', 'Continuous', 'Odd page', and 'even page'. In John''s example,
the section breaks appear to be:- 'Even page'- (appears on the first
page); 'odd page' (appears on the second page); and "Next page'
(appears on the third page)

On my second attempt, I had 5 pages, then did some deleting, and ended
up with three pages- the only problem is I have also deleted the
headers, which the manual helped me set up perfectly.[will try to set
them up again] It seems silly to give up now, BUT may need advice from
a section-break person. I will have another try, and see if it works.
Have been reading lots of help files! Thank you very much for all the
trouble you went to to answer my question at my level- I have saved the
answer, so I can refer to it if my third attempt doesn't work/ and all
else fails.
Thanks once again for help above & beyond the call of
duty.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Bill Weylock]

The last response sounded a little challenging, which I didn¹t intend.

If you need section breaks, you need section breaks.

A couple of things to pay attention to are ³restart page numbering² (do for
section after cover page, don¹t for the others) in the Insert Page Numbers
dialog and the ³same as previous² setting in the header and footer settings
(on that little ribbon of icons).

And congratulations on reading the documentation. You sound almost as
stubborn as I am when I have a formatting problem.

At this rate, if you¹re not careful, you could become really good at Word.


Best,


- Bill

Bill,
Thank you for your vey detailed help. {Have selected autosave; all
textedit files are in word format and open in Word}

I have followed John McGie's instuctions as best as I could, and am up
to page 13 in "Word Templates"- Section Breaks...> "Setting up the
Default Section Break" (the most important bit)

I managed to insert a break after the front cover, but I know that
John's doc. was written on word 2003, so I'm not sure whether it
specifies which type of section break to add first...i.e. in Word 2004,
there are Four types of section break in the pull-down menu- 'Next
page', 'Continuous', 'Odd page', and 'even page'. In John''s example,
the section breaks appear to be:- 'Even page'- (appears on the first
page); 'odd page' (appears on the second page); and "Next page'
(appears on the third page)

On my second attempt, I had 5 pages, then did some deleting, and ended
up with three pages- the only problem is I have also deleted the
headers, which the manual helped me set up perfectly.[will try to set
them up again] It seems silly to give up now, BUT may need advice from
a section-break person. I will have another try, and see if it works.
Have been reading lots of help files! Thank you very much for all the
trouble you went to to answer my question at my level- I have saved the
answer, so I can refer to it if my third attempt doesn't work/ and all
else fails.
Thanks once again for help above & beyond the call of
duty.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[mack]

The website is
www.word.mvps.org/Tutorials/index.htm
Open only through Internet Explorer, or it won't work. see the
'tutorials' section= 'Create a Template, part II- I am up to page 15. I
have tried to compress my files with 'stuffit' but they won't send- get
'returned mail' messages. You may have to download it to your desktop-
at any rate, it's a good article. Template seems to shaping up up to
the part about '...remove all of the headers and footers...' I think
this means 'remove all of the text in the headers & footers, not the
headers and footers themselves.' one reason I'm not sure is that I
wannt to keep the title throughout the manuscript. Soory the files
didn't get through- I have never sent any before.

 

[Bill Weylock]

I didn¹t want the template article. I can always get that.

I was offering to format your book.

The website is
www.word.mvps.org/Tutorials/index.htm
Open only through Internet Explorer, or it won't work. see the
'tutorials' section= 'Create a Template, part II- I am up to page 15. I
have tried to compress my files with 'stuffit' but they won't send- get
'returned mail' messages. You may have to download it to your desktop-
at any rate, it's a good article. Template seems to shaping up up to
the part about '...remove all of the headers and footers...' I think
this means 'remove all of the text in the headers & footers, not the
headers and footers themselves.' one reason I'm not sure is that I
wannt to keep the title throughout the manuscript. Soory the files
didn't get through- I have never sent any before.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Bill Weylock]

Why are you creating a template?

Why don¹t you just worry about your document.

Despite the advice about using templates instead of just copying a document
and replacing text, templates are harder to create correctly. Then you still
have to make it work for your document.

I¹m not sure what we¹re talking about her anymore.

But I do still hope it works out for you.

The website is
www.word.mvps.org/Tutorials/index.htm
Open only through Internet Explorer, or it won't work. see the
'tutorials' section= 'Create a Template, part II- I am up to page 15. I
have tried to compress my files with 'stuffit' but they won't send- get
'returned mail' messages. You may have to download it to your desktop-
at any rate, it's a good article. Template seems to shaping up up to
the part about '...remove all of the headers and footers...' I think
this means 'remove all of the text in the headers & footers, not the
headers and footers themselves.' one reason I'm not sure is that I
wannt to keep the title throughout the manuscript. Soory the files
didn't get through- I have never sent any before.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Bill,

Templates are NOT harder to create than documents. It¹s the same thing.
Format a document and save it as a template! That¹s all there is to it.

Now getting everything set up exactly the way you want it in the
document-that-will-become-a-template may be another story .

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Bill Weylock]

I guess.

Just seemed as if everything was twice as complex as it needed to be and was
taking forever.

Probably I have forgotten what it was like to confront this stuff for the
first time.

Also, I have to admit I lost it a little when I realized I was not talking
about Word but about someone¹s article about Word.


Best,


- Bill

Hi Bill,

Templates are NOT harder to create than documents. It¹s the same thing.
Format a document and save it as a template! That¹s all there is to it.

Now getting everything set up exactly the way you want it in the
document-that-will-become-a-template may be another story .

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Bill Weylock]

Beth -


Another thought.

If you really just do a document and then save it as a template, you¹re
right of course.

If, on the other hand, instead of trying to create and format a document you
delve into how to create a template that will work for all future documents
and use a sophisticated expert level help page when you don¹t understand
very much about anything to do with the word processing program... Gulp.

Then if you talk about pages sometimes meaning what you¹re writing and
sometimes meaning what you¹re reading without clear distinctions.

Oh boy.

Still think we should ask him to back carefully away from that article and
talk only about his document and what he wants to do with it.


Best,


- Bill

Hi Bill,

Templates are NOT harder to create than documents. It¹s the same thing.
Format a document and save it as a template! That¹s all there is to it.

Now getting everything set up exactly the way you want it in the
document-that-will-become-a-template may be another story .

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Bill,

If, on the other hand, instead of trying to create and format a document you
delve into how to create a template that will work for all future documents
and use a sophisticated expert level help page when you don¹t understand very
much about anything to do with the word processing program... Gulp.

Then if you talk about pages sometimes meaning what you¹re writing and
sometimes meaning what you¹re reading without clear distinctions.

Oh boy.

No question. I agree that the McGhie article was overkill in this case, but
it¹s also true that Mack has not been exactly clear in his descriptions of
the situation!

Still think we should ask him to back carefully away from that article and
talk only about his document and what he wants to do with it.

Since Mack is so far into the article and learning a lot from it, I think he
should continue when he has the time. However ... for the purposes of
getting the current project completed, I agree that he should keep it
simpler, as you and Daiya have suggested.

Beth

 

[mack]

Hi,
Thanks for your help and suggestions. I am going quite well. Have
got all the text in and all the headers and footers set up. What I want
to find ot next, is how to make the first line of EVERY PARAGRAPH in
the whole document (except for the first line of each chapter) to
INDENT by 1.27 cm. I have tried format>Style>Body
Text>Modify>Paragraph>Indent first line by 1.27cm, and it works just
fine...For the first paragraph!!! I want to do the whole document!! Is
it because in a 200 page document it takes a long time to do this, or
is it me ?(most likely) If anyone can please help, I would be very
grateful.
Thanks once again for your patience

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Mack:

It sounds as though you have a direct-formatting override applied to the
paragraphs that did not change when you updated the style.

If that's the case, select them all and use Edit>Clear>Formatting, then
re-apply the modified style.

Cheers

Hi,
Thanks for your help and suggestions. I am going quite well. Have
got all the text in and all the headers and footers set up. What I want
to find ot next, is how to make the first line of EVERY PARAGRAPH in
the whole document (except for the first line of each chapter) to
INDENT by 1.27 cm. I have tried format>Style>Body
Text>Modify>Paragraph>Indent first line by 1.27cm, and it works just
fine...For the first paragraph!!! I want to do the whole document!! Is
it because in a 200 page document it takes a long time to do this, or
is it me ?(most likely) If anyone can please help, I would be very
grateful.
Thanks once again for your patience

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Yep. Except, won't that reset the paragraphs to Normal? I'd prefer the use
of the ResetPara command, which removes direct paragraph formatting, but not
character formatting, and does not change the base style. I probably should
have had you wipe all the direct paragraph formatting as the very first
step.

I appear to have cmd-opt-q set as a shortcut for ResetPara, but not sure I
trust that to be the default instead of my selection... Test it on one
paragraph? (You can dig the command out of Tools | Customize Toolbars,
select All Commands in the left column, find ResetPara alphabetically in
right column, drag to toolbar).

Daiya

 

[Bill Weylock]

Mack -


You have obviously got farther than I thought you would. Congratulations.

Daiya¹s advice about ResetPara is what I recommend, but I¹m sure you¹ve gone
beyond that now.

In case you are still wresting with this, are you sure you had applied Body
Text style to all of the paragraphs apart from the chapter headings?

By the way, when you want to change the format of each lead paragraph in
each chapter, a great way to speed that up is to use outline view and select
³Show First Line Only². Change the format of one paragraph, then select each
subsequent lead paragraph and use Cmd-Y to repeat the action.

You are one stubborn dude, but you seem to have climbed the mountain.
Frankly, I¹m impressed.


Best,


- Bill

Hi,
Thanks for your help and suggestions. I am going quite well. Have
got all the text in and all the headers and footers set up. What I want
to find ot next, is how to make the first line of EVERY PARAGRAPH in
the whole document (except for the first line of each chapter) to
INDENT by 1.27 cm. I have tried format>Style>Body
Text>Modify>Paragraph>Indent first line by 1.27cm, and it works just
fine...For the first paragraph!!! I want to do the whole document!! Is
it because in a 200 page document it takes a long time to do this, or
is it me ?(most likely) If anyone can please help, I would be very
grateful.
Thanks once again for your patience

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003