Setting up for a "long file"

[David]

I am about to try and put together a longish file of family memoirs. At
present I have quite a number of separate files of "Glimpses". So I am now
plagued on how to put it all together along with a number of small pics.
I had always thought the way to go was with a "Master file" in Word 2003.
but if I read rightly a number are saying they are trouble, it seems that an
OUTline file with linking to all the various sub heads is the way to go.
Another site says to use publisher. I usually avail myself of Pub's delight
with my Christmas letters, but would it be better for me with my "Coffee
Table Book?"

One other thing if I may, a question regarding my Word's Normal.Dot
template.
I run XP 2003 and XP pro OS
I have "tinkered with my normal DOT template file for many years, it is now
bloated to nearly 400K, also I think some of my tinkering is far from
excellent. I am about to set up a largish set of "Memoir" files and have a
number of style changes in mind. The question is, Do I wipe out the
existing normal template and start completely fresh or do I create a
complete set of styles maybe not based on Body text, etc, ??

So may I ask this group for guidance please?
David

 

[Robert M. Franz [RMF]]

Hello David

I am about to try and put together a longish file of family memoirs. At
present I have quite a number of separate files of "Glimpses". So I am now
plagued on how to put it all together along with a number of small pics.
I had always thought the way to go was with a "Master file" in Word 2003.
but if I read rightly a number are saying they are trouble, it seems that an
OUTline file with linking to all the various sub heads is the way to go.
Another site says to use publisher. I usually avail myself of Pub's delight
with my Christmas letters, but would it be better for me with my "Coffee
Table Book?"

what do you intend to do (in Word or Publisher) with the new file: are
you looking for a way to "publish" all the bits in one work (paper, PDF,
....) with common styles, headers, TOC, etc.? Do you plan on doing a lot
of reformatting of the individual parts, either in their own file or in
the new big one?

One other thing if I may, a question regarding my Word's Normal.Dot
template.
I run XP 2003 and XP pro OS
I have "tinkered with my normal DOT template file for many years, it is now
bloated to nearly 400K, also I think some of my tinkering is far from
excellent. I am about to set up a largish set of "Memoir" files and have a
number of style changes in mind. The question is, Do I wipe out the
existing normal template and start completely fresh or do I create a
complete set of styles maybe not based on Body text, etc, ??

First of all: your Normal.dot file should be of (mostly) no import
concerning your memoir files. Whatever these are, the IMHO proper way to
proceed is to create a dedicated template (memoir.dot) and set that up
(with styles, but also with relevant section properties) needed for this
special type of document. Then create new files from this template, and
use these to create (or copy into and maybe restyle, if the content
already exists) your new memoirs.

HTH
Robert

 

[David]

Robert, thankyou for your reply.
From you remarks I take it that I need to make a "Memoir.dot" not formed at
all on the Normal.dot and setup styles within the template then reformat all
the existing files (I would strip and import), and NOT fiddle with the
separate files as they are. If Publisher is the way to go, then I assume I
should output the files as a PDF, otherwise if the advise is to stick with
Word then I would simply produce a large Doc file, supposedly using Outline.

I await further advice
David

 

[Robert M. Franz [RMF]]

Robert, thankyou for your reply.
From you remarks I take it that I need to make a "Memoir.dot" not formed at
all on the Normal.dot and setup styles within the template then reformat all
the existing files (I would strip and import), and NOT fiddle with the
separate files as they are.

if you have used styles in your individual memoir files so far,
reformatting will be a lot easier. Generally, we advise to use the
built-in styles that Word provides (say, "normal" or "body text" for,
well, body text, "heading 1", "heading 2", etc. for heading level text,
and so on. You can adjust these styles to your liking, but since they
are there anyway (you cannot delete the built-in styles), there's no
good reason to create your own styles (in fact, there are some good
reasons to use the built-in ones ).

If Publisher is the way to go, then I assume I
should output the files as a PDF, otherwise if the advise is to stick with
Word then I would simply produce a large Doc file, supposedly using Outline.

I'm not a publisher user myself, so I cannot really advise you there. If
properly understood, Word can be used well to create all sorts of
document types. It's not particularly well suited when you need 100%
color control in many workflows (it doesn't speak CMYK), nor when you
need a long document with many, many imported objects and want to let
the text flow around it (it's pretty much OK when you can work with
InlineObjects).

A lot of good advice can be found here:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting.htm

HTH
Robert

 

[Fishy]

As an aside, you mention the bloated Normal file. You might want to rename it
OldNormal.dot, then reboot. Word will create a brand new Normal.dot with the default
settings. You can then create new templates for different purposes, using Organizer to
copy the styles and such from OldNormal.dot into the new templates.

I learned the hard way that a bloated Normal.dot can become corrupt and then all the
styles adn such are lost.

<*(((><
Fishy Lives!