N
newtknight
Could anyone recommend a book on writing a book in microsoft. Also, any
online resources?
Thanks
Ed
online resources?
Thanks
Ed
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S
Shauna Kelly
Hi Ed
The two best on-line resources are:
(1) These newsgroups
and
(2) word.mvps.org.
My general advice on writing a big document in Word is first to use styles
and avoid direct formatting like the plague. And, figure out the tough stuff
before you begin: heading numbering, appendix numbering, table of contents,
headers and footers, page numbers and so on. Don't leave them to the end!
Hope this helps.
Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
The two best on-line resources are:
(1) These newsgroups
and
(2) word.mvps.org.
My general advice on writing a big document in Word is first to use styles
and avoid direct formatting like the plague. And, figure out the tough stuff
before you begin: heading numbering, appendix numbering, table of contents,
headers and footers, page numbers and so on. Don't leave them to the end!
Hope this helps.
Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
D
Dayo Mitchell
Shauna left out her own site, which if you are using numbered chapterShauna Kelly said:Hi Ed
The two best on-line resources are:
(1) These newsgroups
and
(2) word.mvps.org.
My general advice on writing a big document in Word is first to use styles
and avoid direct formatting like the plague. And, figure out the tough stuff
before you begin: heading numbering, appendix numbering, table of contents,
headers and footers, page numbers and so on. Don't leave them to the end!
titles, is THE place to start.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
For other links to help follow this advice, start with:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/Styles.asp and a supplemented
version of the same article, http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/UseBuiltInHeadingStyles.html
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NumberingFrontMatter.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/WorkWithSections.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/customization/AutoCorrect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm
***Master Documents***DO NOT USE
Why Master Documents corrupt
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm
How to recover a Master Document
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RecoverMasterDocs.htm
DM
C
Chip Orange
thanks so much for this wealth of links.
fyi, the link:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/Styles.asp
seems no longer to be valid.
fyi, the link:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/Styles.asp
seems no longer to be valid.
C
Charles Kenyon
G
Gooseman
My blunt advice, having written my thesis (300 pages +) is simply
DON'T.
Word really wasn't designed for this sort of stuff. While it's great
for most things, it's just too cumbersome for large docs. You're
better of using LaTeX. It's also free.
DON'T.
Word really wasn't designed for this sort of stuff. While it's great
for most things, it's just too cumbersome for large docs. You're
better of using LaTeX. It's also free.
K
Kim Finleyson
Just my 2 cents: Yes, you can write long documents in Word. The last set of
books my company produced were written entirely in Microsoft Word, over
5,000 pages. I've been using Word to write books for ten years and the only
problem I've experienced has to do with file size. The fact is, the larger
the file, the more time the file will take to open, the more difficult it
will be to navigate through the file. That is probably why someone would
have difficulty producing a 300 page document all in one file. As a general
rule of thumb (and this is from Word97 days, a few years back), I do not
allow a document go more than 100 pages without breaking it up into
sections. Normally I do not use master documents, but I have tried them, and
have had very little difficulties with smaller documents (less than 500
pages).
As for LaTeX, this may be a good tool, but I am not sure about just how the
document design is merged into the document text. The documentation says
something about leaving "document design to documentation designers." What
if the document design has already been defined, as is usually done with a
company style guide or with a template sent from the publisher? I checked
out the code that would be needed to tie my company's pre-defined styles to
the text, and it did not look like an easy product to learn. Therefore, I'm
not sure if I would want to switch to LaTeX, even if it is free, because
there would be a cost involved -- the cost spent learning a new product, and
making that new product confirm to my document design. Plus I did notice
that there was some line about not having support for installs, which may be
a disadvantage.
The fact is, Microsoft Word is the standard for word processing, and please
note that I started (many years ago) with Word Perfect and was a "hard sell"
to turn to Microsoft Word. If I ever do purchase another tool, I will
probably acquire FrameMaker
(http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/main.html ) due to the many
recommendations I've received for this product, though I believe that most
people using FrameMaker also use Word as well.
As for books, I started with a Microsoft Word 97 book from Que publishing
(http://www.quepublishing.com) and have found their books to be very useful
when learning many new products. So, I'd suggest searching for "Word" on
their site and seeing what books they have available for your particular
edition of Word.
Hope this helps,
--Kim
books my company produced were written entirely in Microsoft Word, over
5,000 pages. I've been using Word to write books for ten years and the only
problem I've experienced has to do with file size. The fact is, the larger
the file, the more time the file will take to open, the more difficult it
will be to navigate through the file. That is probably why someone would
have difficulty producing a 300 page document all in one file. As a general
rule of thumb (and this is from Word97 days, a few years back), I do not
allow a document go more than 100 pages without breaking it up into
sections. Normally I do not use master documents, but I have tried them, and
have had very little difficulties with smaller documents (less than 500
pages).
As for LaTeX, this may be a good tool, but I am not sure about just how the
document design is merged into the document text. The documentation says
something about leaving "document design to documentation designers." What
if the document design has already been defined, as is usually done with a
company style guide or with a template sent from the publisher? I checked
out the code that would be needed to tie my company's pre-defined styles to
the text, and it did not look like an easy product to learn. Therefore, I'm
not sure if I would want to switch to LaTeX, even if it is free, because
there would be a cost involved -- the cost spent learning a new product, and
making that new product confirm to my document design. Plus I did notice
that there was some line about not having support for installs, which may be
a disadvantage.
The fact is, Microsoft Word is the standard for word processing, and please
note that I started (many years ago) with Word Perfect and was a "hard sell"
to turn to Microsoft Word. If I ever do purchase another tool, I will
probably acquire FrameMaker
(http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/main.html ) due to the many
recommendations I've received for this product, though I believe that most
people using FrameMaker also use Word as well.
As for books, I started with a Microsoft Word 97 book from Que publishing
(http://www.quepublishing.com) and have found their books to be very useful
when learning many new products. So, I'd suggest searching for "Word" on
their site and seeing what books they have available for your particular
edition of Word.
Hope this helps,
--Kim
S
Suzanne S. Barnhill
The current link is this awful thing:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ECDE0C62-E869-487A-
919D-F408D3918D31&displaylang=en
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ECDE0C62-E869-487A-
919D-F408D3918D31&displaylang=en
C
Chip Orange
thanks; I got it and gave it to our legal secretaries in case it's of any
help to them as we're just now making the transition from WordPerfect to
Word.
Chip
help to them as we're just now making the transition from WordPerfect to
Word.
Chip
C
Charles Kenyon
General Info on moving from Word Perfect to Word:
Word and Word Perfect work very differently from one another. Each program's
methods have strengths and weaknesses; but, if you try to use one of these
programs as if it were the other, it is like pushing on a string! You can
easily make a lot of extra work for yourself. If you are unwilling to take
the time to learn to use Word's methods, you should stick to using Word Pad.
You'll have a lot less grief, although you'll miss out on a lot of raw
power.
See http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordperfect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm
http://businesssoft.about.com/compute/businesssoft/library/blconvert.htm
for information on Word for Word Perfect users.
For more:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm
In Word 2000 (or later) You can get the function keys to display in a
special toolbar at the bottom of the screen if you want (something like
pressing F3 twice in WP). The following macro will do this.
Sub ShowMeFunctionKeys()
Commandbars("Function Key Display").Visible = True
End Sub
Word's Extend key (F8) gives something similar to block processing.
Learn about Styles - really learn!
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm I resisted for years and now
regret every day of those years because although that string was still very
hard to push, it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important
projects tied to it! Once you understand styles and the Word concept of
organizing things into Chinese boxes everything falls into place and instead
of pushing a string, you can push a button that turns on the very powerful
text processing machine known as Microsoft Word and it will start doing your
work for you instead of running around behind you trying to undo what you
just thought you did.
Finally, in WP a lot of people use macros to hold chunks of text -
boilerplate. In Word this function is filled by Templates, AutoText and
AutoCorrect, not macros. Follow the links at
http://addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#AutoText for more
information on these tools.
It's a lot of reading, I know. It's OK to chunk it down and do a bit each
day, but I would recommend that you make it a top priority to do that bit
each day.
You can use FILLIN and ASK fields or UserForms to query the user. For some
form documents, Word's "online forms" work very well. For more about online
forms, follow the links at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm especially Dian
Chapman's series of articles.
As for converting documents from Word Perfect to use in Word... In a word,
don't plan on it. I would not recommend using converted documents long-term.
They will be filled with formatting anomolies that will get you at the worst
time. This is especially true of any documents containing automatic
numbering or bullets. Try recreating form documents in Word using the
following process:
In Word Perfect (if you still have it, in Word if not) save your files as
text files.
Use your converted files as references to show you how you want your
formatting to look.
Create a new document in Word and insert the text from the text file. Save
this new document as a Word template. Format it the way you want using
styles, not direct formatting. Save it again.
To use a template within Word, use File => New and pick your template. This
will create a new document for you.
General practice in WP is to have a document and copy and edit it to create
a new document. This is not good practice in Word. In Word, construct a
good, tight, template for your documents and use that template when
constructing new documents. Among other things, this can avoid embarrassing
"metadata" http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/metadata.htm and things like
surprise headers and footers from creeping into new documents.
Word and Word Perfect work very differently from one another. Each program's
methods have strengths and weaknesses; but, if you try to use one of these
programs as if it were the other, it is like pushing on a string! You can
easily make a lot of extra work for yourself. If you are unwilling to take
the time to learn to use Word's methods, you should stick to using Word Pad.
You'll have a lot less grief, although you'll miss out on a lot of raw
power.
See http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordperfect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm
http://businesssoft.about.com/compute/businesssoft/library/blconvert.htm
for information on Word for Word Perfect users.
For more:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm
In Word 2000 (or later) You can get the function keys to display in a
special toolbar at the bottom of the screen if you want (something like
pressing F3 twice in WP). The following macro will do this.
Sub ShowMeFunctionKeys()
Commandbars("Function Key Display").Visible = True
End Sub
Word's Extend key (F8) gives something similar to block processing.
Learn about Styles - really learn!
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm I resisted for years and now
regret every day of those years because although that string was still very
hard to push, it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important
projects tied to it! Once you understand styles and the Word concept of
organizing things into Chinese boxes everything falls into place and instead
of pushing a string, you can push a button that turns on the very powerful
text processing machine known as Microsoft Word and it will start doing your
work for you instead of running around behind you trying to undo what you
just thought you did.
Finally, in WP a lot of people use macros to hold chunks of text -
boilerplate. In Word this function is filled by Templates, AutoText and
AutoCorrect, not macros. Follow the links at
http://addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#AutoText for more
information on these tools.
It's a lot of reading, I know. It's OK to chunk it down and do a bit each
day, but I would recommend that you make it a top priority to do that bit
each day.
You can use FILLIN and ASK fields or UserForms to query the user. For some
form documents, Word's "online forms" work very well. For more about online
forms, follow the links at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm especially Dian
Chapman's series of articles.
As for converting documents from Word Perfect to use in Word... In a word,
don't plan on it. I would not recommend using converted documents long-term.
They will be filled with formatting anomolies that will get you at the worst
time. This is especially true of any documents containing automatic
numbering or bullets. Try recreating form documents in Word using the
following process:
In Word Perfect (if you still have it, in Word if not) save your files as
text files.
Use your converted files as references to show you how you want your
formatting to look.
Create a new document in Word and insert the text from the text file. Save
this new document as a Word template. Format it the way you want using
styles, not direct formatting. Save it again.
To use a template within Word, use File => New and pick your template. This
will create a new document for you.
General practice in WP is to have a document and copy and edit it to create
a new document. This is not good practice in Word. In Word, construct a
good, tight, template for your documents and use that template when
constructing new documents. Among other things, this can avoid embarrassing
"metadata" http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/metadata.htm and things like
surprise headers and footers from creeping into new documents.
C
Chip Orange
Thanks so much. I agree with, and am trying to practice, everything you
mention. I am however, in our IT shop, and most of our users are
clerical/admin types (and a few legal secretaries) and we've concluded that
getting them to this level of Word understanding is not likely to happen;
so, we're spending a lot of time having analysts like me design entire
automated systems using a lot of VBA and even a few custom COM servers, and
we have these systems use styles, templates, etc. That's why you'lll see me
hanging around here asking questions until folks refuse to answer any
more!!!
thanks again,
Chip
mention. I am however, in our IT shop, and most of our users are
clerical/admin types (and a few legal secretaries) and we've concluded that
getting them to this level of Word understanding is not likely to happen;
so, we're spending a lot of time having analysts like me design entire
automated systems using a lot of VBA and even a few custom COM servers, and
we have these systems use styles, templates, etc. That's why you'lll see me
hanging around here asking questions until folks refuse to answer any
more!!!
thanks again,
Chip
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