Reformatting.doc[1]...Planning for E*D
Created May 3, 1998 Today is
April 18, 2001 - Automate this!
E&D Issues:
The main objectives: Preliminary to EDA, pre-production, distribution, reference and online version - with reasonable but not obsessive level of formatting; outline numbering - for database/conceptual use. The purpose of the E&D or Reformat template is to automate the accomplishment of these objectives.
Letter or alpha-numeric to
numeric indexing
E&D - revision of certain sections such as the sections on analytic or a priori knowledge. Rename Area 7 "Learning" or "Learning and Transformation"; and Area 8 "Conclusions" or "Destinations: The Future".
E&D Template:
Prepare production and working versions of the template. Each template and the set of templates are designed to make revision of document/template attachment to alternate templates easy.
Space before in some styles eliminates the issue of the last paragraph in a list.
Numbered list styles...use the built in styles if possible.
Use or modify built in styles before creating new ones. Research this.
Delete or document macros Insert Footnote - Alt + F2 Search Selection - Alt + F12
Formatting and reformatting a document:
Probably more convenient to work issue by issue than document by
document...alternatively experiment with automating this by reformatting a number
of documents in master document view
Organize the old documents in a folder. Import using an appropriate converter from Mac to PC - or use the built in converters of Mac OS 8 - then using and appropriate converter from Conversions plus or from Word or Excel, Access. Load or cut and paste documents to the template of choice; alternatively attach to that template with "Automatically update document styles" checked. Eliminate junk text. Format to a default style such as Body Text [Body Text A - currently.] Segment the documents logically - refer to original for completeness.
Work on the body of the text. Issues: work in footnotes, effectively corrupted elements of text. Work grammar and spelling before extensive automated reformatting and Headings - because the grammar and spell check ignores certain formats such as capitalization. Replace symbols, extra spaces, multiple paragraph symbols by single ones, tab spaces with appropriately indented styles- in Word normal formatting of paragraphs, blank spaces, tabs
Automation and simplicity. Note that global find-and-replace and macros can be creative and useful and are fun but somewhat risky. Practice improves facility and an intuition about automation and semi-automation. Save useful searches macros for subsequent documents, and organize and document the macros that I want to keep. There is a balance between how much to automate and how much use he automation will get. In all cases some manual formatting will be required after automatic formatting - to complement and check the automation results.
Titles, headings - with and without outline levels and numbering; cross-references. Page numbering before or after linking individual documents in a master? Other specific issues as they arise...In more detail:
The
parts of a text product: Covers - front and back, logo, titles, headings, and
other leaders... Title and publication pages; preface, acknowledgement, and
introduction; tables of contents; main chapter/division/part/area/book/volume
and various styles of [chapter...] introduction, orientation and outline...
Appendices; indices; author information; research/publication group information
and advertisement of the group and related publications and services;
supplementary electronic media; supplementary non-production documents;
presentations. . Use Outline and Master Document views, TOC, Table of Contents,
and Index.
Final Manual Formatting at this point. Check styles, tables, proof. If using grammar and spell check at this point clear Tools, Options...Spelling and Grammar, Ignore words in UPPERCASE.
Combine the individual documents using master document view. Consider the issue of copying master documents to backup folders.
Comparison of two documents - Word, text...- will be useful. How to do this?
Using Master Documents
1. List the contents including all title pages, legends, tables of contents, chapters, appendixes, reference and bibliography, indexes...
2. Create a blank document based on the template. Alternatively, based on a blank template...and with the same page setup?
3. Introduce additional section breaks so that each main section begins on an odd page.
4. Insert and edit tables of contents...in production versions may save TOC to a separate file and insert the file in master document view so that the master document has only hyperlinks.
5. Update and edit pagination as needed: for the text preliminaries and the text itself.
Some possible solutions to various problems:
Different templates may be used for Title/publication data, for body. The problem of variation can be resolved - maintaining automation - by using auxiliary styles for the auxiliary parts.
Details
Reformatting
Note that the following are in [close to] exact sequence.
1. Open [Mac] file from within Word, select "Recover text from any file", then eliminate "garbage text"..
2. Attach to E & D Production or other template with "Automatically update document styles" checked; Select All and Style Body Text A. Run the page setup macro from the macro toolbar. This will be easier if I can make E & D PRODUCTION.DOT etc. the default template...or temporarily rename/make it the NORMAL.DOT template. This can easily be automated by moving to a different folder.
This entire item is automated by two macros:
Attach to E & D Production Template Apply Body Text A Style and Page Setup
3. Save As [same file name] Word document. Remember to save at each formatting operation and frequently while working. Follow normal backup schedule. Maintain versions: original with backups; working...
4. Work in footnotes and text fragments. The following macros are useful:
§ InsertFootnote: Keyboard Alt + F2 inserts a footnote reference at the insertion point in the active document and cuts the first paragraph from an open document named Footnotes.doc and pastes it as the footnote. The macro leaves the documents ready for insertion of the next footnote.
§ SearchSelection: Keyboard Alt + F12 finds the next string that is identical to the selected text. This is useful in placing the fragments.
5. Spelling and grammar
6. Tables: mark tables early. If there are tables which are automatically formatted, or a large number of tables it may be good to not reformat these automatically. This could be done by cutting the tables, pasting them to a separate document and then reintroducing them later. Else, just reformat the whole document and manually reformat the tables in the final manual reformatting phase.
7. Segment: organize logically into sub-documents of convenient length.
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Comments on Format Macros of E & D Production |
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Much simplification is possible |
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General Purpose Macros can be set up and called repeatedly instead of repeating code as in Tab A macro for example. |
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This is done in the Symbol 1, 2, 3 macros. |
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Automation |
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The calling process, as in Tab A, could be automated. In Tab A, for example, the calls could be in a loop in which a string changes its value (^t ^t, ^t ^t ^t...) according to number of tabs being replaced. |
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Explanation. The future. |
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I have not done all this partly because this project began ad hoc and partly because I do not know how useful this project is going to be. I will do this if the need arises. |
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The Macros |
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The following macros are assigned to the Macros toolbar: Instructions, Page Marker, Tab A, B, C, Etc 1 through 6, Symbol 1, 2, 3, 4, Headings: Check, Format and Clear, Styles 1, or 2 and 3. The "or" in the Styles macros is a reminder to apply only one of Styles 1 and 2 |
8. Ms Page Marker macro "Page Marker" on toolbar formats markers for pages in the 1987 hand manuscript. The number of tab characters may be different for different sections.
9. Tab A macro "Tab A" on toolbar Replaces 7+ tabs by 7; then replaces 7 to 2 lead tabs by no tabs and style List-7 to 2.
10. Tab B macro on toolbar replaces lead single tabs by no tab and style Body Text
11. Tab C replaces all tabs by spaces.
12. Manually - using find and replace - replace Body Text by List-1 [re: step 9] where necessary. Items 5 through 8 have been one solution to the tab issue; perhaps another with more automation will be worth developing later.
13. The
macros Etc do the following replacements:
Etc 1 Replaces three or more
periods by ellipsis, two periods by one
Etc 2 Only for style List-1
"^p -" or "^p-" or by "^p"
Etc 3 Replace more than ten
spaces by list-7, one to ten spaces by one space
Etc 4 Replaces "^p
" by "^p"
Etc 5 Replaces "^p
-" or "^p-" or by "^p"...stronger than Etc 2 and
should be followed by Etc 4
Etc 6 Replaces two or more
consecutive paragraph marks by one.
or do it manually - step by step!
14. Value
of macros Symbol 1, 2 and 3 is as a brief catalog - may supplement later
Symbol 1 Replaces <==>,
<=>, <--> and <-> by a two headed arrow ó.
Symbol 2 Replaces <===, <== ,
<= , <---, <-- , <- by a left arrow.
Symbol 3 Replaces ===>, ==> ,
=> , --->, --> , -> by a right arrow.
Symbol 4 Is currently a reminder to
replace special or limited use symbols manually. A list of suggested symbols -
to which I may add - is provided.
15. Footnotes
- if footnotes were automatically imported as such they may need to be
separately reformatted.
First, if necessary, format for footnotes as follows: View, Footnotes, Select
All, and apply style "Footnote"
Go through steps 6 through 12 as needed - the main ones should be 9, 10, 11
[Etc 1 and 4], 12
The following macros have been introduced to help with this process:
InsertFootnote: When footnotes have been placed in sequence in a document
"Footnotes.doc", Alt+F2 runs the macro, cuts the first footnote from
"Footnotes.doc", inserts a footnote reference at the selection point
and places the footnote in the footnotes. The operation is particular to the
nature of the imported text in that footnotes were replaced by breaks.
SearchSelection: Alt+F12 finds the selected text...this is useful in a number of
settings.
16. The
Headings macros
Check Checks for possible
headings. If the form is not a heading the macro adds a mark at the beginning
of
the
line.
Some
of the section numbering of old work has letters in it. This is currently
undesirable. This is a good point to
clean
this up and replace the letters by numbers. This can conveniently be done since
the Headings Check
macro
catches these heading numbers and allows exit for manual formatting. Each
section number and
references
to it can be changed with a single "find and replace all."
Format Formats headings as described
Enter
heading level as a numeral from 1 through 9
Begin
with the lowest level
Run
the macro once for each successive higher heading level
Apply appropriate outline levels for "topic head" style; or replace
by Aux Head... and modify or eliminate these styles as needed
Clear Clears the marks
added by the check macro
Run Etc 4 to clean up "^p " to "^p"...Is there a need to
clean up "^p." to "^p"? Automate?
17. Styles
Macros: Use 1 or 2. Use 3.
Styles 1 Converts Body Text A
to Body Text. Use after all other styles are applied.
Styles 2 Converts Body Text to
Body Text A. Use after all other styles are applied as an alternative to Styles
1.
Styles 3 Applies Footnote Style
to all footnotes and Footnote Reference Style to all footnote references.
18. Manual
formatting and proofing. Master documents, document elements such as page
numbers, tables of contents, indices, cover pages... Amount of proofing will
depend on the nature of the document and the current and future purposes.
There two additional Macros Tool bar buttons to assist with manual formatting
of headings and outlines. These are Styles A and B.
Styles A Applies Topic A style
to the selection or paragraph in which the selection point lies,
Styles B Applies Topic B style
to the selection or paragraph in which the selection point lies.
These selections, then, appear in the automatically generated tables of
contents.
Macros in E & D Production and other templates.
19. All the old macros from Format Template are there in NewMacros which I renamed as below.
20. PageSetup - the steps: Record Macro, Store Macro In All Documents Based On E & D PRODUCTION.DOT, Toolbar, Added a new "Macros" toolbar for formatting macros, drag button to the toolbar and edit the button, recorded the macro.
21. Importing the macro and toolbar to other templates. Could originally have stored in NORMAL.DOT but prefer not to. So added through Tools, Templates and Add-Inns, Organizer, Macro Project Items tab, Close Normal.dot, Open E & D WORKING.DOT, and copied...but had to first rename NewMacros in E & D PRODUCTION.DOT as something else - FormattingMacros - copy the macro and delete NewMacros from E & D WORKING.DOT. Copied the toolbar similarly from Toolbars tab in Organizer; but needed to connect the macro to a button and this involved adding a new button and then editing the button by - in this case - cut and paste from the old button and then deleting the old button.
Criteria to Save a Macro
22. The factors - Is it: general purpose, automated or can it be automated; will I use it or have use for it beyond the immediate application; can its automation be accomplished and saved more easily. Find and replace can be saved as a macro and then generalized by programming...but can find and replace be directly saved.