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Processing Words: The Powerful way
Apothe0sis
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, at work, we use Office - which means I have to deal with Word 2007 and soon Word 2010. I don't often have to do so, but when I do, it is always a pain. Word is so accursedly random in its application of design principles it makes me want to hatchet the server as an act of misdirected rage. The fact that it hides almost everything related to formatting makes the infuriating times when it does something unexpected all the worse. Given that I have, in the past, had the joy of working pure TeX* this is driving me mental.
I would like to know if anyone has any solutions for editting Word Documents by hand so that I can make sure that list and formatting hierarchies actually operate as expected would be idea. Alternatively, if I have to do it with CSS and HTML or XML and who knows what, that would be fine. Or creating documents in something else which is then ultimately converted to .docx works as well.
I also welcome stories about how much you hate MS Office.
*This is semi-sasrcastic.
I would like to know if anyone has any solutions for editting Word Documents by hand so that I can make sure that list and formatting hierarchies actually operate as expected would be idea. Alternatively, if I have to do it with CSS and HTML or XML and who knows what, that would be fine. Or creating documents in something else which is then ultimately converted to .docx works as well.
I also welcome stories about how much you hate MS Office.
*This is semi-sasrcastic.
Apothe0sis on
What I see sees me.
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You are a strange and terrible person.
I find it inconcievable that anyone would use Word for serious typesetting.
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I find the implication that people who like word know what "typesetting" is rather amusing. Most people like it because it has a much smaller barrier of entry. Not because they are particularly happy with the end result.
I don't do typesetting, I'm fixing a translation.
400 pages.
And for straight translation work it's great too.
Wordperfect did shit like that about one-tenth as often, and when it did you could turn on "view codes" and delete the offending markup manually.
Anyway, I'm certain there's some XML mojo you can do, as Garthor implied above, I just don't know about it personally. It's worth investigating, though.
Really, LaTeX is about as good of a solution as I can think of offhand that might work, with the major problem being that it can be a pain to learn and is massive overkill for things like meeting notes.
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I don't think latex would work for me, though. I have to deliver the revisions and translations in Word format. and it gets especially tricky when I need to use the whole "track changes" thing.
Anyways, Open Office is free and looks just like pre-2k7 word. maybe people should use that instead. I still love Word 2007.
My concerns fall much more in line with Feral's. Word just does things randomly, and there's very rarely a predictable manner by which to fix it.
I think a way to resolve that sort of behaviour is to have an option to show markup within Word, so you can fix these issues, if they occur and are important, without having to essentially try a whole range of random formatting changes back and forth in a trial and error manner.
Currently, I'm having an issue with Lists under other list items, the numbering won't start again - so I get 1.1, 1.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.5, 3.6 and so forth. I've tried a range of things to fix this, and short of removing all formatting and applying everything again in a very careful manner, I cannot reset things to work as expected. I am sitting around wishing that there was a function that allowed you to view and edit the markup used by Word to define what was Bold, or which list a particular list item was an item of and so forth. It would be a glorious thing.
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I am not sure, but deduction would suggest that the output echoes that of the old MS Front Page, which used a horrible XML implementation to bridge web pages and word files.
Laden with namespaces and redundant tags, etc.
I've never had many problems with Word, but I've had the luxury of delegating extensive formatting to people who have the time to do that sort of thing.
At work for producing documentation we are writing in MarkDown syntax, translating that to DocBook using PanDoc. Tweaking the DocBook files with some xsl's and then generating a pdf from that. Instead of making a PDF you could use the DocBook to WordML XSL here http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/ to translate to Word. Or you could translate to HTML and open that in word before saving as docx
Or if you're in the mood to rewrite, you can always rewrite the document in HTML and import it again. Then you can use Notepad or something. Like was said, if you want to see markup, you can open up the XML and edit it, but its not an XML language that many people know or work with. Its not nice and happy and will deal with mistakes you make like HTML is. For 99% of users, editing it by hand to do anything.... advanced, is more likely to just screw things up than fix 'em.
That being said I'm currently using the Office 2010 beta. It took me a little time to get used to the ribbon interface especially since I've been using Word since Office '97. But now that I've gotten used to it I prefer it over the old menu system.
Man, don't even get me started on defining multilevel list styles or just styles in general. It's so.... urgh.
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Just screwing around in openoffice, it looks like it... almost solves this problem. It starts the numbering over in any case. What it does instead is it lists things, but without the first part in the "sub list" or whatever. Here's what it looks like:
1. Thing number one.
.....1. Thing number one part one.
.....2. Thing number one part two.
2. Thing two.
.....1. Thing number two part one.
.....2. Thing number two part two.
Just pretend the periods are spaces, since the formatting here won't place nice.
I'm not terribly experience with Openoffice though (99.9% of all my editing happens with notepad-like programs), so there might be a way to make it do the "1.1, 1.2" thing that I just don't know about.
That's not really a problem with the tool, but the people maintaining it.
Good documentation needs a person dedicated to the task, it's a serious job and it has a pretty precise skill set.
I haven't encountered a single manager in my career who's realized this. They always treat documentation like it's something people do as they complete tasks, and having a big pool of documentation means the job is done. Makes it very hard to hire an actual technical writer.
This. Once you go over the little learning curve (or learning very low slope) it works so much better than regular windows 3 era menus and submenus and hidden pages.
It offers you a hell lot more options and tools a lot less clicks away.
I tried open office, but it tacked an entire extra megabyte to the file I was working with. Nope, thanks but no thanks.
I agree - however, as you said, people don't realize it, and until they do, that will continue to be the state of functionality with those tools. Giving people an awesome tool is useless if they either cannot or will not use it correctly or support it correctly however
So, it turns out that buried within Microsoft's Brass Ackwoods Style system there is indeed a way to see formatting as applied to a given bunch of text (and all you have to do is Click The Style part of the Ribbon -> Manage Styles -> Style Inspector -> Reveal Formatting! Simple!)
Of course, that still doesn't let me restart lists number at a given point in any useful fashion.
EDIT: And I have solved this issue, I had to also define a custom list style.
Way to have a bajillion disparate things you need to do to perform a single function Word.
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We should be getting an Office upgrade here soon. I don't have a lot of experience with The Ribbon, but what little I do have, I've liked it. Except for the fact that I keep forgetting to look UP for the Undo and Save buttons.