Editing in Word
Nov. 15th, 2009 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteI've decided that since it's been nearly 3 years since the first version of Effective Onscreen Editing, it's time to seriously consider updating the book.
The original version of the book made me face a difficult dilemma: when I started writing, there were 10 (!) versions of Word in active use by significant numbers of editors, and it would have been impractical to create one book that covered all 10 versions adequately. Among other things, I would have to excavate some long-lost CDs and probably even floppy disks just so I could install all these versions of Word on my various PCs and Macs and test whether specific advice worked for each version. Don't even get me started on the joys of having to insert 10 different screenshots for every feature description!
So instead, I chose a simpler approach: focus on general principles that would work well in any word processor, but provide specific examples in a version of Word that most editors would recognize and understand (specifically, a version ca. Word 97 to Word 2000) and hope that everyone would be able to extrapolate this example to whichever version of Word they were actually using. I recognized that this one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't make anyone happy (except those who were still using Word 97), but hoped that it would be an acceptable compromise. Thus far, feedback has been positive, and suggests that people are finding the book very useful despite this limitation.
However, now it's late in 2009, and it seems likely that most people have migrated to Word 2003 or even Word 2007, as these are the two best versions of Word yet. Neither is even remotely bug-free, and both have significant interface and usability problems for editors, but they're both so much better than previous versions that I consider them basically reliable and recommend both without reservation. This means that it's time to update the book to use examples specific to these newer versions (and Word 2008 on the Mac) so that it will be easier to understand and apply the principles in the book. A couple weeks ago, while teaching my onscreen editing course at the U.N. in New York, it became painfully apparent that the old version of the book really wasn't sufficiently specific for people who are using the newer versions of Word. Plus, I have this fantasy of spending some time with OpenOffice to see how well it works for onscreen editing.
Bottom line: If I can manage to find the time, I'll spend the Xmas break bringing the book up to date and fixing some of the glitches in the previous version. Watch this space in January! With luck, the book will be out just before the launch of Word 2010 (currently in closed beta testing) makes the entire book obsolete once again. Sigh.
I have this fantasy where Microsoft decides it would be a great idea to stick with the current interface, which basically works just fine, and spends the next decade rigorously debugging that version to fix a baker's dozen of longstanding bugs. (It will probably take that long.) While I'm dreaming in technicolor, wouldn't it be nice to have a few years of peace in the Middle East? Oh yeah... and a Beatles reunion (including the dead ones), economics that doesn't acknowledge the concept of externalities, and faster than light travel.
The original version of the book made me face a difficult dilemma: when I started writing, there were 10 (!) versions of Word in active use by significant numbers of editors, and it would have been impractical to create one book that covered all 10 versions adequately. Among other things, I would have to excavate some long-lost CDs and probably even floppy disks just so I could install all these versions of Word on my various PCs and Macs and test whether specific advice worked for each version. Don't even get me started on the joys of having to insert 10 different screenshots for every feature description!
So instead, I chose a simpler approach: focus on general principles that would work well in any word processor, but provide specific examples in a version of Word that most editors would recognize and understand (specifically, a version ca. Word 97 to Word 2000) and hope that everyone would be able to extrapolate this example to whichever version of Word they were actually using. I recognized that this one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't make anyone happy (except those who were still using Word 97), but hoped that it would be an acceptable compromise. Thus far, feedback has been positive, and suggests that people are finding the book very useful despite this limitation.
However, now it's late in 2009, and it seems likely that most people have migrated to Word 2003 or even Word 2007, as these are the two best versions of Word yet. Neither is even remotely bug-free, and both have significant interface and usability problems for editors, but they're both so much better than previous versions that I consider them basically reliable and recommend both without reservation. This means that it's time to update the book to use examples specific to these newer versions (and Word 2008 on the Mac) so that it will be easier to understand and apply the principles in the book. A couple weeks ago, while teaching my onscreen editing course at the U.N. in New York, it became painfully apparent that the old version of the book really wasn't sufficiently specific for people who are using the newer versions of Word. Plus, I have this fantasy of spending some time with OpenOffice to see how well it works for onscreen editing.
Bottom line: If I can manage to find the time, I'll spend the Xmas break bringing the book up to date and fixing some of the glitches in the previous version. Watch this space in January! With luck, the book will be out just before the launch of Word 2010 (currently in closed beta testing) makes the entire book obsolete once again. Sigh.
I have this fantasy where Microsoft decides it would be a great idea to stick with the current interface, which basically works just fine, and spends the next decade rigorously debugging that version to fix a baker's dozen of longstanding bugs. (It will probably take that long.) While I'm dreaming in technicolor, wouldn't it be nice to have a few years of peace in the Middle East? Oh yeah... and a Beatles reunion (including the dead ones), economics that doesn't acknowledge the concept of externalities, and faster than light travel.
Can we have aliens turn up and laugh at religious people...
Date: 2009-11-17 10:30 am (UTC)Re: Can we have aliens turn up and laugh at religious people...
Date: 2009-11-17 10:31 am (UTC)I keep forgetting this isn't LJ.
(Ever thought of mirroring on LJ. You'd get a lot of readers.)
Re: Can we have aliens turn up and laugh at religious people...
Date: 2009-11-17 12:51 pm (UTC)Why do we need or want to laugh at religious people? It's the extremists who are the problem, and they require sterner measures than mockery. The vast majority of religious people, like each of us, have various beliefs that many others find loony or irrational or objectionable. "Live and let live" is my motto.
Second, why do we need aliens for that purpose? There are many incisive critics of religion who have something more important to say than mockery. James Morrow is just one example.
And a third practical comment: How could I mirror my blog on LJ without having to manually cut and paste? If I can do that automatically, it's a no-brainer... literally.
Re: Can we have aliens turn up and laugh at religious people...
Date: 2009-11-17 01:22 pm (UTC)Laughter is good, because really the Emperor has no clothes.
A big, successful, atheist alien culture would put the theists into perspective, showing them for what they are: a quaint and sometimes sinister relic of bygone ways of thinking.
And as for LJ. No idea. One of my lj friends does the mirroring thing. I'll ask him/her/it.