Hi Claude:
Technically, no. The Commenting feature is disabled "in" footnotes, but not
"for" footnotes. If you place a footnote in a document, you can place a
comment either immediately before it or immediately after it. Just not "in"
it.
Tracked Changes, on the other hand, are allowed in footnotes. You can
sometimes use these to serve the sane purpose.
Now, if you would "like" Microsoft to think about this, you need to tell
them --
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp or email
(e-mail address removed)
Because I know a little about the internal workings of Word, my guess is
that this one is not going to be a "cheap" change. In these cases there are
some things it pays to do if you would like Microsoft to do more than
"think" about your idea.
The first is to stage the product and platform (in this case, Word (Mac)) in
the subject line. Feedback arrives at Microsoft like a fire-hose
Nobody has the time to re-direct messages that fall into the wrong product
group.
Next, concisely state how the product works now, and how you would like it
to work in the future. Give at least two detailed examples, but do not
include any attachments.
Now, provide a business justification. In other words, give your best
estimate of what proportion of users of the product would use this feature,
say how you know that, and what those users would use it for.
I am sure I don't need to say this to Claude, but for anyone else reading
who would like to get things done around here, it can't hurt to mention:
Leave the insults and denigrations, gratuitous or otherwise, out. You can
let them fly in here: we enjoy them, because we do not work for Microsoft
either
However, a junior employee of a large corporation who has
recently put their whole soul on the line to gain the job they now have, is
very unlikely to risk annoying their boss by passing an abusive email on up
the chain. They are also unlikely to go out of their way to help a user who
has just insulted their reason for being
Flame away in here for all you
are worth -- we enjoy it. But if you want to get your wish up in front of
the Feature Selection Committee, keep it business-like and professional.
Finally, be prepared to wait at least two years to see your result. In
major software development, there are three broad stages in the process: N,
N + 1, and N + 2. "n" is the version moving out to the store shelves now.
N + 1 is in development, coding and testing. It will appear about two years
after the current version went on sale. N + 2 is the earliest one you can
influence. That's the one in Feature Specification and Design. That's the
only one into which anyone, including Microsoft employees (with the possible
exception of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer...) can get any new ideas. Even
Bill and Steve would need a very serious reason to force a change into the
development cycle.
As a last hint, try to make your idea appealing for PC Word as well.
Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit is pretty much fully occupied (most
would say "over occupied") trying to develop the existing wish-list for Mac
Word. An idea such as yours, which would benefit the PC side as well, is
quite likely to be picked up by the PC Office people, who have serious money
to spend. If it is, it will be handed on to us in the next version.
Hope this helps
Hi all,
Is the commenting feature disabled for footnotes? I can't seem to get
mine to work.
If this is missing, Microsoft really should think about solving this:
in documents that have footnotes, these are often the place that need
the most comments. (Disabling it strikes me as a sign that you
software designers are not people that collaborate on these kinds of
documents.)
--
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
