Dialogue

[Scott]

re: Word X

I'm about to start on a longish conversation transcript. There are only
two people involved, and I'd like to be able to automate switching back
and forth between them. I.e.:
Person 1: "statement"
Person 2: "reply"
Person 1: "response"


Is there any way to for Word to automatically generate the alternating
names, after each Return? My first thought would be to create a Style
for each name, each set to be followed by the other style, but I don't
think Word can include text with the style definition.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Scott,

I think Dayo Mitchell's recent response to another poster may help you. The
thread is called, " Word insists on changing my text!" and her post was made
today.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

I'll repost, since it was an answer I copied from someone else anyhow....

In the microsoft.public.word.docmanagement NG, thread "Re: Q & A Format
- Paragraph numbering", Suzanne Barnhill posted this answer to someone who
did want Word to insert the Q and A automatically.

"Yes. Create two paragraph styles, Question and Answer. In the Question
style, select Format | Numbering: Bulleted, and add the letter Q as a bullet
(this will be easier if you base the style on List Bullet). In the answer
style, use A for the bullet. In the Question style, set Answer as the "Style
for following paragraph" and vice versa. If answers sometimes exceed one
paragraph, you'll want an Answer Continue style that is indented but without
a bullet (you could base this on the List Continue style); assign a keyboard
shortcut to that style so that you can select it instead of Question when
you want to continue the answer."

My PS.
1) Using a Manual Line Break (shift-return) instead of a Paragraph Return in
multi-paragraph answers may remove the need for an Answer Continue style.
2) I wonder if you could do this, and then run a Find & Replace on the
bullets (probably initials in your case) to insert the full names. Have no
experience with F&R-ing bullets, so don't know if actually possible.

Dayo