Do styles help with drafting? (Reposted from word.general, as this location seems more suitable)

[srd]

It surprises me that I find not a single MS Word newsgroup oriented toward
the composition process.

Question: What is the canonical method for altering the format of a
document between drafting and producing a finished document? I know about
the Draft font option and the Normal and Outline views. What if the user
prefers a different paragraph style, say single spacing for drafts (to see
as much as possible on the screen) and double for manuscripts; or maybe
the reverse, where the user wants al lot of blank space in the early draft.

I one accomplished this through a base Normal style. When I started
planning the relations among styles and templates, the downside of basing
everything on Normal became obvious. So now I have no base style
throughout a document. 'Body text' or a descendent thereto might be the
base text style; 'Heading 2' the base title, subtitle, heading, and
subheading style. I usually have at least one other base style in a
document besides those. Changing base styles would be excessively
inconvenient.

Having a Draft style would be the solution, except you want to avoid
reapplying the manuscript styles. A draft template might be the answer,
but I have never used templates to that end. I invoke a template at the
time of the document's inception. I don't know if you can modify a
document by applying a template after the fact and then removing the
template or reapplying the original template, getting the original
document back.

 

[srd]

Hi John,

Yes that helps. I'm not completely clear, however, on the mechanics of
using templates to modify the appearance of documents, when a different
template was used to create it. Is there a discussion somewhere of matters
such as how you ensure that the applied template over-rides the global and
document templates, and even a review of the basics on loading templates?

Stephen R. Diamond

Hi Stephen:

There is no "canonical" method of doing this: you must use the method
that
suits your specific production process.

I have used both dual templates and style hierarchies to do this.

I would normally prefer dual templates if I were making lots of changes
between draft and final, and style hierarchies if I were changing only a
few
properties.

So if I wanted to flip the "Comment" style between Red, Bold and "Black,
Hidden" I would use a hierarchies of styles that inherited the font
properties. But if I wanted to reformat the output between paper
publishing
and HTML publishing, I would use a different template for each kind of
output.

If I did use style hierarchies, I would ensure that NOTHING was based on
Normal. Normal is "Style 0" the base style for the document. It is used
all over the place and really works properly only if it has default basic
formatting. For example, all of the paragraph p[properties in drawing
objects come from Normal. If you tweak Normal, your graphics fly apart.

So I would create a Body Base and a Heading Base style just to serve as
the
source styles.

However, working in a group of users I think you will find multiple
templates with the same-named styles is safer and simpler.

The only drawback is if you are using list-based numbering. If you are,
then updating the styles from a different template will break the
numbering
each time. It's easy enough to fix if you understand numbering well and
you
are expecting the problem. But if you know numbering that well, you will
probably elect to use field-based numbering if you are planning on using
Update Styles.

If you can persuade your users to use only styles for formatting, and to
apply the styles properly, and not to override any styles with direct
formatting, you have made a major achievement.

But I guess the only time that formatting of the draft matters at all is
if
you intend to hand-correct the manuscript. It's been years since I have
asked for (or accepted) hand-written corrections. I don't have the time
or
resource on my projects to pay people to type corrections in from
handwriting. So these days, I tend to produce the manuscript using
formatting that makes it easy to read on-screen. I use a macro to flip
the
styles to use final output fonts just before I publish.

Hope this helps

It surprises me that I find not a single MS Word newsgroup oriented
toward
the composition process.

Question: What is the canonical method for altering the format of a
document between drafting and producing a finished document? I know
about
the Draft font option and the Normal and Outline views. What if the user
prefers a different paragraph style, say single spacing for drafts (to
see
as much as possible on the screen) and double for manuscripts; or maybe
the reverse, where the user wants al lot of blank space in the early
draft.

I one accomplished this through a base Normal style. When I started
planning the relations among styles and templates, the downside of
basing
everything on Normal became obvious. So now I have no base style
throughout a document. 'Body text' or a descendent thereto might be the
base text style; 'Heading 2' the base title, subtitle, heading, and
subheading style. I usually have at least one other base style in a
document besides those. Changing base styles would be excessively
inconvenient.

Having a Draft style would be the solution, except you want to avoid
reapplying the manuscript styles. A draft template might be the answer,
but I have never used templates to that end. I invoke a template at the
time of the document's inception. I don't know if you can modify a
document by applying a template after the fact and then removing the
template or reapplying the original template, getting the original
document back.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Stephen

Yes that helps. I'm not completely clear, however, on the mechanics of
using templates to modify the appearance of documents, when a different
template was used to create it. Is there a discussion somewhere of
matters such as how you ensure that the applied template over-rides the
global and document templates, and even a review of the basics on
loading templates?

If I understand John correctly, you will simply change the document
template under Tools | Template and AddIns and check "Automatically
update document styles." When you do that, a style which is used in the
document and exists in the new template with the same name will be
updated. It's roughly the same as copying the styles over with the
Organizer.

[You could in theory also create a new document based on the new
template and copy the contents of the old document over, but that's a
lot more complicated -- and section formatting _will_ give you headaches.]

HTH
Robert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

For more on the effects of attaching a different template, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/attachtemplate/index.html

Hi Stephen

Yes that helps. I'm not completely clear, however, on the mechanics of
using templates to modify the appearance of documents, when a different
template was used to create it. Is there a discussion somewhere of
matters such as how you ensure that the applied template over-rides the
global and document templates, and even a review of the basics on
loading templates?

If I understand John correctly, you will simply change the document
template under Tools | Template and AddIns and check "Automatically
update document styles." When you do that, a style which is used in the
document and exists in the new template with the same name will be
updated. It's roughly the same as copying the styles over with the
Organizer.

[You could in theory also create a new document based on the new
template and copy the contents of the old document over, but that's a
lot more complicated -- and section formatting _will_ give you headaches.]

HTH
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

 

[srd]

Thanks everyone for the help.

An additional reason formatting the draft matters concerns the ways the
layout affects the writer, both practically and psychologically.
Practically, because sometimes you want to see as much of the document as
possible. This may help with continuity of exposition. Psychologically,
people differ in how the way the look of the progressing draft affects
their writing.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you want to see as much of the document as possible, use Normal view with
lines wrapped to the window. In Print Layout view, you can hide the white
space between pages for a continuous flow of text at a reasonable reading
width.