Hi Rudy:
Yeah. I know what's needed
Don't forget I work all day in corporate
documentation, attempting to produce publishable artefacts from the
typographical word-salad of the average corporate computer user.
If you REALLY want to do this in Mac Word, you "can". But it's a fair bit
of coding. Similarly, in Word 2003, while there are facilities that
"reduce" the problem, they are not truly effective: a determined user can
find their way around them.
The "proper" answer to this, as you and I both know, is XML and a Validating
Parser. That's about to become widely available in PC Word. Mac Word will
follow as soon as the market demands it.
Hint: If you know what Rudy and I are talking about, NOW is the time to be
"Sending Feedback to Microsoft" asking for XML in Mac Word. Because now is
when the Mac Business Unit in Microsoft is attempting to make a business
case to bring these features across.
We're talking about a very large investment here, XML ain't cheap. And the
implementation in PC Word will not port to the Mac, they will have to write
it fresh.
So a nice steady stream of requests from customers is the ONLY way we're
going to get this. That and a few corporate IS Directors making the point
very strongly to their Microsoft representatives. Flapping our jaws in here
won't do it, and neither will telephoning Microsoft.
To see how this is done, study your family cat. All cats learn in their
cradles that "If you constantly ask, you just might get it. If you never
ask, you certainly won't!" The cat population of the world is not
diminishing, so they're doing something right
Hint, people: When you send that feedback in, don't forget to say "why" you
want it, in business terms. "I want it because it's cool" will not get
funding, any more than "If I don't get it I will go Open Source" threats
will.
Hope this helps
