Re-order sections?

[john]

Hi everybody

Is there are a way of re-ordering the sections of a long document (the
manuscript of a book)?

I'm avoiding writing each chapter as a separate document and either
integrating them in a master document (because you MVP guys advise that
master documents corrupt) or printing each chapter separately (because
I'd have to manually restart page and Outline Level Numbering every
time the draft changes).

I'm using EndNote9, the referencing program, that integrates with
Word (MacWord 2004, V11.3) to produce the ms.

I need to:
(a) use in-text superscripted numbers for References
(b) have these numbered References appear at the end of each chapter
(c) have the Bibliography generated by each Reference appear in
alphabetical order at the end of the book.

None of EndNote's output style templates does this.

So I'm using Word's footnote function checked to endnote and
autonumbering to give the superscripted endnotes. Then I insert the
appropriate reference from my EndNote Library, which automatically
generates the full reference in a Bibliography. Which is fine.

HOWEVER, if Word's endnote function is checked to End of Document,
then I can't cut and paste the references to the end of each chapter,
renumber them from 1 for each chapter, or cut and paste Bibliography to
the end of the document.

I thought I had solved the problem by changing Word's endnote
function to End of Section (New Page), check Renumber for Each Section,
and have each chapter begin in a new section. This almost gives me
everything I want. It enables me to go to Outline View and change the
order of Numbered Outline Levels within Outline Level 1 and even
enables me to move a Numbered Outline Level 2 to another Level 1 and
automatically renumber. BUT it doesn't allow me to change the order
of Chapters (Level 1) ie. change the order of the sections (which will
almost certainly be necessary as the book goes through several
drafts)..

Indebted if you can tell me how to do this (Word Help doesn't and I
can't find how to do so in Clive's Bend Word to Your Will).

Many thanks

John

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi John,

Section breaks between chapters sounds like the best approach.

In Outline View, you should certainly be able to change the order of the
Level 1 headings. Collapse the view to just level 1, then grab the plus
next to a level 1 heading and drag up or down. A line with some funky
brackets will show where the section is going.

If this is not working for you, please explain precisely what you do and
what happens. It should work.

More general info on Outline View:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
(hit reload a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

Re outline numbering, I hope you followed the setup instructions here:
http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html

 

[john]

Hi Daiya

I think I've discovered why it didn't work.

I did precisely what you suggested for the last chapter, dragged the
plus sign so that the arrowed line above it showed an insertion above
the penultimate chapter, released, and (to my surprise) nothing
happened. Tried several times.

I've now tried moving other Level 1 chapters and HAVE changed their
order (and the automatic renumbering works).

The difference with the last chapter, I realize, is that it contains
other section breaks that aren't Level 1 (eg. at the end of the last
chapter a section break is followed by an Annex, followed by a section
break and a Bibliography).

For some reason this Level 1 last chapter won't move. (Why not?) Even
if it did, I wouldn't want the Annex and the Bibliography to move. But
I don't want these given the same Outline Numbered Level format as the
chapters.

Grateful for solution.

Is it really not safe to write each chapter as a separate document file
and then insert them in a Master document?

Thanks

John

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi John:

Flying a Boeing 747 and using Master Documents are both perfectly safe if
you know what you are doing and follow the rules exactly.

If you miss a couple of characters here or there, you'll get the same sort
of result

See here:
www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/pdfs/masterdocs.PDF

Cheers

Hi Daiya

I think I've discovered why it didn't work.

I did precisely what you suggested for the last chapter, dragged the
plus sign so that the arrowed line above it showed an insertion above
the penultimate chapter, released, and (to my surprise) nothing
happened. Tried several times.

I've now tried moving other Level 1 chapters and HAVE changed their
order (and the automatic renumbering works).

The difference with the last chapter, I realize, is that it contains
other section breaks that aren't Level 1 (eg. at the end of the last
chapter a section break is followed by an Annex, followed by a section
break and a Bibliography).

For some reason this Level 1 last chapter won't move. (Why not?) Even
if it did, I wouldn't want the Annex and the Bibliography to move. But
I don't want these given the same Outline Numbered Level format as the
chapters.

Grateful for solution.

Is it really not safe to write each chapter as a separate document file
and then insert them in a Master document?

Thanks

John

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi John,

Recently I also had some issues with certain sections not wanting to move.
I think I wound up moving stuff down instead of moving the last one up, to
get what I wanted. Can't remember whether it went away with a relaunch,
can't seem to replicate it now.

The difference with the last chapter, I realize, is that it contains
other section breaks that aren't Level 1 (eg. at the end of the last
chapter a section break is followed by an Annex, followed by a section
break and a Bibliography).

Uh, I don't *think* section breaks carry an outline level (though I could be
wrong). I don't think I agree with your diagnosis, though--Word does not
know what you call a chapter, and doesn't care. So, for Word, a chapter
cannot contain section breaks. A section break is a section break, period
(this is a problem, actually). (I just tried moving a Level 4 with several
level 5s separated by a section break, and it moved fine). Although,
actually, I don't know whether having hierarchical numbering stretching over
a section break would make a difference. I really have no idea why that
chapter refused to move.

Is it really not safe to write each chapter as a separate document file
and then insert them in a Master document?

Word's "Master Document" misfeature is not a good idea to use (see John
McGhie's post). But whether you compose each chapter separately and combine
them later with section breaks between chapters, or draft all in one file,
is personal preference. I don't think I combined my dissertation into one
file until quite late in the process, well after I had stopped re-ordering
sections.

Why Master Documents corrupt:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm

Not sure if anyone has sent you to this compilation of links for long
documents yet:

So You Want to Write a Book in Word
http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm

Daiya

 

[john]

Hi Daiya

I've tried out some more. It isn't that the last Level 1 contains
section breaks that prevents it moving or that it contains EndNote's
Bilbliography that wants to stay at the end of the document. I deleted
all these and still it wouldn't move up and the penultimate Level 1
wouldn't move below it. I also added a new Level 1 after it. In all
cases it was simply that the last Level 1 wouldn't move up or allow
other Level 1s to move below it. (As I said, I had no problems moving
subsidiary Levels all around.)

Would be helpful to know how to fix this. (I'm using MacWord 2004 V
11.3 with OSX 10.4.8)

My replacement iMac is an Intel dual processor. This has caused some
problems, eg. giving a misleading signal level for Airport, which Apple
Technical people say will be fixed in an update. Could it be the
processor?

I'd read John McGhie's "Why Master Documents corrupt," and that's why
I tried to avoid a Master by using section breaks in one document. But
now John has suggested a longer article saying what one needs to do to
avoid Master's corrupting.

I hadn't been referred to your article on writing a book. Many thanks
for this. I'll read. Though I seem to be spending all my time reading
articles about Word than the material I need to write my book.

John

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi John,

I have no idea at all.....a quick test here allowed me to move the last
level 1 around freely. Workaround: create a Level 1 titled Conclusion,
which will always be at the end, and leave it there?

You could try the corrupt doc fixes ON A COPY--if that fixes it, the problem
was corruption.
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DocumentCorruption.html

I personally don't think using Master Documents is worth the trouble of
learning how, especially not if you are the only author. Working in
separate chapters is necessary if the chapters have different authors, but
for yourself, I still think it's personal preference. If you need to create
cross-references across chapters, then that's an argument for a single file.

My page is a compilation of links--just browse for the ones that seem to
apply to you, rather than reading it, exactly. Or just keep posting
questions about things that annoy you, and we'll explain how Word works as
it's applicable.

Daiya

 

[john]

Hi Clive

I appreciate what you say for your requirements. When I wrote books
with no referencing and bibliography I too used one document with only
one section break.

However, you'll see from my original post on this thread that now:

"I need to:
(a) use in-text superscripted numbers for References
(b) have these numbered References appear at the end of each chapter
(c) have the Bibliography generated by each Reference appear in
alphabetical order at the end of the book."

If you can advise how to do this, using References stored in an EndNote
Library, I'll be very grateful.

Thanks

John

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi John:

I was chatting to Steve this evening. Something about his computer not
working... He's a bit of a fiddler: worse than me How can you possibly
add memory to a computer and have it become unbootable, I wonder... ???

Anyway, if you study Steve's article you will find that his technique is
complex and exacting. If you don't follow it exactly, the master document
WILL blow up.

As Daiya suggests, I think you will find that for a single author, Master
Documents are simply too much trouble to be worth it. They do not save time
or effort, they make things much more complicated, and take longer to do.

The only hope is in the NEXT version of Office. In XML format, Master
Documents ought to work just fine without any special considerations. Just
DON'T try them in versions of Word that have been sold up until then.

Cheers

Hi Daiya

I've tried out some more. It isn't that the last Level 1 contains
section breaks that prevents it moving or that it contains EndNote's
Bilbliography that wants to stay at the end of the document. I deleted
all these and still it wouldn't move up and the penultimate Level 1
wouldn't move below it. I also added a new Level 1 after it. In all
cases it was simply that the last Level 1 wouldn't move up or allow
other Level 1s to move below it. (As I said, I had no problems moving
subsidiary Levels all around.)

Would be helpful to know how to fix this. (I'm using MacWord 2004 V
11.3 with OSX 10.4.8)

My replacement iMac is an Intel dual processor. This has caused some
problems, eg. giving a misleading signal level for Airport, which Apple
Technical people say will be fixed in an update. Could it be the
processor?

I'd read John McGhie's "Why Master Documents corrupt," and that's why
I tried to avoid a Master by using section breaks in one document. But
now John has suggested a longer article saying what one needs to do to
avoid Master's corrupting.

I hadn't been referred to your article on writing a book. Many thanks
for this. I'll read. Though I seem to be spending all my time reading
articles about Word than the material I need to write my book.

John

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[john]

Hi Daiya

John's lastest posting on this thread confirms the view that I should
avoid the Master document.

I now suspect what caused the last Level 1 not to move and prevent
others moving below it, even after I had deleted EndNotes' generated
Bibliography. The latter is programmed to come at the end of the
document. Could it be that, even though I'd deleted the Bibliography,
its instructions lodged somewhere in section breaks or whatever (you
can see that I'm out of my depth here) didn't delete, thus anchoring
that section - and the Level in which it exists - to the end of the
document?

To test this I applied Numbered Level 1 style to "Bibliography"
(instead of Unnumbered Level 3), and sure enough it wouldn't move,
while the other Level 1s did. So this APPEARS to be the solution. I
just hope that:
(a) when I complete the book I can apply Unnumbered Level 3 to it so
that it doesn't appear as a numbered chapter heading
(b) having so many section breaks doesn't corrupt the document as Clive
seems to think possible.

John