Wandering Lines

[writerwoman]

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per page in
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pages will
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have 23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl

 

[Elliott Roper]

Try setting the Line spacing to Exact, instead of At Least, and make sure
all the settings under Line and Page Breaks about widow/orphan, keep
together, etc, are OFF. Select All text before going to Format | Paragraph
to do this.

Another thing Cheryl has to avoid is space before or space after on any
paragraph styles. (OK, she could have the space exactly equal to her
exact leading, as long as she is prepared to count the blanks as lines)

 

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

If you do all that Daiya and Elliott suggest, I would make one extra
setting: Set the Line Height of the styles you are using to 140 per cent of
the height of your font.

If you are typing in 10 points text, set the line height to 14 points
Exactly.

This allows for the ascenders and descenders that reach above and below the
base line. For example: The lower case j has a descender that stretches
below the line. The Accented I has an ascender that extends above the line.
Unless you force the line height high enough to accommodate both, word will
do it automatically if any of those characters appear on the line, and the
line heights will not be uniform.

I'm wondering WHY you need to do this? It's a highly unusual requirement,
and I have a nasty feeling that even if you succeed, the result will not be
what you intended. Why does it matter how many "lines" you have on a page?

Hope this helps

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per page in
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pages will
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have 23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl

--

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

 

[writerwoman]

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

I believe them too--but I don't understand why the publishing industry
doesn't have the sophisticated automation to do these conversions. Why make
authors fuss with them?

Anyhow, not totally clear--did you manage to get a solid 25 lines per page?

If you post in more detail about the other Word annoyances (one per thread),
we may be able to help with those.

Daiya

 

[Phillip Jones]

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"

If you still need to use the Mac Word Pefect program they have a
newsgroup on yahoo you look for.

I haven't used WP mac in Years. Best thing it had for me was a great way
to create envelopes.

But I've grown use to the way Word does it now and its almost as good.

Cheryl

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
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<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph 3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a while to
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference between my
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see in this
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must* be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents -- which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "Bend Word
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page 33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ the keys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
software -- see http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html
============================================================

 

[Clive Huggan]

Sorry, got distracted when writing the first paragraph, line 2, and forgot
to paste in another URL and introductory words: "especially Daiya's terrific
article on using Word to write a book, http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm"

Clive Huggan
=============

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph 3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a while to
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference between my
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see in this
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must* be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents -- which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "Bend Word
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page 33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ the keys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
software -- see http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html
============================================================

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl

 

[writerwoman]

Daiya (love your name, BTW), Elliot, John, Phillip, Clive:

Once again, thank you for the input and the links. Re: the "must"
number of lines, 25 is the technicians' "wish list" number to make
their lives easier. I wanted to do that for them, but what I needed
more was keep the number of lines per page consistent so I'd know
whether or not I was within the page limit and thus avoid having to
rewrite.

So. Based on all the reading and info, this is what I did:

Page Setup:

Top 1.1"
Bottom 0.9"
Left 1"
Right 0.9"
Gutter 0"
Header 0.5"
Mirror margins unchecked
Apply to: Whole Document

Font Format:

Courier CE 12
Effects unchecked
Character Spacing 100%
Spacing - Normal
Position - Normal
Kerning unchecked


Paragraph Format:

Indents and Spacing:

Alignment (Left)
Outline Level (Body Text)

Indentation:

Left 0"
Right 0"
Special: First Line: 0.5"

Spacing:

Before 0 pt
After 0 pt
Line Spacing: Multiple -- 1.9

(Using the Exact setting causes a kind of "parting of the waters"
visual whenever you cut and paste which is very distracting to me.)

Line and Page Breaks:

Nothing Checked; widows and orphans off.

THEN: I cut and pasted the old document into this new setting document
as unformatted text.

The new settings were supposed to give me 25 lines per page, which it
did. Briefly.

The first time I edited text in the new document, specifically,
corrected a paragraph indentation, the document went to 24 lines per
page.

The good news is that it looks like ALL the pages have 24 lines instead
of the previous "wandering" thing.

I'm thinking I should quit while I'm ahead, sort of, yes?

Cheryl

Sorry, got distracted when writing the first paragraph, line 2, and forgot
to paste in another URL and introductory words: "especially Daiya's terrific
article on using Word to write a book, http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm"

Clive Huggan
=============

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph 3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a while to
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference between my
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see inthis
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must* be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word forthe
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents -- which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "BendWord
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ thekeys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to readthe
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
software -- see http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html
============================================================

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl




John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:
If you do all that Daiya and Elliott suggest, I would make one extra
setting: Set the Line Height of the styles you are using to 140 per cent of
the height of your font.

If you are typing in 10 points text, set the line height to 14 points
Exactly.

This allows for the ascenders and descenders that reach above and below the
base line. For example: The lower case j has a descender that stretches
below the line. The Accented I has an ascender that extends above the line.
Unless you force the line height high enough to accommodate both, word will
do it automatically if any of those characters appear on the line, and the
line heights will not be uniform.

I'm wondering WHY you need to do this? It's a highly unusual requirement,
and I have a nasty feeling that even if you succeed, the result will not be
what you intended. Why does it matter how many "lines" you have on apage?

Hope this helps


On 7/11/06 2:26 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per page in
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pages will
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have 23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl


--

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 McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Cheryl:

You don't mention: did you make these changes to the "Text" or to the
"Style".

You need to make the changes to the style(s) you are using. They will then
become your defaults for that document and will not vary. Word does all of
its formatting by "Styles". To make persistent consistent changes, you must
learn to work with the underlying styles, not the direct formatting that can
be applied over the top of them.

If you make the changes directly to the text, anytime you paste you will get
another ticket in the lottery

Cheers

Daiya (love your name, BTW), Elliot, John, Phillip, Clive:

Once again, thank you for the input and the links. Re: the "must"
number of lines, 25 is the technicians' "wish list" number to make
their lives easier. I wanted to do that for them, but what I needed
more was keep the number of lines per page consistent so I'd know
whether or not I was within the page limit and thus avoid having to
rewrite.

So. Based on all the reading and info, this is what I did:

Page Setup:

Top 1.1"
Bottom 0.9"
Left 1"
Right 0.9"
Gutter 0"
Header 0.5"
Mirror margins unchecked
Apply to: Whole Document

Font Format:

Courier CE 12
Effects unchecked
Character Spacing 100%
Spacing - Normal
Position - Normal
Kerning unchecked


Paragraph Format:

Indents and Spacing:

Alignment (Left)
Outline Level (Body Text)

Indentation:

Left 0"
Right 0"
Special: First Line: 0.5"

Spacing:

Before 0 pt
After 0 pt
Line Spacing: Multiple -- 1.9

(Using the Exact setting causes a kind of "parting of the waters"
visual whenever you cut and paste which is very distracting to me.)

Line and Page Breaks:

Nothing Checked; widows and orphans off.

THEN: I cut and pasted the old document into this new setting document
as unformatted text.

The new settings were supposed to give me 25 lines per page, which it
did. Briefly.

The first time I edited text in the new document, specifically,
corrected a paragraph indentation, the document went to 24 lines per
page.

The good news is that it looks like ALL the pages have 24 lines instead
of the previous "wandering" thing.

I'm thinking I should quit while I'm ahead, sort of, yes?

Cheryl

Sorry, got distracted when writing the first paragraph, line 2, and forgot
to paste in another URL and introductory words: "especially Daiya's terrific
article on using Word to write a book, http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm"

Clive Huggan
=============

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph 3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a while to
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference between my
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see in this
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must* be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents -- which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "Bend Word
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page 33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ the keys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
software -- see http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html
============================================================

On 11/11/06 1:43 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl




John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:
If you do all that Daiya and Elliott suggest, I would make one extra
setting: Set the Line Height of the styles you are using to 140 per cent
of
the height of your font.

If you are typing in 10 points text, set the line height to 14 points
Exactly.

This allows for the ascenders and descenders that reach above and below
the
base line. For example: The lower case j has a descender that stretches
below the line. The Accented I has an ascender that extends above the
line.
Unless you force the line height high enough to accommodate both, word
will
do it automatically if any of those characters appear on the line, and the
line heights will not be uniform.

I'm wondering WHY you need to do this? It's a highly unusual requirement,
and I have a nasty feeling that even if you succeed, the result will not
be
what you intended. Why does it matter how many "lines" you have on a
page?

Hope this helps


On 7/11/06 2:26 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per page in
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pages will
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have 23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl


--

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

--

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

 

[writerwoman]

I'm scared of that "style" thing, John. I'm ashamed of it, but there
you are.

On the one hand, I think: You've scrubbed in on brain surgery -- you
can DO this. On the other hand, I think: This is the astronomical
health insurance premiums money and 180 polished manuscript pages
you're fiddling with here.

I'm going to read some more. Play around with some pages that don't
matter. And try to be brave. MSW is like a willful child to me.
Maybe it will sit still in church and behave, and maybe it'll spitball
half the congregation.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl:

You don't mention: did you make these changes to the "Text" or to the
"Style".

You need to make the changes to the style(s) you are using. They will then
become your defaults for that document and will not vary. Word does all of
its formatting by "Styles". To make persistent consistent changes, you must
learn to work with the underlying styles, not the direct formatting that can
be applied over the top of them.

If you make the changes directly to the text, anytime you paste you will get
another ticket in the lottery

Cheers

Daiya (love your name, BTW), Elliot, John, Phillip, Clive:

Once again, thank you for the input and the links. Re: the "must"
number of lines, 25 is the technicians' "wish list" number to make
their lives easier. I wanted to do that for them, but what I needed
more was keep the number of lines per page consistent so I'd know
whether or not I was within the page limit and thus avoid having to
rewrite.

So. Based on all the reading and info, this is what I did:

Page Setup:

Top 1.1"
Bottom 0.9"
Left 1"
Right 0.9"
Gutter 0"
Header 0.5"
Mirror margins unchecked
Apply to: Whole Document

Font Format:

Courier CE 12
Effects unchecked
Character Spacing 100%
Spacing - Normal
Position - Normal
Kerning unchecked


Paragraph Format:

Indents and Spacing:

Alignment (Left)
Outline Level (Body Text)

Indentation:

Left 0"
Right 0"
Special: First Line: 0.5"

Spacing:

Before 0 pt
After 0 pt
Line Spacing: Multiple -- 1.9

(Using the Exact setting causes a kind of "parting of the waters"
visual whenever you cut and paste which is very distracting to me.)

Line and Page Breaks:

Nothing Checked; widows and orphans off.

THEN: I cut and pasted the old document into this new setting document
as unformatted text.

The new settings were supposed to give me 25 lines per page, which it
did. Briefly.

The first time I edited text in the new document, specifically,
corrected a paragraph indentation, the document went to 24 lines per
page.

The good news is that it looks like ALL the pages have 24 lines instead
of the previous "wandering" thing.

I'm thinking I should quit while I'm ahead, sort of, yes?

Cheryl

Sorry, got distracted when writing the first paragraph, line 2, and forgot
to paste in another URL and introductory words: "especially Daiya's terrific
article on using Word to write a book, http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm"

Clive Huggan
=============

On 11/11/06 1:45 PM, in article
C17B847F.21230%[email protected], "Clive Huggan"

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph 3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a whileto
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference betweenmy
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see in this
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must*be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents -- which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "Bend Word
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page 33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ the keys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronicallyand
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
software -- see http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html
============================================================

On 11/11/06 1:43 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl




John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:
If you do all that Daiya and Elliott suggest, I would make one extra
setting: Set the Line Height of the styles you are using to 140 per cent
of
the height of your font.

If you are typing in 10 points text, set the line height to 14 points
Exactly.

This allows for the ascenders and descenders that reach above and below
the
base line. For example: The lower case j has a descender that stretches
below the line. The Accented I has an ascender that extends above the
line.
Unless you force the line height high enough to accommodate both, word
will
do it automatically if any of those characters appear on the line, and the
line heights will not be uniform.

I'm wondering WHY you need to do this? It's a highly unusual requirement,
and I have a nasty feeling that even if you succeed, the result will not
be
what you intended. Why does it matter how many "lines" you have ona
page?

Hope this helps


On 7/11/06 2:26 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per pagein
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pageswill
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl


--

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

--

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 McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Cheryl:

Microsoft Word is like a pimply teenager that wears its hat backwards and
plays music too loud. One of you is going to be in charge. Your life will
improve a lot if you decide that it's going to be you.

Being scared of it is not appropriate: other people won't help you if you're
too scared to try things. They will make life "simpler" for you -- they
will write your book for you, sell it for you, and take the money for you,
and put it in their bank where you don't have to worry about it You may
decide that this is not going to help YOU

A Style is simply a name given to a collection of formatting.

Look at your document and mentally divide it into "Kinds" of paragraphs.
You have a kind named "Headings", you have a kind named header, you have a
kind named footer, you have a kind named "body text". You will find that
Word already has styles named after the kinds of paragraphs that crop up in
the vast majority of documents. Customise the styles so the formatting of
each kind of paragraph is the way you want it.

Use the same style names for each of your documents, but use different
templates to set the formatting of the whole collection of styles for each
kind of document. You might have a template named "Book" and one named
"Report" and one named "Letter" -- get the idea? Name things after what
they ARE -- what you use them for.

And be careful of "Normal". Normal anything in Word is Microsoft Euphemism
for "Buggered if I know..." Try not to use Normal for anything unless
you're forced to do so.

There: Now you know everything you need to about styles, get into it... In
a week's time, you'll wonder why you ever did it any other way... You think
I'm joking, don't you?? I'm not!

Cheers

I'm scared of that "style" thing, John. I'm ashamed of it, but there
you are.

On the one hand, I think: You've scrubbed in on brain surgery -- you
can DO this. On the other hand, I think: This is the astronomical
health insurance premiums money and 180 polished manuscript pages
you're fiddling with here.

I'm going to read some more. Play around with some pages that don't
matter. And try to be brave. MSW is like a willful child to me.
Maybe it will sit still in church and behave, and maybe it'll spitball
half the congregation.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl:

You don't mention: did you make these changes to the "Text" or to the
"Style".

You need to make the changes to the style(s) you are using. They will then
become your defaults for that document and will not vary. Word does all of
its formatting by "Styles". To make persistent consistent changes, you must
learn to work with the underlying styles, not the direct formatting that can
be applied over the top of them.

If you make the changes directly to the text, anytime you paste you will get
another ticket in the lottery

Cheers

Daiya (love your name, BTW), Elliot, John, Phillip, Clive:

Once again, thank you for the input and the links. Re: the "must"
number of lines, 25 is the technicians' "wish list" number to make
their lives easier. I wanted to do that for them, but what I needed
more was keep the number of lines per page consistent so I'd know
whether or not I was within the page limit and thus avoid having to
rewrite.

So. Based on all the reading and info, this is what I did:

Page Setup:

Top 1.1"
Bottom 0.9"
Left 1"
Right 0.9"
Gutter 0"
Header 0.5"
Mirror margins unchecked
Apply to: Whole Document

Font Format:

Courier CE 12
Effects unchecked
Character Spacing 100%
Spacing - Normal
Position - Normal
Kerning unchecked


Paragraph Format:

Indents and Spacing:

Alignment (Left)
Outline Level (Body Text)

Indentation:

Left 0"
Right 0"
Special: First Line: 0.5"

Spacing:

Before 0 pt
After 0 pt
Line Spacing: Multiple -- 1.9

(Using the Exact setting causes a kind of "parting of the waters"
visual whenever you cut and paste which is very distracting to me.)

Line and Page Breaks:

Nothing Checked; widows and orphans off.

THEN: I cut and pasted the old document into this new setting document
as unformatted text.

The new settings were supposed to give me 25 lines per page, which it
did. Briefly.

The first time I edited text in the new document, specifically,
corrected a paragraph indentation, the document went to 24 lines per
page.

The good news is that it looks like ALL the pages have 24 lines instead
of the previous "wandering" thing.

I'm thinking I should quit while I'm ahead, sort of, yes?

Cheryl







Clive Huggan wrote:
Sorry, got distracted when writing the first paragraph, line 2, and forgot
to paste in another URL and introductory words: "especially Daiya's
terrific
article on using Word to write a book, http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm"

Clive Huggan
=============

On 11/11/06 1:45 PM, in article
C17B847F.21230%[email protected], "Clive Huggan"

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph
3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a while to
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference between my
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see in
this
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must* be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed
the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word for
the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free
download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents --
which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "Bend
Word
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page
33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ the keys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide
to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read
the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
software -- see http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html
============================================================

On 11/11/06 1:43 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl




John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:
If you do all that Daiya and Elliott suggest, I would make one extra
setting: Set the Line Height of the styles you are using to 140 per
cent
of
the height of your font.

If you are typing in 10 points text, set the line height to 14 points
Exactly.

This allows for the ascenders and descenders that reach above and below
the
base line. For example: The lower case j has a descender that
stretches
below the line. The Accented I has an ascender that extends above the
line.
Unless you force the line height high enough to accommodate both, word
will
do it automatically if any of those characters appear on the line, and
the
line heights will not be uniform.

I'm wondering WHY you need to do this? It's a highly unusual
requirement,
and I have a nasty feeling that even if you succeed, the result will not
be
what you intended. Why does it matter how many "lines" you have on a
page?

Hope this helps


On 7/11/06 2:26 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per page in
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pages will
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have 23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl


--

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

--

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

--

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

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 18/11/06 3:44 PM, in article C184DADC.51596%[email protected], "John

There: Now you know everything you need to about styles, get into it...

Well, if you feel you'd like just a tiny bit more, read the comments on
styles which start on page 86 of some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

There are other, very good, sources of information on styles; some are cited
on page 99 of "Bend Word to Your Will".

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries (though the styles
article is an exception). If you decide to read more widely than the item
I've referred to, it's important to read the front end of the document --
especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select some Word settings that will
allow you to use the document effectively.]

In
a week's time, you'll wonder why you ever did it any other way... You think
I'm joking, don't you?? I'm not!

He isn't. I have *never* met anyone who has taken the modest amount of time
it takes to understand styles (and most of that is to get the old ideas
about formatting out of the brain first) who has not been delighted with the
results. The main advantage of using styles is this: once you have
formatted your first few documents or templates in styles, you constantly
draw on that investment thereafter through continual improvement. For
another dozen reasons, see page 90.

And for people who develop seriously complex or long documents, formatting
by styles and other techniques discussed in this newsgroup generally saves
about 20% of time -- and very much more stable documents.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
============

Cheers

I'm scared of that "style" thing, John. I'm ashamed of it, but there
you are.

On the one hand, I think: You've scrubbed in on brain surgery -- you
can DO this. On the other hand, I think: This is the astronomical
health insurance premiums money and 180 polished manuscript pages
you're fiddling with here.

I'm going to read some more. Play around with some pages that don't
matter. And try to be brave. MSW is like a willful child to me.
Maybe it will sit still in church and behave, and maybe it'll spitball
half the congregation.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl:

You don't mention: did you make these changes to the "Text" or to the
"Style".

You need to make the changes to the style(s) you are using. They will then
become your defaults for that document and will not vary. Word does all of
its formatting by "Styles". To make persistent consistent changes, you must
learn to work with the underlying styles, not the direct formatting that can
be applied over the top of them.

If you make the changes directly to the text, anytime you paste you will get
another ticket in the lottery

Cheers

On 15/11/06 2:01 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

Daiya (love your name, BTW), Elliot, John, Phillip, Clive:

Once again, thank you for the input and the links. Re: the "must"
number of lines, 25 is the technicians' "wish list" number to make
their lives easier. I wanted to do that for them, but what I needed
more was keep the number of lines per page consistent so I'd know
whether or not I was within the page limit and thus avoid having to
rewrite.

So. Based on all the reading and info, this is what I did:

Page Setup:

Top 1.1"
Bottom 0.9"
Left 1"
Right 0.9"
Gutter 0"
Header 0.5"
Mirror margins unchecked
Apply to: Whole Document

Font Format:

Courier CE 12
Effects unchecked
Character Spacing 100%
Spacing - Normal
Position - Normal
Kerning unchecked


Paragraph Format:

Indents and Spacing:

Alignment (Left)
Outline Level (Body Text)

Indentation:

Left 0"
Right 0"
Special: First Line: 0.5"

Spacing:

Before 0 pt
After 0 pt
Line Spacing: Multiple -- 1.9

(Using the Exact setting causes a kind of "parting of the waters"
visual whenever you cut and paste which is very distracting to me.)

Line and Page Breaks:

Nothing Checked; widows and orphans off.

THEN: I cut and pasted the old document into this new setting document
as unformatted text.

The new settings were supposed to give me 25 lines per page, which it
did. Briefly.

The first time I edited text in the new document, specifically,
corrected a paragraph indentation, the document went to 24 lines per
page.

The good news is that it looks like ALL the pages have 24 lines instead
of the previous "wandering" thing.

I'm thinking I should quit while I'm ahead, sort of, yes?

Cheryl







Clive Huggan wrote:
Sorry, got distracted when writing the first paragraph, line 2, and forgot
to paste in another URL and introductory words: "especially Daiya's
terrific
article on using Word to write a book, http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm"

Clive Huggan
=============

On 11/11/06 1:45 PM, in article
C17B847F.21230%[email protected], "Clive Huggan"

Hello Cheryl,

There are many tips for avoiding the things you mention in your paragraph
3
on the Word MVPs' website, http://word.mvps.org/Mac. It takes a while to
overcome them, but the reward is much less wasted billable time (I'm a
management consultant -- don't know what the equivalent term is for a
writer!). I attribute about 20% saved time to the difference between my
methods (read "methods of the document professionals that you'll see in
this
newsgroup") and the methods of the average person struggling along.

Personally, I haven't heard page length specified in terms of "*must* be
exact number of lines" for many years. As you know, the reality is that
since page layout software will be used for the publishing, "25 lines" is
only indicative of length. In all probability, as soon as your Word
document is put on another computer with a different output device --
especially if it's a PC -- even before the fonts and leading are changed
the
pagination will be different (which is why a lot of us provide PDFs in
addition to Word documents, since PDFs don't paginate differently on
different computers). So I wonder what you have been told as a
hard-and-fast rule may have some slight leeway in practice? [Please
excuse
me if all this is "old hat" to you.]

In relation to the things you [justifiably] complained about in your
paragraph 3: As someone who develops long documents for publication by
graphic designers, I have compiled some notes on the way I use Word for
the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will". They are available as a free
download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Take a look at
Appendix A: The main "minimum maintenance" features of my documents --
which
in passing explains why Word doesn't stick to fixed pagination but how
you
can format it to do marvellous things such as have headings automatically
follow their subordinate text so they don't get widowed, etc etc. "Bend
Word
to your Will" also discusses setting up Word to reduce annoyances ("To
control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up", starting on page
33)
and, if you aren't yet into styles, "Styles and templates ‹ the keys to
consistency and saving time" starting on page 86.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide
to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read
the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can
select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
Avoid long delays before your post appears -- use Entourage or newsreader
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============================================================

On 11/11/06 1:43 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

Thanks, everyone, for the input.

As to why I need the 25 lines per page, it has to do with turning in
professional-looking, hard copy manuscripts (old habits die hard and
the publishing industry isn't "paperless" yet) and keeping the
technicians happy. Apparently, it makes their lives easier if
manuscripts are formatted at 25 lines per page. I'm not sure why, but
I believe them when they say so.

In any event, word count per se isn't the goal anymore. It's staying
within an allotted number of pages in the final published book so that
the promos for other books can be accommodated. It's harder for me to
know if I've done that if the lines aren't consistent, and it can cause
an editor to decide you need to cut "x" number of pages when actually
you don't. OR you can end up with a book being printed in a smaller
font so that the manuscript fits the number of pages allowed -- which
turns readers off and impacts my grocery money. (Read: Trouble and
heartache all around.)

It would be better for me if I'd never used the Mac version of Corel's
WordPerfect. It minded its own business and let me tend to mine -- no
wandering lines, no changing to fonts in the middle of a document for
no discernible reason, no "cheat sheets" just to format a simple
manuscript page, no "cut and paste" surprises of any kind. And I
never had cause to talk to it. Unfortunately, with Microsoft Word I
find myself saying the same two things all the time: "What!!!!?" and
"Oh, no!!!!!!"


Cheryl




John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:
If you do all that Daiya and Elliott suggest, I would make one extra
setting: Set the Line Height of the styles you are using to 140 per
cent
of
the height of your font.

If you are typing in 10 points text, set the line height to 14 points
Exactly.

This allows for the ascenders and descenders that reach above and below
the
base line. For example: The lower case j has a descender that
stretches
below the line. The Accented I has an ascender that extends above the
line.
Unless you force the line height high enough to accommodate both, word
will
do it automatically if any of those characters appear on the line, and
the
line heights will not be uniform.

I'm wondering WHY you need to do this? It's a highly unusual
requirement,
and I have a nasty feeling that even if you succeed, the result will
not
be
what you intended. Why does it matter how many "lines" you have on a
page?

Hope this helps


On 7/11/06 2:26 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "writerwoman"

I'm running a iMac G5 with Tiger 10.4.8 and Mac MS Word 2004.


I'm having a problem getting a consistent number of lines per page in
large documents. I've tried the pre-set double space setting and
several custom settings, but the lines still "wander." Some pages
will
have 25 lines (which is what I desperately need), others will have 23
or 24. I've tried "Select All" re-formatting. I've tried cutting
and
pasting into a new blank document. I've tried swearing. I haven't
tried voodoo or drop-kicking the MS Word program into the front yard.



Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Cheryl


--

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






--

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