I regularly get a newsletter from an association related to a previous
employer which is a Word document formatted entirely with tabs. I have
resisted offering to fix it

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


JoAnn Paules [MVP] wrote:
I have seen some of the UGLIEST ways to format documents because I
always keep the non-printing characters turned on. I swear that most
people don't know how to properly center a heading!

And you are right when you say that the people who don't see the NPCs
don't appreciate having the work done correctly. They only care about
the paper copy. And sometimes it seems that they really don't look
too closely at that.


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
FWIW, I can tell you that this ability is not appreciated. As long
as a document looks good when printed out, users don't care what the
actual file
looks like. It's obvious to me that most users do not operate with
nonprinting characters displayed. If they did, surely they would be
embarrassed by the number of empty paragraphs, extra spaces and
tabs, etc. No doubt that's why it's so traumatic to most users when
they accidentally do turn on display of NPC. I can spend hours
cleaning up a manuscript and applying styles (which, incidentally,
will significantly reduce the file size), but, because it does not
look appreciably different when printed out,
the client does not value the effort.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Beth Brooks" wrote in message
...
Hi!

It seems that no matter where I work, I always end up as the onsite
MS Word expert, especially when it comes to cleaningup Word files
that have been created/modified by author's with very little
knowledge of how Word usually works. I'm also being asked to create
templates and forms, both of which tasks are helping me to learn
even more. I don't claim to be anywhere near
the MVP level but I aspire to it!

I was wondering whether there is anyone out there who makes a
living cleaning up other people's MS Word messes and whether you
might have any advice for me on how to turn that skill into a
career. Thanks!

Beth