[David Gunzel]

I have a 300 page document that I need to edit and format. It is a formatting
nightmare. Does someone have a simple procedure for building a NEW
style/template for such a mess? Surely someone has gone through this kind of
thing and has found some really neat ways of doing this easily.

Word 2002

Thanks for any ideas

[Jezebel]

The easy ways all entail creating the template BEFORE you create the
document. Of course, plenty of people have been through the process of
cleaning up an existing document, but without seeing it, it's hard to
generalise about the best approach: it depends on what's in it (lots of
tables? graphics?). If it's a complete pig's breakfast, it's often simplest
in the long run to remove ALL formatting and start again.


"David Gunzel" David wrote in message
...
I have a 300 page document that I need to edit and format. It is a
formatting
nightmare. Does someone have a simple procedure for building a NEW
style/template for such a mess? Surely someone has gone through this kind
of
thing and has found some really neat ways of doing this easily.

Word 2002

Thanks for any ideas

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'll second Jezebel's suggestion. I usually print out hard copy first for
visual reference (and of course retain a copy of the original file for
reference as well), then remove all direct formatting and apply the style
that will be used for most of the text (usually Body Text or Body Text First
Indent). At that point I dump the text into a new blank document based on
the desired template, then go through and tag the remaining paragraphs as
needed, then insert any required section breaks, add headers/footers, TOC,
index, etc.

--
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
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"Jezebel" wrote in message
...
The easy ways all entail creating the template BEFORE you create the
document. Of course, plenty of people have been through the process of
cleaning up an existing document, but without seeing it, it's hard to
generalise about the best approach: it depends on what's in it (lots of
tables? graphics?). If it's a complete pig's breakfast, it's often
simplest
in the long run to remove ALL formatting and start again.


"David Gunzel" David wrote in message
...
I have a 300 page document that I need to edit and format. It is a
formatting
nightmare. Does someone have a simple procedure for building a NEW
style/template for such a mess? Surely someone has gone through this
kind
of
thing and has found some really neat ways of doing this easily.

Word 2002

Thanks for any ideas