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#1
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
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 |
#2
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
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 |
#3
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
The one place where it makes a difference -- that someone is willing
to pay for -- is in electronic manuscripts that are to be submitted to publishers for typesetting. The chaotic sort of document most people produce would result in total garbage in a typesetting system. I believe Klaus Linke, one of the Word MVPs (http://word.mvps.org/AboutMVPs/Klaus_Linke.htm), does that sort of work professionally for a German publisher, among his other duties. -- Regards, Jay Freedman Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:21:33 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: 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 |
#4
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
Since in most cases *I* am in effect the publisher, this is what I am doing.
-- 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. "Jay Freedman" wrote in message news The one place where it makes a difference -- that someone is willing to pay for -- is in electronic manuscripts that are to be submitted to publishers for typesetting. The chaotic sort of document most people produce would result in total garbage in a typesetting system. I believe Klaus Linke, one of the Word MVPs (http://word.mvps.org/AboutMVPs/Klaus_Linke.htm), does that sort of work professionally for a German publisher, among his other duties. -- Regards, Jay Freedman Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:21:33 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: 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 |
#5
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
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. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] "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 |
#6
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
Yep, I've just been working on documents with titles centered using spaces,
first-line indents created using tabs, and of course the ubiquitous double paragraph breaks to create "blank lines." Perhaps the worst (because of the level of circulation it reached) was the book published by a local writers' group, an anthology of their work. One member of the group who supposedly "knows something about computers" had compiled the document, and they'd sent it off to a POD printer. It has a running head on every page (including the title page and pages that should otherwise be blank) and every paragraph in the thing has a first-line indent, which means that the "centered" titles are off-center. It really is god-awful. They gave me a complimentary copy when I spoke at one of their meetings, so there wasn't much I could say. Actually, I suspect the typography was not much worse than the content, but you *can* make a silk purse out of a sow's ear to some extent: I've seen some very attractive-looking books (well laid out, appealing type design) that turned out to be total garbazh to read (indeed, I've typeset some of them!). -- 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. "JoAnn Paules [MVP]" wrote in message ... 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. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] "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 |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
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 |
#8
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
I'm in the process of trying to hire a new secretary. The door opener is to
send me a resume in Word format. It lets me decide who I don't want to interview very quickly. -- Charles Kenyon Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome! --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn from my ignorance and your wisdom. "JoAnn Paules [MVP]" wrote in message ... 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. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] "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 |
#9
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
OOOH! I like that!
-- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] "Charles Kenyon" wrote in message ... I'm in the process of trying to hire a new secretary. The door opener is to send me a resume in Word format. It lets me decide who I don't want to interview very quickly. -- Charles Kenyon Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome! --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn from my ignorance and your wisdom. "JoAnn Paules [MVP]" wrote in message ... 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. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] "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 |
#10
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MS Word Clean-up as a career?
When I'm sent forms that are awful, I often tacitly clean them up before
filling them in. AFAICS, no one ever notices. The pip is a form that is sent unprotected, with elaborate instructions for accessing the Form Field Options to change an unchecked check box to checked. You'd think they'd at least notice that I send the form back protected, with the instructions removed. -- 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. "Graham Mayor" wrote in message ... 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 |
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