Suzanne,
Thanks for your suggestion. Both ways are going to be painful. Since
spaces were used to center and align things the process is still time
consuming after removing the formatting. I have a document that is 6 pages
long. Most of the lines of text begin with like 20 or so spaces to center
that text in the middle. I copied a line of spaces and opened up find and
replace then pasted this in the find box (which it looks like there is
nothing in there) when I replaced that with nothing, it removed all lines
with that many spaces and seemed to keep the Normal Style. Do you think
that will cause some strange style in the background or before or after that
line of text?
What do you mean by copy editing?
Is there a "best" font to use?
Thanks,
Linda
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
I would be badly tempted to retype them, but that decision would be based
at
least in part on the knowledge that they would almost certainly need copy
editing, and I would do that as I typed.
Short of that, assuming you have hard copy to refer to, I'd remove all the
formatting from the documents, reduce everything to Normal or Body Text
style, and then copy/paste all but the last paragraph into a new document
(in hopes of leaving any stray styles behind).
In either case, using the hard copy, figure out what styles you actually
need (make sure you set up outline numbering based on
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numb...umbering.html), define
those styles, and apply them as needed.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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so
all may benefit.
"Linda RQ" wrote in message
...
Hi Everyone,
Using Word 2003. Many of my documents started out from word 2.0. I am
working on fixing a few hundred departmental/hospital policies that are
badly mangled. The original document has all of the policies and is 400
pages. I have to seperate the policies and each policy needs to be a
seperate document. The user basically copies the heading which is 3
lines
and centered by using the space bar, scrolls down to a new page, pastes
that
then copies other common document (Like Policy #, Section, Date, etc)
properties and just changes the text to reflect the new policy number.
She then types the new policy or perhaps copies parts from one document
or
another. Needless to say it's a mangled mess. I have played around a
little trying to remove the formatting but it isn't going well. Would it
be
best to just re-type them? Many of the policies have numbered lists
which
were done many different ways but I don't believe anyone used the
numbering
tool, they typed the number and tabbed or spaced over to line things up.
If I do retype them, what is the best way to keep new styles from getting
created? The only comon items are the facility heading, then a group of
fields to fill in and at the bottom of each policy is a place for a
physician to sign. Is using a header and footer the best way?
I thought the group of fields to fill in should be a table with the
borders
not visable and I was thinking of making the items for the physician to
sign
a table as well.
Thanks,
Linda