Hello James
JamesDart wrote:
[..]
I did take a step back and reduced to "4" Heading levels, so that's good to
know that i'm on the right track.
well, 4 is certainly better than 6 or 7 in that regard!
It's really also a matter of changing seats and imagine you were the
reader. The heading structure is supposed to guide -- not to confuse. :-)
I think I read about this in one of fellow MVP John McGhie's articles.
I'm not sure it's in the following, but you might still take a look (and
there are other good ones where this one comes is hosted :-)):
Creating a Template (Part II, by John McGhie)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...platePart2.htm
[..]
nods I will do some investigating on this. Any ideas on where I can get
this kind of information, or will it just be trial and error? grins
Getting used to the Trial and Error, frustrating, but I do learn from my
mistakes.
Sorry, I don't really know any good resources up front. That doesn't
mean there are not any (especially "somewhere" in office online). But
much material there seems to be ephemeral/version bound. For a project
like yours, I would test myself in any case. Office/Word is great in
bringing together all different parts/objects, but the details can be a
pain. And historically, testing was due again whenever you switched
versions. So always keep whatever you put into Word also in separate
files wherever you took it from (Visio, PPT, Excel, maybe graphic art
from Photoshop or any other graphic application).
Header: For Sections 1-4, there is no Header. For Sections 4-32, I have 3
PAGE fields: "Chapter" (Heading 1), "Module" (Heading 2), and "Section"
(Heading 3). I felt that the 4th Heading, which is the actual
process/procedure/instructions jumbled the Header too much. For Sections
33-37, I have 2 PAGE fields, "Chapter" and "Section." I'm thinking that I
can reduce it to just "Chapter" since these sections are all part of the
Appendix
Footer: Section 1's footer is a PAGE field with the "SAVEDATE" that I am
using as a "Last Edited" reference.
Good idea, I've even used that in dissertation templates (including with
instructions on how to take it out again before publication).
Sections 2-4 it the ToC, so there is a
PAGE field for roman numeral page numbers.
Just curious: 3 sections for a TOC? Have you three of 'em? [I've seen
this in a 1000 page book before, all with different level of detail. Two
seems enough here as well IMHO ...]
Sections 5-32, I have a PAGE
field for the pagenumber, "Outline Circle 2" as well as two "pasted" logos,
one on either side of the pagenumber. Essentially, one is my company's and
the other is the Software company's. Sections 33-37 use the same "Outline
Circle 2" PAGE field, but I changed the Format to reflect "A-1" for appendix
A, "B-1" for appendix B, etc.
[..]
gasp oh, my. So, what is the recommendation? This "File" is intended to
be used by employees through access in our network. The finished product
(and subfiles) will be placed in the "Public" Folder so that any employee can
access it. It is not intended or designed to be printed. Though, my
supervisor threatens that it needs to be printable for folks to have it
"handy." I disagree, but, then again, she's the boss.
This again is one of John's points: "Folio by Chapter" is outdated.
Imagine yourself leaving through a very large book, say you look
something up in the INDEX or TOC. You will find page 625 in a 1000 page
book very quickly. But how fast will you be able to locate page 8-39?
It's really something people did "in the old days" when large manuals
went into print, and where paper was expensive. When you changed
something in a manual, you only reprinted certain pages with actual
edits. And that's the part where Word really is unsuitable: it does not
really have a clear concept of "pages".
The main text is laid out each and every time you switch views. Well,
it's a text processor, not a typewriter. When you change something on
page 13, 59 following pages might change their pagination. And that's
fine, if you either print out the whole thing anyway each time, and
certainly if you don't print at all.
For an electronic "publication," even on an intranet, I strongly suggest
you don't put the original Word file up there, because users will mess
it up for you! :-) I would probably not even put it in DOC format there,
but as a PDF (or HTML). And, frankly, especially for a printed
publication, the page number is either not necessary at all, or it might
be an ordinary number running from 1 to 1000.
[..]
laughs Yes, it is intended to be read. Maybe that's the wrong
terminology. It is to used to "train" new employees as well as a "Reference"
for established employees. As mentioned above, I have no intentions of ever
printing this monster. Any shortcuts, tricks, and/or ideas to reduce the
size would be greatly appreciated. Half way through Chapter 3, Only added 20
pages. Granted, I reformatted the original 214 pages to be less graphic
intensive, added more white space.
That's cool. Many long documents are what we call "lead deserts" in my
language. :-)
Question: I am not happy with the product, impressed with it, having fun
with the different "eye candy" Word(c) provides, but as you mentioned, I
think that it was the crux of my issue. Essentially, The following is a
"brief" example:
Header: Chapter: "Heading 1" Module: "Heading 2" Section: "Heading 3"
Top right corner: three graphic pictures .25inx.25in, hyperlinked. 1sr one
is to the ToC, 2nd is to the Section Heading, 3rd is to the Appendix
Hyperlinks in headers or footers are not clickable from the main text
story in Word. I don't know what happens if you convert such a document
to PDF (certainly depends in which way you convert whether you get links
at all anywhere :-)).
Heading 1 - "3 Inpatient Admissions"
Heading 2 - "Intake"
Heading 3 - "Admissions - Daily Pre-Admission"
- a little paragraph about the purpose and intent of the section, why it has
to be done, etc.
Heading 4 - "Pre-Admission Checklist"
- and then there's a HUGE table that follows. I found that using a table
made it extremely easy to manipulate, as far as height and length, as well as
"filling" table fields with colors for emphasis.
Footer: Company Logo, Page number, Software Logo
Finally, the question: does using extensive, HUGE tables cause problems?
Yes, Word can be slowed down when your tables span many, many pages. I'd
say it's not the sheer length but "complexity" (number of columns/rows,
split/merged cells, and the content, raw text or pictures/objects, etc.)
that makes it struggle. If you can, split up the table every now and
then (where you'd have inserted a Heading 5 previously ... :-)).
Is this where "Building blocks" or "Quick Parts" would be of better use?
Are you talking about an external object to be repeated here (picture,
Visio object, etc.)? You could bookmark the first occurrence and insert
a REF field, technically.
Yes, and Wow, didn't even think about that. Awesome, will impliment that
today.
And I hope it really works well, too! :-)
In a very large document, saving all the pictures externally and linking
them into the document will reduce the file size. Though frankly, you
have the burden to make sure that the pictures are all stable relative
to the document (in the same folder or subfolder, preferably), have to
deal with relative vs. absolute links, and of course Word needs to bring
all stuff together at run time, so I'm not sure this helps a lot in your
situation.
Oh, okay. I started to do that initially, but found that in order to "link"
to the picture, I had to create a "save" for every single one. After #15 (of
57 currently) I gave up on that idea and just put the pictures (aka Screen
shots) at the end of the document, linked to the appropriate heading.
Problem was, I would have to create a bookmark for the readers spot, insert
the picture to the "Screen shot Appendix", add a WORD(c) caption to the
picture, create a "BACK" hyperlink to the bookmark, then hyperlink the
bookmark to the picture Caption. VERY time consuming, and, as you mentioned
before, takes a lot of memory.
Regarding the pictures befo Word has not historically been a good
container for original "artwork" -- meaning that it's only prudent to
save them someplace else (additionally, unless you link to there from
Word). Linking is more work for you, I think (esp. since you need to
make sure the link targets are still there).
This document I am creating also has documents within documents, meaning,
for processes, prcedures, and/or instructions that will be referred to more
often than others, I created an external document (some are up to 10 pages)
that was hyperlinked from the main document. This does save space, but at
the same time, when the link is clicked on, it "opens" the document and if
the User doesn't "close" it, well, let's just say there's going to be a lot
of open documents.
Yes, well, but users these days should be familiar with hypertext enough
to get along there. Again, the DOC format is hardly the optimal format
for your "publication."
Alas, though the system I am working on is better than the majority of
systems being used at our agency, it is far from "State of the Art." Hence
why I'm trying to find any and all means to reduce the intensity of the
document w/o losing the integrity as well. I like what I have created, but I
worry that I am putting an awful lot of work into something that may end up
too cumbersome or worse yet, unused.
Thank you Robert for responding. I will take what responses you have listed
and put them into action. I also am anxiously waiting for a respone this as
well.
You're welcome. I wish I could give you more direct tips and less
"general advise", but it's been some time since I had to do large
manuals like the one you're working with. I'm not even sure you
mentioned it, but this is not in Word 2007, I presume?
[Tried and trusted is what you are looking for, in any case ... ;-)]
I once had a setup with a dissertation with many pictures being done in
PowerPoint. The special circumstance was that the author took his work
home with him on on weekends and holidays. And had some obscure
subnotebook or such a thing (and it was way before the time when USB
memory sticks were known) and the connection speed from his main
computer to his mobile device was really, really slow. That's where we
exported all slides from PowerPoint to WMF files (that's done with one
command from PowerPoint) into the same folder where the doc was sitting,
and linked all files into Word via INCLUDEPICTURE fields. That worked
pretty well. And a change to a slide took only another save as WMF
(globally, in PowerPoint) and an UpdateField in Word.
Greetinx
Robert
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