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#1
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Creaing a Definition List
My word processing experience is mostly formed from IBM's BookMaster,
one of the features of which is 'Definition Lists' (DLs). A DL is used to document information about words or phrases. It is divided into 2 parts: the item being defined (the definition term - DT), and the data that defines it (the definition data - DD). The DD can contain any other type of list, including DLs. For example... Word1 This is what word1 means. Word1 is used in this example to represent any word or short phrase that needs defining. Phrase two This entry is the description or definition of phrase two. Notice how the list is formatted. Sometimes another list is part of the definition as follows... 1. It could be a numbered list or 2. any other supported list. I find this sort of list very useful, but have not managed to find an equivalent in MS Word. I can simulate a DL with a bit of work, but its very cumbersome and a properly supported facility would obviously be preferable. Is the facility hidden away somewhere, or is it just not supported? -- Regards, Gary Wooding (To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address) |
#2
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Is there something special about this formatting aside from the hanging
indent? HTML uses specific formats for defined terms and definitions, but Word doesn't have any specific styles. For dictionary work that I've done, I created a Definition style with a hanging indent and then a character style for the defined term. I put an em space between defined term and definition. For definitions with more than one paragraph or with numbered lists, I created additional styles for those types of paragraph. -- 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. "Wooding" wrote in message ... My word processing experience is mostly formed from IBM's BookMaster, one of the features of which is 'Definition Lists' (DLs). A DL is used to document information about words or phrases. It is divided into 2 parts: the item being defined (the definition term - DT), and the data that defines it (the definition data - DD). The DD can contain any other type of list, including DLs. For example... Word1 This is what word1 means. Word1 is used in this example to represent any word or short phrase that needs defining. Phrase two This entry is the description or definition of phrase two. Notice how the list is formatted. Sometimes another list is part of the definition as follows... 1. It could be a numbered list or 2. any other supported list. I find this sort of list very useful, but have not managed to find an equivalent in MS Word. I can simulate a DL with a bit of work, but its very cumbersome and a properly supported facility would obviously be preferable. Is the facility hidden away somewhere, or is it just not supported? -- Regards, Gary Wooding (To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address) |
#3
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Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
Is there something special about this formatting aside from the hanging indent? HTML uses specific formats for defined terms and definitions, but Word doesn't have any specific styles. For dictionary work that I've done, I created a Definition style with a hanging indent and then a character style for the defined term. I put an em space between defined term and definition. For definitions with more than one paragraph or with numbered lists, I created additional styles for those types of paragraph. No, its just a list with nothing special other than the hanging indent, but, because its a supported list type its very easy to include it in a nest of lists (the BookMaster implementation also allowed highlighting of the DT) . It can be particularly useful, for example, when documenting keywords that accept multiple, predefined, values. I've often wanted to use them in documents that contain inventories where each item must be described, some of which are collections of other items. As mentioned previously, I can format such a list manually, its just that I hoped there was a Word implementation. -- Regards, Gary Wooding (To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address) |
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