Re: Time required for formatting Documents?

["Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>]

sclarke -at- nucleus -dot- com wrote:

>
>Hi Everyone
>
>I just finished formatting a fairly complex standard operating procedure
>which was 64 pages in length. ...

>I believe it took me nearly 14 hours in total to format it. Does this seem
>like a ridiculously long time to format it? 


Sue,

Yes, that seems like a ridiculously long time to format 64 pages of ANYTHING. In fact, I think it would be reasonable in, say, 16-18 hours to do a heavy edit for content and style, as well as format it.

So where did you go wrong? Let me hazard a guess. 

Formatting is an attitude thing. If you look at a document one word at a time, beginning to end, and manually change formats based on the specs in your style guide, the job is going to take forever, as you discovered. 

On the other hand, if you approach formatting as a manufacturing task and think about all the ways you can make the process more efficient, more fun, less tedious, more automatic, then you'll find yourself developing all kinds of neat tricks. You'll create new paragraph styles to handle specific situations (the last element of a list is different from the first element, and that may be different from the middle elements; you may need two or three levels of bulleted list styles and two or three levels of numbered list styles). You'll record and run a series of macros (and you'll get better at designing the macros). You'll become a master of advanced search and replace techniques. You'll invent little mind games to make the work go faster. Before you know it, you'll be finished; and the next time you are facing a job like this, you'll zip right through it. 

I hasten to add that this approach doesn't suit everyone. I've known and worked with many writers who have threatened to throw hard objects at my head whenever I've suggested a shortcut or a trick to do something on their computers. Whatever the cause of their defensiveness, they were never going to become formatting whizzes. And if you fall into that group, then I suggest you get someone else to do it for you next time rather than beating yourself up about it.

Good luck,

Dick


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All-new RoboHelp X3 is now shipping! Get single sourcing, print-quality
documentation, conditional text and much more, in the most monumental
release ever. Save $100! Order online at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

Buy ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 6.0, the most powerful SINGLE SOURCE HELP
AUTHORING TOOL for MS Word. SAVE $100 on the full version and $50 on the
upgrade.  Offer ends 10/31/2002 (code: DTH102250).
http://www.componentone.com/d2hlist1002

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.