Tables and Word Versions

Subject: Tables and Word Versions
From: "Michael D. Hansen" <mhansen -at- COUGARNET -dot- BYU -dot- EDU>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 17:40:46 -0600

I am a novice tech writer w/ a problem. I recently put together a Financial
Policies Manual for a local, not-for-profit health clinic. To increase the
usability of the doc, we formatted the info into tables which allowed us to
create a nice scan zone, heading bars, and footer.

The company needs to update the manual periodically, so we wrote the doc on
Word 7.0 (which is the closest the small clinic has to any desktop
publishing software).

Unfortunately, every time we dowload the doc on another version of Word (or
even the same version with a different printer settings), the spacing goes
haywire and the document requires another 3 hours to reformat and look
half-way professional. I'm concerned that the tables may have been a bad idea.

Any ideas for how to maintain some consisentency?

TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html


Previous by Author: Re: (Fwd) Re: RFC1983 (Was E-mail or e-mail)
Next by Author: Re: Editing, Smediting
Previous by Thread: Hype checker (Was: JOB POSTING: Technical Marketing Writer)
Next by Thread: Help


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads