TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: can you create table "styles" in MSword From:Ed Gregory <edgregory -at- HOME -dot- NET> Date:Thu, 19 Aug 1999 21:07:34 -0500
How about this:
1. Create the table that you are going to distribute among your users. Use
whatever formatting your needs demand.
2. If all of the users are on the same LAN or WAN, place that table in a
location accessible to all users.
3. Instruct the users on how to record a macro that uses the insert file
command to insert this preformatted table into their current document. (Or
send the macro, but that's more complicated and some network administrators
nervous.)
4. Instruct the users on how to place this new macro on their normal
editing or their tables toolbar.
The beauty of this is:
+ The macro is doing less, so there is less chance of it blowing up.
+ You can change the formatting of your table source file at your
discretion, giving all users an up-to-date source doc.
+ You don't have a macro or stylesheet or elaborate autocorrect entry to
futz with and reinstall on everybody's machine when Management decides the
third row needs to be 18 points high instead of 16 points high.
+ Even if you are not on a LAN and must distribute the new file on disk or
by email, it's a lot simpler to let them create one simple local macro and
replace the source file as needed.
If your users are Luddites, then in lieu of steps 3 and 4 above, you could:
a) Instruct your users on manually inserting the file. I.E., Follow the
menu path: Insert>File>, then type the name of the pre-formatted table in
the File Name field.
b) Instruct your users on how to make the formattedtable.doc one of
their
Word favorites, making semi-automatic insertion of the table a four-click
process. (Insert/File/Favorites/filename)
in my current document.is to use situations like this as a teaching tool.
Show the user that 1) you know Word and 2) you have the tech writer skills
to transfer little bits of that knowledge to the innocent.
At 05:52 PM 8/19/99 -0400, David Chinell wrote:
>Ellen:
>
>I'd love to find out there was a better solution
>than mine, but the best I could figure out to do
>was...
