- 2004.09.15
Writing a book using Word is like...
- using an aircraft carrier to fish for bluegills.
- using a hammer to tighten a screw.
- using a jackhammer to plant a tree.
- planting a garden to make a sandwich.
- using a fish to - well, you get the point.
I've been writing a book over the summer, which is why you haven't
heard my "unreasoning shrill anti-PC ranting at a low, low discount
price" voice as much as usual.
And, of course, to get the job done the publisher requires the use
of Word. I can't use one of the substitutes such as AbiWord or
OpenOffice, because there are a lot of graphics to be inserted that
don't translate well.
What I found out is that there's a reason they don't translate well.
Word, as some of you have already pointed out, is not Word
compatible.
Word is, as many of you know, a word processor, not a page layout
program. It tries hard to be a page layout program, but it really isn't
built for it. I'm using Word for X, but I can tell you from many years
of experience that even though Word 5.1 was no great shakes either, at
least you could control it to some degree. Word 6 was a disaster, and
Word 2001 was painfully slow but usable.
Now we're at Word 2004, which I haven't seen yet. I doubt that the
things that trouble me the most have been fixed; perhaps one of you
fine readers can render an opinion.
When you insert a graphic into a Word document, it can be treated in
one of two ways: It can be an inline graphic, which is like a single
giant letter of the alphabet and subject to rules like if you backspace
over it it will disappear, or you can place it as a wraparound
graphic.
Here's where the layout fun begins. When you place a picture in Word
in wraparound mode, it becomes anchored to a particular paragraph
nearby. Selecting the graphic requires sub-pixel cursor control, so set
your mouse to superfine and have a spare desk nearby to use as a
mousepad. The placement of the picture is relative to the first letter
of the paragraph, so if you edit text later and move the anchor
paragraph, your picture may stay in the same relative position or shoot
off the edge of the page because the beginning of the paragraph shifted
as it dropped down below newly added text, or disappear completely for
several days until it pops up later at the beginning of your last
section break when you were editing something four pages after that
Always anchor graphics to paragraphs that are not flowing around the
graphic, and the problem mostly goes away.
Along the way I learned other tricks of working with Word.
If your program crashes unexpectedly, there is still hope. Before
you start working make sure you set autobackup and autorecovery
in the general preferences. I had autorecovery set up (Word:
Preferences: Save bullet: check "Save AutoRecover info every 10
minutes") set up, and I thought this would protect me from the regular
crash-and-disappear problems I have when doing some intricate graphics
inside a text box maneuvers.
AutoRecover is supposed to load a cached backup copy when you
restart Word. However, earlier this week it didn't work. I dug through
help files and Web support pages for a while until I located the
location of autorecovered files (user: Documents: Microsoft User Data:
AutoRecovery save of ....) The last one listed was from weeks ago, so I
looked a little more and found a series of documents all titled "Word
Work File A_gobbledygook" that I had assumed were temp files containing
clipboards or subsets of the document.
Lucky for me, the most recent Word work file was the entire document
just before the latest crash, so I could pick up where I left off.
All of this could have been avoided if I had just checked "Always
create backup copy" in the preferences dialog, which puts a duplicate
right there in the directory where my file is supposed to be every time
I save.
I also have autosave activated, but that didn't help me in this case
because the crash occurred during a save; the program stopped
responding and sat spinning for half an hour before I gave up. When I
tried to open it again, the document was corrupted and caused Word (and
AbiWord, and OpenOffice, and AppleWorks with MacLinkPlus translation)
to crash when the document opened.
Of course, it must have been my fault for, uh, hmm, saving too
often, yeah, that must be it. If you save too often, Word will crash.
Whoda thunk it.
I'm getting through this book, and there are some nice features I've
taken advantage of in Word, but I have to say the style dialog is a
complete mystery to me. It's out of control and doing bizarre things
like suddenly switching in the middle of the paragraph - probably some
hidden key combination is triggering it due to my sloppy typing. I like
having text boxes inserted for parenthetical comments - I just love
em-dash asides, can't you tell? - but with all the other features
running around you'd think they'd let you have boxes with rounded
corners.
I can't use macros for repetitive tasks because they're verboten by
the publisher (can't say as I blame them), and every time I blink the
program starts repaginating, which takes 3-4 seconds while you wait (at
least for a 350 page book). There's bound to be a switch for that
somewhere in the preferences. Or in the menu items that are turned off
by default. Or in the list of functions you can make a button
activate.
The trouble is, by the time I've learned everything I need, the
latest version of Word will be all rearranged like the aisles of my
local Costco in a desperate attempt to make the consumer feel a new
product has been released.
Tell me, does anybody use all this stuff? I'm writing a book, for
cryin' out loud, and I don't use a tenth of it. What is a
cross-reference and should I be using it? How do I insert an index
entry without all those funny characters that get tacked on screwing up
my pagination in page layout mode? Shouldn't those be invisible? Why
does a document need a background sound?
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts regarding Word. Many of us are
required to use it from time to time for various purposes, and we just
have to muddle through. I'm sure you know what I mean.
Somewhere around here I've got an old set of 5.1 disks. I wonder if
it'll run in Panther via Classic?
is a longtime Mac user. He was using digital sensors on Apple II computers in the 1980's and has networked computers in his classroom since before the internet existed. In 2006 he was selected at the California Computer Using Educator's teacher of the year. His students have used NASA space probes and regularly participate in piloting new materials for NASA. He is the author of two books and numerous articles and scientific papers. He currently teaches astronomy and physics in California, where he lives with his twin sons, Jony and Ben.< And there's still a Mac G3 in his classroom which finds occasional use.
