Usually under 30,000 words with very simple styles and formatting, although I've had 300-pagers that were stable.
The things that Word most often gets wobbly with are huge tables, multiple list formats, and lots of applied style overrides.
If I were doing something list-heavy, like those awful DOD numbered para sub-para documents, I would not use Word. It doesn't do complex lists very well at all.
So... three months before plnned release, they FINALLY get around to releasing guidelines. And they are going to whine when nobody's software complies.
While both are a bit heavy for text editing, I've never had problems entering text in either of them.
That's probably because you can actually TYPE! I rarely do straight text entry, I do a brain dump and then edit it, which sucketh royally in a page layout program.
[me]If I know the final output has to be in FrameMaker or Quark, I'll set up MSWord so the style names match and import the final text.
[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]I have had serious issues using Word for text editing, including crashes for large files, poor optimization for lots of graphics, corrupting large files on save, and random errors in the text.
There are ways around some of those problems, but if it's a BIG document, Word will go flaky. I was talking about using Word for getting text ready for the layout software - the writer's draft that no one else gets to see.
perhaps the money that you so kindly would spend on this would be better spent *paying someone to write the features you are missing*.
I see that copies of MSOffice (legal surplus inventory) are selling for as low as $10 Cdn on eBay. I think I paid $40 a couple of years ago for the same package. How much programming will that buy?
You don't have to be a programmer to file a bug report. If you want to complain about the usability of OO (or anything open source), then complain to the people who can actually fix the problems.
I have. I have been ignored. And so have the other non-programmer professionals who have had the same requests for improvement.
Finally someone asks the right question. And the answer is... it depends. It depends on whether we are writing, editing or doing layout. The choice of tool changes with where we are in the project, what the final output will be, and what the budget supports.
For writing and text-hacking, content shuffling and document restructuring, MSWord is my tool of choice. It gets me to the final draft and through the review cycles. As I said in another post, OO gets in the way when a document needs radical surgery.
The "layout tools", like FrameMaker and Quark Express (I've used them both), suck at text entry and editing, and are they meant to - they are PAGE LAYOUT tools with minimal text editing capabilities. If I know the final output has to be in FrameMaker or Quark, I'll set up MSWord so the style names match and import the final text. Unless someone messes up the styles, the text imports and "wallah" it's laid out. Then there is some pixel tweaking, graphics insertion and it ships.
For the bulk of my work, MSWord is good enough. I'll never win any awards for typography with the user manuals I produce with it, but they are easy to read and most importantly, cheap and easy to produce and maintain.
It is much more important that you don't use a WYSIWYG tool when you've got graphics. You want to be able to say "I don't know what page this is going on, but when it gets there, put it in the upper right corner and cause the text to flow around it seperated by a 10 point border."
Say what? One of the core principals in technical writing is making sure the text and the graphics relate to each other effectively. WYSIWYG is the easiest way to make sure it happens. I've been using WYSIWYG editors to produce user manuals since the mid 1980s, starting with a beta copy of Ventura Publisher 1.0 20 years ago.
If you are having problems with short Word documents that contain pictures, I suggest you RTFM and learn how to use styles to control flow, stop inserting blank lines to force layout, and how to paste in pictures so they are in-line text objects and not floating.
For the people whose text I edit, OO may be adequate. But it's not yet, and maybe never will be, a tool for serious editing. Speaking as a professional writer and editor who has used both the MSWord and the OO outline views, MSWord's outline is orders of magnitude better. I see a measurable difference in productivity when I have to do substantive editing on a document in OO, not just the spelling checks and wording tweaks that some people call editing.
MSWord lets me reveal levels, open and close paragraphs or entire sections full of paragraphs, drag and drop sections, promote and demote sections, and edit text all in the same window. That violates the principle of "don't make the user switch focus when they are in the groove" concept of GUIs. It is the main reason I'm still using Win2000 and MSOffice, and why I am reluctant to recommend OO to anyone who will need to do substantive editing. It's awkward as hell.
The enhancement request for a better outline view - specifically a request to make it work just like MSWord's outline view, has been in the request queue for years and has a lot of comments explaining exactly why it is a good enhancement. Don't tell me, "It's open source, go ahead and do it". If I could have fixed it, I would have fixed it you gits. But, it's easier for me to stay with MSWord than learn to program... for which the folks in Redmond are undoubtedly grateful.
Similarly, a request for the ability to do overbars on text as easily as underlining has been in the queue for several years, requested by people who write the datasheets for the chips in computers the OO programmers work on. Forget the equation editor, its contents can't be searched or replaced like text.
Why doesn't the OO team (or almost any other FOSS project team take other professionals seriously when they tell you what features they need the mnost? Yes, MSFT is also of the "we'll tell you what you need", but at least they gave me a decent outlining tool... it's one of the things they got right early on.
As far back as the 1980s, when I rewrote a user manual to give it a user-centric design, the immediate effect of the manual was a sharp decrease in the number of "how do I install and runt this" calls to the support center.
That's the best justification: a small amount of effort, ONCE, on the interface can minimize the ongoing effort of supporting the product over its entire life cycle.
There are companies, such as Blogitive, who pay bloggers to blog about their clients... it's easy to spot because most of them just barf out the company press release.
But sometimes the blogger gets the money and the Last laugh. Mitch says that Blogitive paid him for that snarky tirade AGAINST the law firm.
I ran some searches for terms likely to have a mix of professional and amateur designers. With the 5 searches I did, it looks like 1 site of nine is good enough for the Google Accessible search.
So the question is: how many web designers will wake up and smell the alt text?
"Sugery is most definitely not the first option people should consider. "
Orthopedic surgeons do more diagnosing and physical therapy referrals than they do surgery.
Although I have under the care of a board-certified orthopedic surgeon for years for multiple problems with forearms, wrists and hands... he only mentioned surgery as a last-ditch alternative, and said the results of the surgery (not for carpal tunnel) were unimpressive: 6 months in a cast, a year of PT, and for a 30% chance of improvement, 40% chance of no change, and a 30% chance of being worse. His recommendations were rest, improved ergonomics, and a change of jobs.
sitting in the chair, feet on ground, back straight... have her rotate her shoulders in circles for about 15 seconds, then relax them. bring the hands forward to a comfortable typing position and WITHOUT TENSING the shoulders, measure how high they are from the floor. That is the correct KEYBOARD height for her, and it's probably going to be surprisingly low. I'm 5'5", and my best desk height is about 24 inches, or I need a chair with a footrest, like a drafting chair.
I will also bet that her mousepad is too far away or too far to one side, forcing an odd angle arm and wrist angle for mousing. A mouse that is too big, or with too sharp a curve, can also force odd wrist and hand movements. One good way to test is to have the user flop their hand over the mouse. The hand should cover the mouse, and the fingers should drape naturally and the palm rest on the desk.
I have the same problem: changing hands is initially awkward, but it helps.
Check her posture... any reaching forward aggravates the tendons. Ergonomics must be perfect.
A keyboard with integrated touchpad would allow her to use fingertips instead of thumb... might help.
She needs to REST NOW or this can turn into a permenent problem! And a wrist splint that immobilizes the thumb (the low-cost equivalent is to tape the thumb to the hand). Wearing wrist braces as much as possible
Taking painkillers is counterproductive unless you take painkillers AND rest... painkillers without rest allows you to continue damaging the tendons and by the time the damage is so great the painkillers don't work, the tendons might be beyond recovery.
It probably doesn't, although some companies I have worked for had tight restrictions on what printed or electronic information we could send to branches in certain countries.
This is so the sales department can have an easy time pushing product. I'll bet anyone who signs up gets a call from the Hifn sales-droids within a week after they download the datasheet, if not before they grant access.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever hear of the "blue flu"?
It's a cheap ad campaign.
I have some novelist friends who use MSWord for 150,000 word novels ... with plain text and chapter headings only it's really stable.
The things that Word most often gets wobbly with are huge tables, multiple list formats, and lots of applied style overrides.
If I were doing something list-heavy, like those awful DOD numbered para sub-para documents, I would not use Word. It doesn't do complex lists very well at all.
And they aren't even the final version.
While both are a bit heavy for text editing, I've never had problems entering text in either of them.
That's probably because you can actually TYPE! I rarely do straight text entry, I do a brain dump and then edit it, which sucketh royally in a page layout program.
[me]If I know the final output has to be in FrameMaker or Quark, I'll set up MSWord so the style names match and import the final text.
[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]I have had serious issues using Word for text editing, including crashes for large files, poor optimization for lots of graphics, corrupting large files on save, and random errors in the text.
There are ways around some of those problems, but if it's a BIG document, Word will go flaky. I was talking about using Word for getting text ready for the layout software - the writer's draft that no one else gets to see.
perhaps the money that you so kindly would spend on this would be better spent *paying someone to write the features you are missing*.
I see that copies of MSOffice (legal surplus inventory) are selling for as low as $10 Cdn on eBay. I think I paid $40 a couple of years ago for the same package. How much programming will that buy?
You don't have to be a programmer to file a bug report. If you want to complain about the usability of OO (or anything open source), then complain to the people who can actually fix the problems.
I have. I have been ignored. And so have the other non-programmer professionals who have had the same requests for improvement.
Finally someone asks the right question. And the answer is ... it depends. It depends on whether we are writing, editing or doing layout. The choice of tool changes with where we are in the project, what the final output will be, and what the budget supports.
For writing and text-hacking, content shuffling and document restructuring, MSWord is my tool of choice. It gets me to the final draft and through the review cycles. As I said in another post, OO gets in the way when a document needs radical surgery.
The "layout tools", like FrameMaker and Quark Express (I've used them both), suck at text entry and editing, and are they meant to - they are PAGE LAYOUT tools with minimal text editing capabilities. If I know the final output has to be in FrameMaker or Quark, I'll set up MSWord so the style names match and import the final text. Unless someone messes up the styles, the text imports and "wallah" it's laid out. Then there is some pixel tweaking, graphics insertion and it ships.
For the bulk of my work, MSWord is good enough. I'll never win any awards for typography with the user manuals I produce with it, but they are easy to read and most importantly, cheap and easy to produce and maintain.
It is much more important that you don't use a WYSIWYG tool when you've got graphics. You want to be able to say "I don't know what page this is going on, but when it gets there, put it in the upper right corner and cause the text to flow around it seperated by a 10 point border."
Say what? One of the core principals in technical writing is making sure the text and the graphics relate to each other effectively. WYSIWYG is the easiest way to make sure it happens. I've been using WYSIWYG editors to produce user manuals since the mid 1980s, starting with a beta copy of Ventura Publisher 1.0 20 years ago.
If you are having problems with short Word documents that contain pictures, I suggest you RTFM and learn how to use styles to control flow, stop inserting blank lines to force layout, and how to paste in pictures so they are in-line text objects and not floating.
For the people whose text I edit, OO may be adequate. But it's not yet, and maybe never will be, a tool for serious editing. Speaking as a professional writer and editor who has used both the MSWord and the OO outline views, MSWord's outline is orders of magnitude better. I see a measurable difference in productivity when I have to do substantive editing on a document in OO, not just the spelling checks and wording tweaks that some people call editing.
MSWord lets me reveal levels, open and close paragraphs or entire sections full of paragraphs, drag and drop sections, promote and demote sections, and edit text all in the same window. That violates the principle of "don't make the user switch focus when they are in the groove" concept of GUIs. It is the main reason I'm still using Win2000 and MSOffice, and why I am reluctant to recommend OO to anyone who will need to do substantive editing. It's awkward as hell.
The enhancement request for a better outline view - specifically a request to make it work just like MSWord's outline view, has been in the request queue for years and has a lot of comments explaining exactly why it is a good enhancement. Don't tell me, "It's open source, go ahead and do it". If I could have fixed it, I would have fixed it you gits. But, it's easier for me to stay with MSWord than learn to program ... for which the folks in Redmond are undoubtedly grateful.
Similarly, a request for the ability to do overbars on text as easily as underlining has been in the queue for several years, requested by people who write the datasheets for the chips in computers the OO programmers work on. Forget the equation editor, its contents can't be searched or replaced like text.
Why doesn't the OO team (or almost any other FOSS project team take other professionals seriously when they tell you what features they need the mnost? Yes, MSFT is also of the "we'll tell you what you need", but at least they gave me a decent outlining tool ... it's one of the things they got right early on.
That's the best justification: a small amount of effort, ONCE, on the interface can minimize the ongoing effort of supporting the product over its entire life cycle.
But sometimes the blogger gets the money and the Last laugh. Mitch says that Blogitive paid him for that snarky tirade AGAINST the law firm.
Does anyone know some email addresses for the RIAA lawyers? I'd love to send it to them.
Also, a recording audiometer would show the frequency (which BTW, doesn't go very far)
So the question is: how many web designers will wake up and smell the alt text?
Orthopedic surgeons do more diagnosing and physical therapy referrals than they do surgery.
Although I have under the care of a board-certified orthopedic surgeon for years for multiple problems with forearms, wrists and hands ... he only mentioned surgery as a last-ditch alternative, and said the results of the surgery (not for carpal tunnel) were unimpressive: 6 months in a cast, a year of PT, and for a 30% chance of improvement, 40% chance of no change, and a 30% chance of being worse. His recommendations were rest, improved ergonomics, and a change of jobs.
There isn't much in the way of original content, and they charge people to put links there.
sitting in the chair, feet on ground, back straight ... have her rotate her shoulders in circles for about 15 seconds, then relax them. bring the hands forward to a comfortable typing position and WITHOUT TENSING the shoulders, measure how high they are from the floor. That is the correct KEYBOARD height for her, and it's probably going to be surprisingly low. I'm 5'5", and my best desk height is about 24 inches, or I need a chair with a footrest, like a drafting chair.
I will also bet that her mousepad is too far away or too far to one side, forcing an odd angle arm and wrist angle for mousing. A mouse that is too big, or with too sharp a curve, can also force odd wrist and hand movements. One good way to test is to have the user flop their hand over the mouse. The hand should cover the mouse, and the fingers should drape naturally and the palm rest on the desk.
She needs to see an orthopedic surgeon NOW!!!!!!
I have the same problem: changing hands is initially awkward, but it helps.
Check her posture ... any reaching forward aggravates the tendons. Ergonomics must be perfect.
A keyboard with integrated touchpad would allow her to use fingertips instead of thumb ... might help.
She needs to REST NOW or this can turn into a permenent problem! And a wrist splint that immobilizes the thumb (the low-cost equivalent is to tape the thumb to the hand). Wearing wrist braces as much as possible
Taking painkillers is counterproductive unless you take painkillers AND rest ... painkillers without rest allows you to continue damaging the tendons and by the time the damage is so great the painkillers don't work, the tendons might be beyond recovery.
You use engines to enter and leave port ... add the sails for a boost when you are at sea.
No need for dredging.
There are several points where ships already have places for tugboats to attach ... for retrofitting, using these is the cheapest way to go.
They will be tacking back and forth behind the parasail.
It probably doesn't, although some companies I have worked for had tight restrictions on what printed or electronic information we could send to branches in certain countries.
This is so the sales department can have an easy time pushing product. I'll bet anyone who signs up gets a call from the Hifn sales-droids within a week after they download the datasheet, if not before they grant access.
It was the movie list. PBS would have a more interesting line-up.