Attributed to Henry Ford: “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking”
I’ve written before about some methods for getting the data in an Excel spreadsheet into Word (see the links below).
Recently, one of my colleagues had a BIG Excel spreadsheet table (all text) that had to be inserted into a Word document. In this instance, inserting a link to the spreadsheet was not an option, and saving it as multiple images and inserting those was problematic too (fuzzy, almost unreadable text mostly). So in despair my colleague asked me for some help.
In the process of testing many options I stumbled on a solution, but then I forgot which of the many combinations of things I tried was the one that worked ;-) So after a bit more testing I got it to work again.
Here’s how:
See also:
[Links last checked August 2014]
<sigh>
I was wandering in a Target store the other day and spotted some egregious apostrophe errors in the paid-for-and-no-doubt-very-expensive signage. Here’s one:
They had no apostrophes in ‘Books’ or ‘Paperbacks’ (which is correct as they are plural forms), but somehow had thought it was necessary to add apostrophes to CDs and DVDs, which are also plurals. The error was bad enough, but the inconsistency was just as annoying.
Further along in the store they had ‘Womens’ and ‘Mens’ as well as ‘Women’s Clothing’. ‘Women’s Clothing’ is correct — the clothing belonging to or for the women, but ‘Womens’ and ‘Mens’ is NEVER correct — you can’t pluralize (if that’s a word!) a plural. The plural of ‘woman’ is ‘women’ and of ‘man’ is ‘men’, so you can only ever have ‘Women’s’ and ‘Men’s’ when they are adjectives (or perhaps implied adjectives as in ‘Women’s Clothing’); otherwise it has to be ‘Women’ or ‘Men’. Never ‘Womens’ or ‘Mens’.
Basic rules:
Yes, there are some minor exceptions to these basic rules, but for most cases, these rules apply.
Buyer beware!!
I purchased a Seagate 2TB Expansion external hard disk drive (HDD) on Friday. I tried to do a Windows 7 backup and system image on Sunday, as you do, but it failed with the error message below.
I then spent an hour or so hunting forums etc. to find out that the drive needs to be configured to a 512 byte drive not a 4 KB drive to do system images (Windows 7 backups seem to work OK if you uncheck the system image option). Problem: Even after installing the Microsoft hotfix (see links below), this drive cannot be configured to 512 bytes! (Yes, my friendly PC Guru people helped me with that, but to no avail as it’s a hardware issue.)
So on Monday, I called Seagate Support and they confirmed that this drive is configured as a 4 KB drive, cannot be configured to 512 bytes, and also confirmed that THERE’S NOTHING ON THE PACKAGING or in the box to tell consumers that Windows 7 backup/system image WON’T WORK ON THESE DRIVES but that I could purchase their drives with proprietary backup software installed. I don’t want to do that (I’ve been down that path with Western Digital [WD] drives – not pretty). So this drive is not fit for purpose! Who makes a drive that doesn’t work with the backup/system image utility provided by the world’s biggest operating system? Gee, that’d be Seagate!
I’ve now called the place I bought it from and I can get a full refund on the drive if I bring it back with the packaging and receipt. That’s a 50 km trip for me, so I might consider using it just for data storage and continue doing backups on the WD 1TB drive I’ve been using.
How does Joe Blow Public deal with these issues? He buys an external HDD from a name brand, plugs it in, tries to do the right thing by creating a backup and system image and it fails. And he doesn’t know why or how to find out, and if he finds the 512 bytes versus 4 KB stuff, his eyes glaze over and he realizes he just paid $100 for a door stop!
Some of the sites reporting this issue:
[Links last checked August 2014]
I attended (and spoke at) the Society of Editors (WA) [SOEWA] Winter Seminar on Saturday. It was a day packed with good information and a variety of speakers and topics. Here’s my summary of the sessions (not including mine on the pros and cons of telecommuting).
These are my note and opinions, and do not reflect anyone else’s experience.
Hilary had two sessions at this seminar.
The first was on PerfectIt (http://www.intelligentediting.com), which I use. This was a hands-on demo, and considering the time she had and the number of people in the room (about 27) and the varying levels of comfort with PerfectIt (from those who’ve never heard of it to those who are users of the software), she did well in covering as much as she did. Even though I’m a PerfectIt user, I still learnt something in this session, like how to add customizations to a style as you go (I’d been doing it the manual way). She also mentioned the free style sheets available from PerfectIt such as those that covert UK to US spelling and vice versa, and the Australian Government style sheet.
Her other session later in the day covered other editing tools that can automate some of the repetitive processes we do.
Takeaways:
Advantages of tools:
Disadvantages:
Hilary’s ‘can’t live without it’ recommendations — PerfectIt, Editor’s Toolkit, and PhraseExpress (http://www.phraseexpress.com).
Editor’s Toolkit (http://www.editorium.com) — looks overwhelming, not user friendly, but once installed and start using saves lots of time; has about 48 shortcuts, but don’t need to use them all. Many are very useful. ~$70 (Jack Lyon’s program)
EndNote (http://www.endnote.com) — for managing citations/references.
EdiFix (http://edifix.com) — online search tool for citations/references that you can use to find references that can then go into Endnote.
Essential to have systems for your business:
Process: what needs to be done; System: how it needs to be done
Where do you start?
Systemization gives you time to document etc. the system! Need to make time to ‘sharpen the saw’ (Steven Covey)
Map out business aspects/processes (production [do the work], admin [e.g. invoicing], people, entrepreneurship, sales and marketing)
Need for:
Can change Windows folder icons to help identify where files are (http://www.foldermarker.com), and/or use a consistent numbered system for folder names (e.g 01Admin)
Benefits of having systems:
Challenges of systems: Business personalities:
In a perfect business, need all those elements. most have all traits in some degree or another, but some personalities will dominate. Various personalities will drive each other crazy!!
What do Boeing and David Lee Roth have in common? Van Halen were first band to take 18+ trucks of gear on the road, so had to use systems to make sure everything worked. Roth developed a process for setting up everything so that it was done right and wasn’t a hazard. His contract stipulated removing the brown M&Ms from the artists’ room as a test to see if the system had been followed. Boeing – created checklists for aircraft back in the 1930s(?)
Don’t need to produce manuals to document processes — can produce videos, use diagrams and pictures, flow charts, swimlane diagrams, checklists
Improve system:
Procrastination and perfectionism are your worst enemies in putting systems in place!
John uses Trello (http://www.trello/com) for collaborating on projects and Fiverr (http://www.fiverr.com) for outsourcing some tasks.
Margaret was managing editor for a university (print) publications team and described the complex workflow in getting documents from concept to publication.
‘P’ aspects of publication:
Implications of digital for print publications that are competing with online environment:
Managing Editor – person in charge of managing all aspects of the editorial process of publications including staff, budget,and production schedules (copy editing, design, imagery, print, compliance [Competition and Consumer Act 2010], budget, staff)
Adobe InCopy — Lets copywriters and editors style text, track changes, and make simple layout modifications to a document while designers can be working simultaneously on the same document using InDesign — all without overwriting each others’ contributions. (from http://www.adobe.com) ~$AU382, part of Adobe Creative Suite 6 (Creative Cloud)
Takeaways:
Case study of shifting the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) from print to web publications/communications.
Website wasn’t a resource priority for a long time – frustrating to use, poor navigation, lack of current material, thousands of pages getting no views, no incentive to upload new material.
Had to start from scratch — back end and front end.
BUT developers were employed before they did any user analysis!!
Chose DRUPAL as their content management system. Long process in agreeing on architecture.
Needed to comply with accessibility guidelines, large team of authors and approvers, training in writing for a new system (huge number of writers and reviewers funneling into 10 content approvers).
Arguments about where content belongs — e..g whether bees were ‘pests and diseases’ or ‘livestock’!! (they decided on livestock as bees are not a pest).
New website has 8 main headings (was 13). As 90% of visitors came in via websites, was the navigation that important?
Aims:
Process was slower than expected to get website up… few extra resources were allocated outside the web development team.
Old website was 13,000 pages (mostly PDFs), but so far only about 2000 on new site, so still a long way to go, though some content may not get migrated as out of date.
Two approval stages:
Editing for the web:
Audit trail and process:
Writing basics:
Based on a Writing Tip I wrote for my work colleagues. Warning: LONG! as there are different instructions for each type of cross-reference.
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In many of the Word documents you write, you may need to refer the reader to another section, an appendix, a table, or a figure, or numbered reference in a References list. You do this with a cross-reference (e.g. ‘see Table 5-2’). Although you can just type the cross-reference (x-ref), if you add more sections/tables/figures etc. or delete some, then some or all of your typed x-refs will be incorrect and take the reader to the wrong place.
The solution is to use automated x-refs.
That way, when you add/move/delete sections/tables/figures etc., you just need to update the fields in your document to automatically update the x-ref numbers to reflect the new numbering of these elements. The other advantage of automated x-refs is that they are clickable in the Word document (Ctrl+click) and sometimes in PDFs (depending on the Acrobat settings) – in both cases, clicking the link will take you straight to the place referred to.
Assumptions: All the instructions below assume you are working in a document that is based on a template that uses:
The instructions vary a little for each type of cross-reference—figure/table, section, appendix, numbered References list item. However, for each you will start with the References tab > Captions group > Cross-reference button:
When you add a new section, table/figure, appendix etc. Word automatically applies the correct sequential number for where you’ve placed it. If you move an existing section or appendix, these heading numbers will change automatically too. But tables and figures and all the x-refs DON’T change their numbers until you update all the fields in your document.
Although there are several ways to update all the fields (and therefore the automated numbers), the quickest, simplest, and most foolproof way is to switch to Print Preview mode, then switch back—almost all your numbers automatically update:
That’s it!
However, this method doesn’t update your table of contents, list of tables, list of figures, etc.—you have to do those separately using the applicable Update Table buttons on the References tab, or use the method below.
To update EVERYTHING in your document at once:
You’ll get ‘Error! Reference not found.’ for any x-refs that have nothing to point (refer) to. The most common reason for these error messages is that you’ve deleted a section heading (or a figure/table caption) without realizing that there was a x-ref to it somewhere else in the document. Behind the scenes, Word has unique ID numbers for each x-ref that refers to specific sections, tables, etc. So if you delete the section heading/caption but not the x-ref, Word loses the connection between the two when the fields are updated, and so reports ‘Error! Reference not found.’. The only simple solutions are to:
If you notice some ‘Section 0’ x-refs after you update the fields, there’s a good chance you inserted a new paragraph by pressing Enter at the beginning of an existing section heading and then changed the style of the new paragraph. This screws up the internal IDs. Best practice is to insert a new paragraph at the END of the previous paragraph by pressing Enter. For detailed information on this problem and various methods of solving it, see: http://www.thedoctools.com/demos/demo_crossref_2.html
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See also:
[Links last checked August 2014]
Australia is a member of the Commonwealth, but you wouldn’t know it from the BBC website.
During the 2014 Commonwealth Games, a colleague in the UK posted a link to a BBC web page to view a video from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Unfortunately, geoblocking meant that Australians couldn’t view this video.
So much for being a member of the Commonwealth…
I HATE geoblocking!