Process Help

  • Thread starter Thread starter Linda RQ
  • Start date Start date
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Linda RQ

Hi Everyone,

Using Word 2003. Many of my documents started out from word 2.0. I am
working on fixing a few hundred departmental/hospital policies that are
badly mangled. The original document has all of the policies and is 400
pages. I have to seperate the policies and each policy needs to be a
seperate document. The user basically copies the heading which is 3 lines
and centered by using the space bar, scrolls down to a new page, pastes that
then copies other common document (Like Policy #, Section, Date, etc)
properties and just changes the text to reflect the new policy number.
She then types the new policy or perhaps copies parts from one document or
another. Needless to say it's a mangled mess. I have played around a
little trying to remove the formatting but it isn't going well. Would it be
best to just re-type them? Many of the policies have numbered lists which
were done many different ways but I don't believe anyone used the numbering
tool, they typed the number and tabbed or spaced over to line things up.

If I do retype them, what is the best way to keep new styles from getting
created? The only comon items are the facility heading, then a group of
fields to fill in and at the bottom of each policy is a place for a
physician to sign. Is using a header and footer the best way?

I thought the group of fields to fill in should be a table with the borders
not visable and I was thinking of making the items for the physician to sign
a table as well.

Thanks,
Linda
 
I would be badly tempted to retype them, but that decision would be based at
least in part on the knowledge that they would almost certainly need copy
editing, and I would do that as I typed.

Short of that, assuming you have hard copy to refer to, I'd remove all the
formatting from the documents, reduce everything to Normal or Body Text
style, and then copy/paste all but the last paragraph into a new document
(in hopes of leaving any stray styles behind).

In either case, using the hard copy, figure out what styles you actually
need (make sure you set up outline numbering based on
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html), define
those styles, and apply them as needed.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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Suzanne,

Thanks for your suggestion. Both ways are going to be painful. Since
spaces were used to center and align things the process is still time
consuming after removing the formatting. I have a document that is 6 pages
long. Most of the lines of text begin with like 20 or so spaces to center
that text in the middle. I copied a line of spaces and opened up find and
replace then pasted this in the find box (which it looks like there is
nothing in there) when I replaced that with nothing, it removed all lines
with that many spaces and seemed to keep the Normal Style. Do you think
that will cause some strange style in the background or before or after that
line of text?

What do you mean by copy editing?

Is there a "best" font to use?

Thanks,
Linda
 
One easy way to remove leading spaces is just to Ctrl+E to center the text.
If you want it left aligned (or indented) you can then Ctrl+L to return it
to the margin, but in your case you do want it centered, so you can just
leave it.

The "best" font to use is some combination of (a) the font you like best and
(b) a font that is commonly available. If you're shooting for portability,
it's "safest" to use one of the Windows Core Fonts (this pretty much means
Times New Roman and Arial) or at least fonts that ship with most Office
versions (you can get lists of these from
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/). I probably do 98% of my
documents in TNR and Arial, and this has the advantage that those fonts are
not only quite readable but also "invisible": they don't call attention to
themselves because so many people use them.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Thanks a million! I'm sort of tempted to just convert everyone's documents
to pdf from now on before I upload to our policy website. <g>

Linda
 
Suzanne,

Your Ctrl+E key stroke has been great. Any ideas for spaces in the middle
of a paragraph?

Thanks,
Linda
 
For this your best bet is a Find and Replace using wildcards. Graham Mayor's
article at http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm is my reference
on this; I don't use wildcards often enough to remember how to do it.

Assuming you want to reduce any number of spaces exceeding one to a single
space, here's the combo you need:

1. Click the More button in the Replace dialog, then check the "Use
wildcards" box.

2. In the "Find what" box, type

<space>{2,}

where <space> represents a space inserted by pressing the spacebar once.

3. In the "Replace with" box insert one space (using the spacebar).

4. Click Replace All.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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