atw: Re: Embedding linked text objects in Word - LONG, slighly ranty

Thanks Steve, just a couple of comments though.

>>Word reliably handles dox 1k+ pages,...

Word didn't reliably handle my 150 page document. In a one hour session
working on it, it would freeze up for five minutes at a time four or five
times, during which time I couldn't do *anything* in it. 
I split it into three smaller documents and it all worked fine again.

>>... so it must be something you are doing.

Hmmmm. I guess I must just be another dumb ditz who does stupid things. 
I don't think so.
I can, just like you, look up the all the MVP references, twiddle things,
copy and re-paste things, re-jig things, sacrifice virgins at dawn to the
great god MS etc etc and get things to work again, but that doesn't mean I
*need* or *want* to have to do that. Au contraire, I get slightly irritated
when I have to. 
Just by way of comparison, I can open Frame, start working, and don't have
to stop till I'm finished 300 pages later. That's what I call reliable. You
and I must use different dictionaries.
 
>>Usual suspect is list templates, next is tables.

Hmmm. Pity the very things that make a technical document more usable are
considered "suspects" from the outset in Word.

>> Numbering - I have an excellent free article on that (requires VBA) if
you request it.

The numbering in my document works fine - now. I have linked everything back
into the automatic heading structure and outline numbering, as per Shauna
Kelly's molto excellento article at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html. Only took
me an hour to find, comprehend and set up... 
The document (a functional spec) lent itself to setting up all my lists as
"pseudo-headings", so the multi-level numbering is now as solid as a rock.
Otherwise, of course, I could have used sequence fields, as I have done
before, but this document had so many existing numbered lists, I couldn't be
bothered re-doing every item that way. 
My client is, surprisingly, also expecting me to deliver some content
improvement as well as a cunningly crafted unbreakable document structure,
and my time is limited - and much as I'd like to spend days frigging around
with Word's idiosyncrasies and feeling satisfied that I have managed to beat
it yet again, I'd really rather have a more efficient solution available to
finish this project on time. Unfortunately, I didn't have a choice about
using Word.
Once again, with numbering, I compare with Frame. I open a document, click
Numbered1 and Numbered and never think about it again. 

>>K, images - here is what I do

K, I'm not linking images, I'm linking text objects.

My screens are all those tiny little screens for EFTPOS machines and all
have only eight lines of perfectly regular text, so I have formatted them as
tables with styled text rather than creating images, because this way they
are vastly easier to update when the product changes, and the person who
will be maintaining the document won't want (or know how) to create new or
edit existing images for the frequent updates we have ahead of us. 
 
What I was asking was if anyone had experience of using multiple links
(150+) to formatted text in a single document, and if this feature could be
relied on in Word when used in volume, or if it was likely to break as some
other Word "features" tend to do. I have already found the relevant menu
options etc. - just wanted comments about reliability.

Cheers

Margaret




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