atw: Re: Embedding linked text objects in Word - don't do it!

Following on from this one -
Embedding pictures in a Word manual is Not a Good Idea, because large  
documents with lots of pictures embedded can behave strangely, take  
forever to scroll, and can be quite difficult to update. I have found  
the following to be a useful way of dealing with screenshots, etc in  
large manuals.

Maintain all screen shots and other images as separate files. Use  
maximum resolution when producing the images. It helps if individual  
images are given explanatory names, as long as is necessary to work out  
how the image was generated. This is useful when it comes time to  
update the images. The name of the image could be based on menu  
sequences, window names, etc - however you like to do it. For example:

BO_Classes_and_Objects_Wholesale_Operations_Weekly_Supply_Costings_Windo 
w_Procedure_Selection_Panel.bmp

is not really overdoing it if it helps you to find the image quickly.  
(When you have 400+ images in a manual, "Screenshot_093.bmp" doesn't  
cut it.)

  Use a single Word file for the text of the document. (Avoid the  
horrors of master documents.) In the document folder, set up a  
subfolder called (say) Images.

Import the pictures into the Word document by reference:  
Insert>Picture>From File, select the picture and then select the option  
Insert and Link.

This procedure inserts a field in the Word document, containing an  
instruction to display the image found by following the relative path  
specified in the field. (If the Images folder is kept on a different  
drive, the absolute path name is used.)  It would be useful to define,  
say, a centered paragraph style with a following style of Caption.

Inserting and linking an image does not greatly increase the size of a  
document: it is possible to have a 2 MB document and an image folder  
with 60-80 MB of screen shots, etc. The only time these all come  
together is on issuing a print command, when a PostScript file of  
zillions of MB is assembled. Dealing with that is the print server's  
problem, not yours. The small Word document scrolls quickly and easily  
- scrolling huge files with lots of embedded images can lead to quite  
strange behaviour on the part of Word.

Because the images are not embedded in the document, they can be  
imported by reference into other documents as well. Updating of images  
is carried out in only one place.

Thus you could have all the Word documents for a project stored in a  
single folder, and all of the images for all of the documents stored  
in  a common Images subfolder. Inserting any image into any Word  
document by reference is straightforward, and the images are updated in  
one place only.

JH





On 18 Mar 2005, at 4:13 PM, margp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Hi all
>
> Following the good advice of many of you, I have made the change to  
> Word 2003/
> Word 2002 in Win XP.
>
> I haven't had too many problems, although these versions of Word seems  
> to start
> spitting if documents get too big (100pp+) - they just hang Not  
> Responding for
> no apparent reason - and of course numbering and incomprehensible and
> unexpected automatic updating of just about everything you don't want  
> to update
> are still a major pain.
>
> But other than that, I seem to be doing OK.
>
> So much so that I am now getting ambitious...
>
> I have a document that has lots of screens throughout.
> One of my users wants all of these reproduced in a separate document  
> with
> different information recorded about each one for testing purposes.
> I am considering using Paste Special > Paste Link to copy the screens  
> into the
> second document, so that I don't have to maintain two sources.
> (Kind of like using referenced images in Framemaker, but they are not  
> images,
> just tables, so I'm pasting them as formatted text.)
> Do any of you have experience with this?
> Is it reliable, or another dog like master documents?
> I've checked that all the links don't break when I move the source  
> document
> from one place to another - Word seems to be able to follow the  
> documents -
> and I've checked that the updating works ok. Any other gotchas I  
> should watch
> out for?
>
> Ultimately what I'd like to do is break the links and save the second  
> document
> in its own right, but there are lots of changes happening at the  
> moment, so
> reducing the maintenance to one source seems very attractive.
>
> Margaret


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