[mso] Re: Publisher/Word - table of contents
- From: "Dian Chapman" <dian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:11:28 -0500
>Am I right Dian? ;)
Yup! ;-)
>Comments and suggestions are welcome, but please don't bash me for refusing
to use Styles.
I won't bash anyone who prefers to waste a lot of time!<smile>
I know folks who aren't used to style get upset when they think they have to
do a lot of extra work to create a style just to format some text, when they
can much more easily select the text and hit Ctrl/B to bold it.
But in the long run...and ESPECIALLY if you produce long, large, and/or
complex documents...or have a boss who likes to make changes...you'll save
tons of time overall if you prepare the document with styles at the start.
Then changes take only seconds versus possibly hours. Not to mention, you
make the document a lot more stable to future changes.
I'd suggest you read this article: www.mousetrax.com/styles.html
Also, a couple months ago, a company manager asked me to provide a quote for
their company gazette to help convince their users of the importance and
desire to use styles in Word docs. My published comments are below:
-----
Never Bother Using Styles in Word, Do You?
Scenario: "You've just spent days creating this wonderful looking document,
at least you think it's wonderful. It's 150 pages.
But just as you think it's done, the boss comes in and tells you that it
looks great.but, change the main font from Times to Century Schoolbook; the
heading fonts from Arial to Century Gothic. Oh, and please get rid of those
circle bullets and make them arrow bullets. And maybe change the second
header to Italic rather than Bold. And please get rid of any underlining in
the headers!
Say, what?
It's Friday! It's 4:30 and you have plans after work and need to leave at
5:00! But this is due first thing Monday morning. So you will either have to
spend the next few hours fixing it or risk your job. You open the document
again and start going through every page, selecting the headers, paragraphs,
headings and bullets to make all the necessary changes.
By the way, I was also given this same assignment, but I know that styles
can save you tons of time and make your life so much easier.once you've
taken a little time to learn how to use them properly. So when the boss
tells me to change my 150 page document, I jump into the styles taskpane,
make a couple quick changes, update the document and pass him back the
finished version. It's 4:55 and I'm heading out the door. You're on page 35
of your changes.
Sorry you'll miss the party tonight! <evil grin>"
Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant &
Microsoft Word MVP, since 1995
www.mousetrax.com
----
Carolyn...if you're not using styles...you're only hurting yourself by
causing yourself a lot more work.
>Very frustrating and time-consuming! Plus, to my horror, I discovered that
the Table of Contents process is somehow hooked up with (shudder) Styles!
The reason it WAS to frustrating and time consuming was BECAUSE you hadn't
applied styles to your doc, first. Had you done that...the TOC would have
taken you about 30 seconds to create.
Hope this helps...
Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant,
Microsoft MVP & Instructor
Free Tutorials: www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Free Word Tips & Tricks eBook: www.mousetrax.com/books.html
Learn VBA the easy way, thru video! www.mousetrax.com/techcourses.html
-----Original Message-----
From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Anne Robson
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 9:44 AM
To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mso] Re: Publisher/Word - table of contents
Awww Carolyn - sorry if I gave you an attack of the shakes.
I DO know what you mean - it took me a while to summon up courage to try TOC
but believe me when I did it was a breeze. Yes you do need to use styles -
but all you have to do is create a style (or use one of the inbuilt ones)
that only applies to the items you wish to index. Then when you get to
create the TOC at the beginning or end of your mammoth document (Insert>
Reference> Index & Tables > click Table of Contents
tab) you indicate which is the style that marks out those items to be
included, select your leader type and then click OK. All being well
(fingers, toes and everything else crossed) you will then find that you have
a nice, dynamic, fully-updatable-when-page-numbers-need-to-be-updated Table
of Contents.
Allow yourself 30 mins playtime. Take a backup of your file. Take a cup of
coffee or whatever is your poison, read the F1 help on table of contents and
a deep breath. I betcha you will be converted. You might even find you
like styles after all!
Am I right Dian? ;)
Anne
-----Original Message-----
From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Carolyn O Phillips
Sent: 22 September 2003 15:19
To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mso] Re: Publisher/Word - table of contents
Dear Anne R. and all: Can't help but to butt in here. I don't know a thing
about Publisher, but I must question your comment that the Table of Contents
feature in Word is "brilliant." Please explain! Even with a big third-party
documentation book, it took me HOURS to figure out a table of contents and
how to format the entries. Very frustrating and time-consuming! Plus, to my
horror, I discovered that the Table of Contents process is somehow hooked up
with (shudder) Styles! (I recently had a big, unpleasant run-in with Styles
and I'm still not over it.) Is there, indeed, an EASY way to create a Table
of Contents in Word, WITHOUT using Styles? At this point I am not interested
in wrestling with Styles at all.
Comments and suggestions are welcome, but please don't bash me for refusing
to use Styles. I'll probably get over it, but it will be a while. C.
Phillips
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