Re: Word Processors: Outlines, Main Text and Footnotes

< Next Message | Back to archived message list | Previous Message >

Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 5173

Posted by srdiamond15
2006-02-06 21:47:34

The document map is for navigation exclusively. The way you would do what you want in Word 2003 is copy the document, open both the original and the copy, and choose the options to “Dislay the documents side by side,’ together with ‘Sync windows.’ Put one of the versions in one of the paragraph views and the other version in outline view. Split the window of the first and use part of it for footnotes. I don’t know how that would work in practice, but in principle I think it gives you most of what you want. (But if you make different changes in each version, you will have to combine them manually.)

Word has grown into a dependable work horse. The only relevant function that truly seems not to work is the Master Document, which would let you combine document parts according to an outline. It handles long documents fine, but backup constantly! Corruption is a possibility but shouldn’t be very worrisome with the backup options available these days. Numbering often is screwed up. Word has strict demands for numbering that must be met, and it is now regarded as error to try to create a numbered list by any means besides using Styles to assign the numbering pattern. (If you like Styles, you like Word; hate Styles, hate Word. I think it’s pretty much that simple now.)

I’ve only been on Windows a couple of years. I don’t know what Word used to be, other than on the Mac. But I should confess, I have always liked the program a lot, even when it had many problems. But if a program survives as the recognized solution for enough years, I think it ends up not mattering much where it started. I can think of only a handful of programs that fit this description: Word 2003; Excel 2003; Clipmate 7.

Stephen R. Diamond

Back to archived message list