Thoughts upon editing a document, v.1.0

[eurydicebound]

1. God help me, if you don't learn to use tabs at the beginning of paragraphs, I will hunt you down and kill you. I cannot search and replace that. I have to do it manually for 15 freakin' pages. I'm already pissed because you shorted the damned word count and I have to fill it in. Don't make me even more homicidally insane by ignoring stuff that you could open one of the books and verify as the style for this game since time immemorial.

*seethe*

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The problem is that there are two styles of type being used, and one does not use indents, while the bulk of the material does. So nothing global will actually fix it. There also aren't really styles being used... though it might be worth setting up some styles in Word in the template so that I can apply them. I just hate creating styles. I'd far rather have an author follow a style guide to begin with.

If the styles are visually differentiated (e.g., the stuff that doesn't use tabs is in italics), then you can do a global replace checking each time; then it's just a mindless yes/no through the text from beginning to end. You'll probabluy miss a few along the way from highway hypnosis, but you'll hopefully catch those when you edit those 'graphs for real.

Spike, who has run into many, many, many writers who either don't read the style guide or who don't read [i]this[/i] company's style guide, and who uses WordPerfect because of its Reveal Codes feature

[trollbabe.livejournal.com]

Good God I love "Reveal Codes" with a fiery, white-hot passion.

I used to edit documents for law offices and the like, written by who-knows-how-many different temps, and Reveal Codes saved my sanity numerous times.

And then the dirty bastards switched to MS Word, and I thought long and hard about becoming an alcoholic. I wound up unemployed instead (no direct correlation), which rendered the original quandary moot.

[anaka.livejournal.com]

It's mostly just the icing on the cake, to use a woefully inappropriate metaphor. There's a lot going on that needs fixing in this doc, and it's a level of fixing I don't have the time or inclination to do right now... and yet it kills me that it isn't getting fixed. There isn't time for the at-least-partial rewrite this piece needs. I don't even know what to write for the sections I have to fill in. I'm just generally frustrated, and filled with the desire to let the blood of coutless shitty authors run through my pen... that sort of thing. The tabs are really the least of the issues.

[pgoodman13.livejournal.com]

If it's the sort of thing I have talent fixing...I have some time, if you're willing and able.