How to follow multiple writing style guides For editors, following a client’s style preferences is vital for delivering work that your client will love. However, it can be hard work to keep referring to the writing style guide and checking you’re sticking to the style. The style sheets in PerfectIt make it a powerful editing tool. In both the PC …
Create robust styles in Microsoft Word
Using ‘keep with next’ and ‘widow/orphan control’ Have you ever formatted a document in MS Word, only for the layout to fall apart when changes are made to the text? For example, headings may suddenly be split over two pages or be separated from the text that follows them, or a page may start with a blank line. This post …
Top three reasons for using styles in MS Word
When you’re editing a document, have you come across headings that have been formatted manually? For example, the headings are big, bold and perhaps in a different colour, but the text still shows the default style ‘Normal’. This means someone has created the headings the hard way, selecting the text, applying the desired properties, then copying that formatting whenever a …
Exploring the features of MS Word’s ‘Find and Replace’
Gone are the days of going through a long document, locating all the instances of a word or phrase, and changing them manually to what you want. Microsoft Word’s ‘Find and Replace’ tool has been life changing for working with long documents. It allows you to make ‘global’ changes to a document, whether that’s fixing an error, updating text or …
How to fix page numbers in Word
Even the most confident editor runs into page numbering problems from time to time. A straightforward series of numbered pages is fine, no problem. But when you start customising the formatting, adding a title page, creating sections or landscape pages, you’ll need to outsmart Word to get it to present your page numbering in the correct manner. I’ve spent a …
Page numbering in Word – formatting page numbers
Adding page numbers in Word is an ideal way to help a reader navigate a long document. But adding relevant page numbers to sections within the document isn’t the end of it. The visual layout of page numbers is important for making your document clear and easy to read. When it’s done well, page numbering is barely noticeable. But if …
Page numbering in Word – numbering sections
As editors, we often help clients to make their long documents as easy to read as possible. This doesn’t just mean improving structure, flow and grammar. It can also involve helping the reader to navigate the document; for example, with headings, bullets and section numbering. One of the tools we need to master here is page numbering. Happily, modern word …
Making the most of comments in MS Word
Most editors make extensive use of comments in MS Word. Sure, the conversations are a bit one-sided, but adding comments in Word can feel like you’re communicating directly with your client. If you need to clarify why you’ve changed some text, or provide options for revising a particular section, you can tell your client there, on the page, and they …
Why should I use EndNote in Word?
For academic and technical editors, EndNote is like pineapple on pizza – you either love it or hate it. I used to fall into the hating category; if a project arrived with references in EndNote or some other reference management program, I promptly contacted the author asking for a plain text version that I could edit. Now, I’m delighted when …
Distracted by formatting markup? How to stop tracking changes in Word
As an editor, you probably work with track changes turned on in Word – the tracking is helpful for you and your clients. But if you’re making a lot of changes, you’ll have noticed that the document gets quite crowded. You may not need to track every change Your clients might be happy for you not to track things such …