What to know how to type faster and get those blog post online quicker? I use the AutoCorrect feature in Word to speed things up. Most writers use it to correct typos and clean up your document AFTER it’s written. That’s fine but it’s more productive it you can correct the document AS YOU WRITE it. Here are some other tricks that help write docs faster.

How To Write Documents Faster & Save Your Fingers From Exhaustion

Most people don’t know what the AutoCorrect feature in Word really does.

Most people think it’s there to correct the odd typo and clean up your document AFTER you have written it.

That’s true but…

I use to correct the document AS I WRITE and to enter longs strings of text automatically.

Why bother?

When I write user guides, for example. I use a similar structure for the intro, bullet lists and instructions.

Instead of writing, ‘follow these steps’, I type onto the page in Word the letters fts.

Word then automatically writes, follow these steps: on the page.

Do you see how useful this can be?

You can also use it to o automatically detect and correct typos, misspelled words, and incorrect capitalization. It’s very powerful when you look into it and has saved me 100s of hours of manual typing.

Another example?

When I type ar1, AutoCorrect replaces it with “Annual Report.”

Or if you type ‘Teh Executrie summary states’ with a space, AutoCorrect replaces what you have typed with “The Executive Summary states.”

You can also use AutoCorrect to insert symbols, such as copyright symbols.

Note: Text included in hyperlinks is not automatically corrected.

So, how can I do this?

To autocorrect your Word Documents, follow these steps:

1.a In Word 2003, click Tools, AutoCorrect Options.

1.b In Word 2007, click Start, Word Options, Proofing and then the AutoCorrect Options.

2. In the Replace box, type a word or phrase that you often mistype or misspell – for example, type Micorsoft.

3. In the With box, type the correct spelling of the word – for example, type Microsoft.

4. Click Add.

Add a few more! Go on!

Spend 15 min here and add in shortcuts for words, sentence and strings (e.g. Please follow these steps: etc) you use regularly.

What other tips do you know to write documents faster?

Remember the first time you heard your voice on the answering machine? Bet you wanted to change your voice straightaway. No?

In the same vein, I found this app that lets you convert your Word documents into MP3s – so now I can ‘hear’ what I’ve written. This is how others hear my technical documents and business proposals when they’re reading.

Many English teachers will tell you that if you want to improve your writing, then read it out loud.

TextAloud converts text into spoken audio. It lets you test your documents by:

• Listening back to what you’ve written,
• Hear mistakes you can’t see on the page
• Judging whether the tone is right

This all helps polish your material before sending it out to customers.

This tool lets you save text as spoken audio MP3 or WMA files to listen while driving, taking a walk, or just working around the house.

Key Features

• Advanced Pronunciation Tools
• Automatic iTunes/iPod syncing
• Claim your iPod as a tax write-off
• Create MP3 or WMA files
• Directly open Word, PDF, and HTML files.
• Listen on your PC
• Optional premium voices for a wide variety of accents and languages
• Play on iPods, PocketPCs, and CD players.
• Proofread your own writing
• Reduce eye strain from too much reading and
• Save text to MP3 for portable audio players
• Toolbar plug-ins for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Outlook

Download

You can download the free trial from http://www.nextup.com

Lorem Ipsum is dummy text that has its origins in the printing and typesetting industry.

It has been the printing industry’s standard dummy text since the 1500s, when a printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It came back into popularity in the 1960s with Letraset sheets which contained Lorem Ipsum passages. Desktop publishing software like Adobe PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum as does Microsoft Word.

Why do we use it?

You can use it for laying out documents, e.g. to see how a document will appear when populated with text. You can also use it for testing documents.

Many DTP packages and web page editors use Lorem Ipsum as their default text for creating web pages.

How to create Dummy Text

1. In Word, create a new, blank document.

2. Apply the formatting you want to test.

Don’t type yet. Just do the formatting.

3. Type the formula : =Rand(a,b) where a is the number of paragraphs that you want to create, and b is the number of sentences in each paragraph.

For example, if you wanted to create ten paragraphs with 7 sentences each, you would type: =Rand(10,7).

4. Press Enter.

5. Microsoft Word will generate the default “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” sentence.

Want to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum

UPDATE: MS Word 2007 generates the following text instead of the so-called greek text.

“On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document.”

Is that what you get?

Jakob Nielsen warns us that users hate change. He recommends that “it’s best to stay with a familiar design and evolve it gradually. In the long run, however, incrementalism eventually destroys cohesiveness, calling for a new UI architecture. ”

You often hear design team members (or their management) say, “We need a fresh design.” This usually gets redesign projects off on a wrong footing, with the wrong goals and strategy.

Typically, a fresh design will be a worse design simply because it’s new and thus breaks user expectations. A better strategy is to play up familiarity and build on users’ existing knowledge of how a system works.

Let’s consider Microsoft Office. The suite was introduced in 1989 as an incremental packaging of older stand-alone apps like Word (from 1983) and Excel (from 1984). By 2000, the underlying UI architecture was 17 years old, and MS Office was creaking at the edges. I frequently complained that the old approach was a muddled set of thrown-together features — and that the ever-more complex set of menus and dialog boxes made it hard for users to find most of them.

Read Jakob Nielsen‘s Alertbox, September 21, 2009

Looking for a simple writing tool that automatically hides your desktop so you can concentrate on your writing? Anil Atluri on Digital Inspiration has this great tutorial on how to make Google Docs your perfect free writing tool.

Turn Google Docs into a Writing Tool

Follow these steps:

1: Create a new document in Google Docs and choose “Edit CSS” from the edit menu.

2: Paste the following code into the CSS Box and save.

body {

font: 16px “Courier New”;

color: #00ff00 !important;

background: #000 !important;

width: 800px;

margin: 10px auto;

}

3: Press Ctrl + Shift + F to remove the menu bar in Google Docs and then hit F11 to turn your browser into full-screen mode.

Read more at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-docs-for-distraction-free-writing/10538/

Free Google Docs writing template

You can get a nice writing template over here from the same team: http://docs.google.com/

Do you use Google Docs for writing your tech documents?

What’s the one thing that would make you give up using Microsoft Word?

This article explains how to convert large files between Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker.In this tutorial, the source file is the file being converted (Word) and target file is the file that it will be converted into (in this case, a FrameMaker file).

Our goal during this process is to reduce the Word document into an (almost) plain-text document — but keeping its style names, as these will be used to match styles and tags later in the FrameMaker document.

The overall process involves three stages:

• Preparing the Word file for conversion.
• Refining the FrameMaker file in line with the Style Guide.
• Creating the PDF file.

Note: Before you start, print out the Style Guide and use it as a reference during the overall process. This saves you time moving between files and also helps you become more familiar with the Style Guide’s format and presentation as it sits on your desk and is more accessible.

Preparing the Word file

The first step is to prepare the Word file so that its contents will convert more easily into FrameMaker. This involves deleting all formatting that is unique to Word, such as Text Frames.

For example, FrameMaker has very powerful Table of Contents generation features, so you can rely on this rather than trying to import Word’s or hard-coding it to match the FrameMaker format.

To start the process, delete all the Word constructs that need to be removed before the conversion process can start. This involves the following steps:

• Deleting the Table of Contents (TOC)
• Deleting headers and footers
• Deleting local paragraph overrides
• Deleting local character overrides
• Deleting text frames
• Deleting ALL Word specific features
• Deleting linked graphics

The next section explains what needs to be deleted in Word, and provides some information on why we use this approach.

Table of Contents

As FrameMaker has very advanced Table of Contents (TOC) functions, it is much simpler to delete the TOC in Word and then rebuild it in FrameMaker.

In Word, select the TOC and delete it. Save the file.

Note: If you’ve used bookmarks in Word to generate a TOC, delete them as well. The effort it takes to import them into FrameMaker is not worth the effort. FrameMaker can do it quicker.

Headers and Footers

Both Word and FrameMaker have a different approach to Headers and Footers. In FrameMaker, these are setup in the Master page and controlled from there. Trying to import Word’s header and footers into FrameMaker will only confuse it.

In Word, open the header and footer option. Select each one and press Delete. Save the file.

Local paragraph overrides

This involves deleting any formatting in paragraphs (which should have been formatted with Body styles) which has been done manually — rather than formatted with a Word style.

If you import these local paragraph overrides into FrameMaker, they will confuse the tag settings. It’s much simpler to delete them in Word and then rebuild in FrameMaker.

In Word, select the entire document and press Ctrl+Q. Save the document.

Local character overrides

An example of local overrides is when, for example, in Word a paragraph is entirely Times Roman except for the 3rd word, which is in italic. If the italic was set using a character style, the FrameMaker file may assign that style to the 3rd word AND to the remaining words in the paragraph—not what you want!

My suggestion is to delete all local character overrides in Word.

In Word, select the entire document and press Ctrl+Spacebar. Save the file.

Later, in FrameMaker, you will use the Paragraph Designer to modify the style correctly.

Word specific features

All Word specific features have to be deleted as they cannot be interpreted in FrameMaker. Even worse, if you do not do this, they may corrupt the FrameMaker document.

In Word, delete all borders, WordArt, callout boxes, arrows, text frames, etc. Save the file.

Text Frames — Word uses text frames to create what FrameMaker calls a side-head, i.e. text that appears in the left margin column. To recreate the Word text frame in FrameMaker, create a tag in FrameMaker called ‘TextFrame’ and design this in accordance with the style guide.

Linked graphics

Some Word documents ‘link’ graphics (Insert | Picture | From File) to the document rather than using the traditional cut/paste approach.

For a Word to FrameMaker conversion, this means that when you open the RTF file in FrameMaker the graphic file have to correctly link to the same folders as those in Word. In theory, this should work, but in my experience, this does not always work. Instead, follow these steps:

In Word, select each graphic file, save it with a unique name, e.g. Architecture.gif etc, and store it in the project folder. Once this is done, delete all graphics, and Save the file.

Note: In FrameMaker, you will import all these graphics back into the document.

Once all these steps are completed, you then need to modify different parts of the Word file, depending on how it was created.

Note: This does not involve deleting content as we have done above, but modifying how it is constructed, for example adjusting how the number and bullet lists are formatted in Word so that they can be imported into FrameMaker with less data corruption.

You don’t need to delete these constructs, but you do have to adjust their presentation otherwise they will create confusion in the FrameMaker file, for example you could end up with two bullets for every list entry rather than one.

For the conversion project, this involved managing the following areas:

• Master Pages and sections
• Headings
• Numbering
• Bullets
• Cross-references
• Artwork
• Spanned Columns
• Books and master documents
• Styles and tags

Master Pages and sections

FrameMaker uses Master Pages; Word uses sections.

In Word, sections are often used to insert different headers and footers throughout the document. FrameMaker’s approach is totally different.

Figure 1 – How to access FrameMaker Master Pages (View | Master Pages).

In Word, delete all section breaks. You can search for ^b to find all occurrences. Save the file.

Headings

FrameMaker doesn’t care how headings are named. Because of this, you don’t have to modify the style names in Word before the conversion — unless you want to change the style names to reflect the target template.

However, it’s recommended that you delete all redundant headings, and other redundant styles, as they hold no value.

In Word, delete all redundant headings (Format | Styles and Formatting) and save the file.

Figure 2 – In Word, delete all redundant styles and headings

Numbering

If your Word document uses automatic numbering and styles, you’re in luck! However, if the numbering has been done manually, delete the numbers (but not the styles) in Word.

Then, when you open the file in FrameMaker, you can attach a style with numbering applied. You will probably have to do some resetting to 1 and so on, but this is straightforward process in FrameMaker.

In Word, search for all numbers applied manually. Delete the numbers, but not the styles. Save the file.

Bullets

Like numbering, Bullets were done hopefully with styles and not manual overrides. If styles were used, then keep the style names but delete the bullet from the definition.

In Word, search for all bullets applied manually. Delete the bullet. Save the file.

Figure 3 – In Word, select pre-defined bullets and numbers

Note: If the bullets were done by hand in Word, you may find numbered paragraphs in FrameMaker with two bullets—one defined by the FrameMaker tag, and one kept from Word during the import. The quickest way to fix this is to delete the unnecessary bullet by hand. When you open the file in FrameMaker, the bullets should appear correctly as a result of FrameMaker‘s numbering system.

Cross-references

In Word, you can only cross-reference within the same file; by contrast, FrameMaker can cross-reference among other files within a Book. When FrameMaker reads a Word file with cross-references, it finds obscure marker such as “_Ref565989”. These are of no use to FrameMaker and need to be deleted.

In Word, delete all cross-references and re-create them in FrameMaker by hand. Save the file.

Artwork

Any artwork that was cut and pasted into a Word file can be imported directly into FrameMaker. However, there are two issues to consider:

1. The quality of ‘Cut and Paste’ files that you bring into FrameMaker often degrade, i.e. lose quality. Though it may be time-consuming, it’s recommended that you re-create these in PhotoShop and then import them into FrameMaker.

2. Linked graphics in Word files will not work in FrameMaker as the link settings affect what happens on the FrameMaker side. As discussed earlier, delete these files, save them individually, and then import into FrameMaker (File | Import | File).

Spanned Columns

In Word, delete spanned columns. These could open in FrameMaker as one pica wide and confuse FrameMaker’s setting. Delete the spans and re-build them in FrameMaker.

Books and master documents

Word has a Master Document feature that can be used for managing complex long documents. However, I strongly advice against using this feature; it is very unreliable and prone to corrupting documents. In turn, FrameMaker uses the concept of a Book to assemble project files and is very stable.

Figure 4 – FrameMaker’s Book feature

For the test conversion project, we use three files to create the overall ‘Book’; cover sheet; table of contents; main user guide pages. When working in FM, note that each of these files has a different master page and you need to update each master page where necessary.

Styles and tags

Wherever possible, use similar-named styles in both applications, for example, Copyright style; the only exception is when matching Word’s default Normal style with FrameMaker’s default Body tag.

Note: The fewer styles/ tags in FrameMaker, the easier it is to manage. Delete all redundant styles or tags and merge those that are similar.

Saving the RFT

After completing all these steps, save the Word file in Rich Text Format (RTF).

You can now open it in FrameMaker and refine it in accordance with the style guide.

Figure 5 – In Word, save the file as Rich Text Format

Preparing the FrameMaker file

You now have a modified Word file, saved as RFT, with all Word-specific features removed. The next phase involves:

• Returning the content deleted from the Word file, such as Artwork, headers, footers.
• Updating cross-references, indexes, TOC etc.
• Matching the file with the Style Guide.

To start the process:

In FrameMaker, in order to open the RTF file:

• Select File | Open | File Types | All Files (*.*).

Figure 6 – Select All Files (*.*) to view the RTF file.

• In the Unknown File Type pop-up window, select Microsoft RFT and click Convert.

Figure 7 – Select Microsoft RTF and click Convert

This opens the RTF file, though the format and presentation will be modified slightly from the Word version.

Save the file with a .fm extension. The next stage involves returning all Word content that was deleted (or modified).

Importing Graphics

You have two options when bringing graphics into FrameMaker. You can either:

• Option A – Cut and paste from Word or
• Option B – Cross-reference to a project directory.

Option A usually results in large file sizes as the file has to hold the graphics, whereas in Options B they are cross-referenced from their respective location.

The problem with using Option B is that you have to include the graphics folder when sending the FrameMaker files to other users.

However, the good news is that when you need to update any graphic file in the document (or documents) instead of manually going through each page, you simply update the relevant graphic – and all files are updated automatically!

Figure 8 – Option B – Import files by reference

Unwanted Tags

After you’ve opened the RTF in FrameMaker, you may find that you’ve gained a character tag called Default Paragraph Font.

The only way to delete it is to select the text, choose Default ¶ Font, and re-assign it.

Custom table ruling and shading

To delete custom table settings from the entire FrameMaker document, do the following:

• Select the document.
• Choose Table | Custom Ruling & Shading.
• Select both of the ‘From Table’ settings, and select all check boxes.
• Click Apply.

Updating the Header and Footers

As mentioned earlier, both Word and FrameMaker have a different approach to Headers and Footers. In FrameMaker, these are setup in the Master page.

FrameMaker provides default settings for each document’s headers/footers. Use the Paragraph Designer to modify them and, when finished, select ‘Update All’. You can then return to the Body Pages.

Note: when a Book is comprised of several files, you need to set the page numbers so that there is consistency between each file. To do this, open the FrameMaker file:

• Select Format | Document | Numbering | Page.
• Enter the start page number and Save.

Updating the Table of Contents

This process has 2 options depending on whether you want to integrate your TOC in the main document or you want to create a standalone TOC. For the Klariti project, I used Option B as outlined below.

• Option A – this places the TOC within the main FrameMaker file. This option makes sense when you have a small file that is easy to update.
• Option B – this involves creating a standalone TOC that will form one part of a large FrameMaker book. In this project, we used Option B as the main file was very large and other sections used different master pages, styles etc.

To create the TOC, follow these steps:

• Open the FrameMaker Book.
• Add files where necessary.
• Click Add | Table of Contents.

Figure 9– How to create a Table of Contents

This creates a standalone TOC file. Open this and check that it matches with Style Guide. To update the design/layout, open the Master pages and make the required amendments.

PDF Setup

Before you create the PDF document, you need to define the conversion settings in FrameMaker. To do this, go to:

• Format | Document | PDF Setup.
• In Settings, select Print and for Page Range, select All.
• In Bookmarks, check Generate PDF Bookmarks, and for Include Paragraphs add Chapter Title and Headings 1, 2, and 3.
• In Tags, check Generate Tagged PDF.
• Click Set to finish.

Figure 10 – In PDF Setup Settings tab, select Print from the drop-down menu.

Figure 11 – In the Bookmark tab, add the Chapter Title and Headings

Creating the PDF file

The final step involves converting the FrameMaker files into PDF.

In this test conversion project, we have used 3 FrameMaker files which together form a FrameMaker Book. A book, as the name implies, is a master file that controls the relationship between the files that it contains.

To do this, follow these steps:

• In FrameMaker, open the Cover Sheet FrameMaker file.
• Click the Print Option (File | Print). Select the PDF prnit driver from the Print drop-down menu, for example, Adobe PDF.
• In the options screen, select All and Convert PDF Data.
• Click OK.

Follow the same steps for the other two FrameMaker files. You now have three PDF files based on the FrameMaker files. After all files are converted, close FrameMaker and open Adobe Acrobat.

The next step is to create a master PDF file that will contain the 3 PDF files in the correct sequence. To do this, open the Cover Sheet, and add the other two files as follows:

• Open the Cover Sheet pdf.
• Click Edit | Insert Pages and Add the TOC pdf file.
• Click Edit | Insert Pages and add the Klariti.pdf file.
• Once all files have been added, choose File | Save As and save the file.

You now have the entire FM file in PDF format. The next step is to create hyperlinks for the main headings.

Creating Hyperlinks

In FrameMaker, when you add a table of contents, there is an option to create hyperlinks automatically. However, during this project, this option failed to work. An error message stated that it required additional fonts in order to compile. Therefore, the table of contents file did not create hyperlinks to the chapter titles and headings.

Nonetheless, in Adobe Acrobat, you can manually create these links. To do this, you select the heading and cross-reference it to the relevant page in the file.

Figure 12 – The Link tool in Adobe Acrobat

To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Adobe Acrobat, open the master PDF file, e.g. UserGuide.pdf.

2. Select Window | Bookmarks to display the bookmarks. This option shows the Chapter Title and H1/H2/H3 headings.

3. Navigate to the section of the document where you want to create a link.

4. Select the link tool.

5. Create the link rectangle in one of the following ways:

• Drag the mouse to create a marquee.

• Press Ctrl (Windows) and select the target text with the I-beam. This allows you to fit a link rectangle exactly around the selected text.

6. In the Create Link dialog box, choose a rectangle type.

7. Select a highlight option for when the link is selected.

8. Choose an action type.

9. Choose a magnification option.

10 Click Set Link.

Complete this step for all headings in the TOC.

Figure 13 – The Link Properties option in Adobe Acrobat

This process will create hyperlinks from all headings to their respective sections in the PDF document.

Security Settings

In Adobe Acrobat, there are various security options available. The most relevant for this project is to ensure that unauthorized personnel cannot modify the document.

In particular, you want to disallow unauthorised personnel from copying text from your PDF into their documents, for whatever reason.

Figure 14 – The Document Security option in Adobe Acrobat

To do this, follow these steps:

• In Adobe Acrobat, go to File | Document Security.
• Choose Adobe Standard Security from the drop-down menu.
• Under Permissions, check the four options, e.g. No Printing etc.
• Click OK. Click Close and then File | Close to save the settings.

Figure 15 –Security options in Adobe Acrobat

When you re-open the file, these settings will apply.

Matching the Style Guide

To get the styles to match, review the styles/tags in the FrameMaker file against those in the Style Guide.

For example, if the Style Guide’s Body style is Arial 10 etc, and the FrameMaker file has it set to Times Roman 11, you need to correct this as follows:

• Open FrameMaker and select all content marked as Body.
• Open Paragraph Designer and update the Body fields.
• Select ‘Apply to All’. This updates all occurrences of the Body style in the document.

To stop other technical authors from using the wrong styles, delete ALL redundant styles. For example, the RFT file may have several body styles, e.g. Body, Body + Left, Body + Indent. In FrameMaker, delete all of these otherwise future authors may use these inadvertently.

What do you think?

This approach has worked well for me when converting Microsoft Word documents into FrameMaker. I should add that the latest versions of Adobe FrameMaker offer a more streamlined approach to converting the docs.

With that said, you’re still going to have to clean up the Adobe FrameMaker docs to some extent regardless of how well the converter works.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll look at conversion software and work on the latest version of Adobe FrameMaker, which I’ve now got my hands on.

Let me know if you’ve come across better ways to convert these docs or maybe some of the issues you’ve had in converting these docs.

Thanks.