Re: Content management for Word documents?

["Gary S. Callison" <huey -at- interaccess -dot- com>]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA ("Hart, Geoff") wrote:
> Lisa van Aswegen wonders: <<I am in the midst of a battle for
> conversion over to XML from Corel Draw - yes, yes I know what on earth
> was the person thinking when they created documentation in Corel
> Draw.>>
> It happens. One of my authors creates these massive spreadsheets with
> the docs embedded entirely in the spreadsheet.

Massive spreadsheets? Ha! Kids these days. Why, when I was younger, I'd
have killed for massive spreadsheets. I used to get hundreds of tiny 
spreadsheets. I asked the person who gave me this "Why Excel?". They said
"Oh, I love it. If I had my way, we'd use Excel for everything".

This was on a conference call, so thankfully they didn't see me cringe.

The solution for me generally involved asprin or ibuprofen, the occasional
but more and more frequent gin & tonic, and then:
  For each .XLS file
     For each sheet in the .XLS file
        Select All
        Paste into a notepad window
        Select All in the notepad window
        Paste into Word (cell boundaries have become tabs at this point
                and row boundaries become linefeeds)
        If it makes more sense to keep some or all of the text in a table
           For each chunk that it makes sense to keep tabular 
               Select it 
               Click the 'table' icon
               clean up the formatting
           done with that chunk
        clean up the text, which often involves completely rearranging 
          the structure such that it flows in a comprehensible fashion
          and similar topics are grouped together.
     Done with that sheet
  Done with that spreadsheet
and then usually another couple asprin or ibuprofen, washed down with
another gin & tonic. 

If you find yourself working on a project such as this, I heartily
recommend buying your headache remedy of choice in bulk, and finding a
good discount liquor store or duty-free shop. Therapy may also be a good
option if you find yourself with the uncontrollable urge to get a tattoo
gun, tackle people in the hallways, and etch "I use spreadsheet software
as a word processor" on their foreheads. And, once you've explained this
to them, all of the other, wiser coworkers will generally understand and
leave you alone when they find you at your desk with the
thousand-yard-stare that the main character has at the end of the movie
Brazil. It can even become part of the new-employee orientation. "And,
over here, we have Huey, who- ...oh, never mind." "Sheesh, what's up with
HIM?" "He must have gotten new spreadsheets today. I'll explain later.
Let's move on down the hall..."

Happy Friday. 

-- 
Huey


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

NEED TO PUBLISH FRAMEMAKER CONTENT ONLINE? "Mustang" is a NEW single
sourcing tool for FrameMaker that lets you easily publish your content
online. No macro language required! http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l3

Mercer University's online MS Program in Technical Communication Management:
Preparing leaders of tomorrow's technical communication organizations today.
See www.mercer.edu/mstco or write George Hayhoe at hayhoe_g -at- mercer -dot- edu -dot- 

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.