Re: Can I Automatically Insert Section Breaks?

Subject: Re: Can I Automatically Insert Section Breaks?
From: "Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:12:00 +0530

Ned: a few points in reply to your firehose-type post :-)

a) I have Word 2000. Provided there is only a single section in a
document, and that the author has already set up headers and footers,
Word defaults headers/footers of new sections to the "Same as
Previous" setting. I confess I hadn't even thought of this - the OP
made no mention of additional constraints - but I just re-tested this
with a sample footer, to verify that this is what actually happens.

b) Existing section breaks - nope, didn't think of that either. :-)
Caveat emptor - the OP should know enough to use what she asked for in
an effective way. And to indicate (even if in follow-up posts) any
unforeseen side-effects/consequences.

c) For a macro done and tested in 15 minutes, there is a hell of a lot
that can go wrong, yes. As you say, this work is uncompensated, and I
can't afford to take half a day off work to put together a killer app
which would take care of all possible needs, present and future, that
the OP may have had. I know I sound sarcastic there, but I'm not
intending to be sarky - this is just another statement of cold fact.
In its present form, the problem was small enough that I could take a
15-minute break and run off this macro. I cannot justify hours spent
on solving a single problem - without generating any revenue for the
company... To be honest, if the OP had to include a spec as large as
what you're hinting at, I would have run. Far and fast. :-)

d) "I like the view of tech writing as writing with technical tools
(code is a good example).": I like that, too. Recently, I wrote a VB6
app to automate generation of a Word doc from book-review records in
an Access database (which I designed, and included a spiffy form for
data entry, as well). I have also recently worked on a series of
macros for maintaining and combining chapter documents into a single
Word document, for a major client in the US. Both of these were
situations where it was more than appropriate to write code, since it
saved several hours of manual work on the docs.

e) I used to be a VB programmer (9+ years at it) and have learnt to
overcome the urge to build everything and the kitchen sink into an
app. From a designer's point of view, I agree that it is
soul-satisfying to provide bells and whistles capable of rendering a
symphony in an app, but those instincts have to be tempered with
practical considerations. Time and money are those practical
considerations. I'm no hacker, just a little above a mediocre
code-churner. It takes me time to code, and on company time I can't
afford to spend hours working on turning out the best section-break
app that ever existed :-) since that would amount to dereliction of
duty.

Nor, without incentives, would I consider spending hours of my
off-work time on something with such a limited scope, and which serves
one single person's needs. If I was helping build a tool which did a
lot of helpful things and could be used by a wide cross-section of the
TW community, that would be a worthwhile expenditure of time. Not a
one-off like this.

f) "my silence on Ed's snippet conveyed my concerns adequately": Nope
- it didn't. OTOH, this *huge* post of yours DID convey your concerns,
in a form that I'm sure a lot more of us understood - compared to the
silence! :-)

Regards,
Ed.

On 10/18/06, Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com> wrote:

I don't have a current version of Word and I'm no Word goo-roo, but I
believe that inserting section breaks requires more attention to the
possibility of existing section breaks, and to header/footer settings,
before it is fair to unleash Ed's macro as a solution. More power to Ed
for his good intentions and generosity with his time and skills, but did
the original writer understand Word well enough to know that Ed's macro
had the potential for undoing the headers and footers of each section of
15 documents? We may never know, since the lights at the original
writer's end of the thread apparently went dark shortly after Ed posted
his code.

If the original question was also sent to more appropriate msword
newsgroups or mailing lists, it could be that the original writer has
moved on with a different solution. A complete solution is within reach,
given more of someone like Ed's uncompensated effort, that would also
provide automation for choosing files in a common dialog and
opening/changing/saving all 15 documents in one sweet button click. Or,
perhaps someone pointed out Word intrinsic functions and options for new
sections? Isn't there something in Layout for defining the start of new
sections?

But anyway, as I sometimes like to point out, the 'net has better lists
than techwr-l for trolling those tool questions under the noses of the
deep denizens, experts and innovators who give answers and solve
problems with oracular precision. So, I think many of us prefer not to
do straight tool questions on techwr-l because simple "How do I..." tool
queries can become jagged reefs and icebergs before we can reach the
bottom line response. I myself don't usually pursue a thread that seems
likely to wind up holed and abandoned in my drafts folder.

But to your point, I didn't just ignore Ed's thread. I read and
considered it judiciously, because I like the view of tech writing as
writing with technical tools (code is a good example). My response took
a MOR (middle of road) path where I didn't comment on his solution
directly because I read and liked his work but didn't want to get
involved with the typical imbroglio of a poorly specified problem and
the stress-inducing designer's impulse to come up with something in
response to an incomplete specifications.

Still, I do hope that every question posted to techwr-l gets an
appropriate techwr-l sort of response (it should reflect comprehension
or active listening, right?). And I loathe the vacuous, tossed-off,
pissheaded blow-off replies! But of course, so much is spoken by what is
not said, and my silence on Ed's snippet conveyed my concerns
adequately, IMHO. Not sure why the original poster hasn't chimed in to
validate my concerns or even why others have not read my meaning more
accurately, or have seemed to ignore it completely. But I don't really
require a response--I grok the 'net as a murky and unfathomable place to
correspond, wherein lies madness unless you establish an equilibrium
between the effort to communicate your ideas and the expectation for a
satisfactory reply.

The posts and threads on techwr-l, in case you haven't seen this, are
often from a design perspective. Let's face it, we are designers much of
the time. Like it or not, design is an important problem solving skill
in our field. We do often have to proceed with incomplete information,
and it is not always appropriate to tar and feather a question or
designed solution as a knee-jerk, undigested, hastily thrown together
histrionical affair arising in ego. Design is an important part of what
we do. My $.02, not spent all in one place.


Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com

"Keyboard not found. Hit F1 to continue."
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Follow-Ups:

References:
RE: Can I Automatically Insert Section Breaks?: From: Jayaseelan Pannirselvam
Re: Can I Automatically Insert Section Breaks?: From: Ned Bedinger

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