Retagging paragraphs in Word (was: MS Word screws up yet ANOTHER project)

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Kevin McLauchlan notes: <<In the several years since we got bought, I  
haven't started a single document in Word. It's all been docs that  
I've inherited one way or t'other.>>

Sympathies. I have several hundred clients from all over the world at  
this point, and every time I think I've seen the last possible way to  
screw up a document, someone always surprises me. <grin> Mind you,  
this isn't just Word. The same problems can be created in any  
software. Ask me about the desktop publisher I used to work with many  
years back...

<<The one or two that I did create, I did in OOo. If I needed to hand  
off to anybody in modifiable form, I exported as .doc, and have had  
no problems... but then I would have started off in OOo rigorously  
using styles for everything. That's not the case with the inherited  
docs.>>

Like me, you probably find each one a uniquely new and exciting  
adventure. <grin> However, one useful trick that can solve tons of  
problems is to export the file as HTML. No, really... that converts  
most of the manual style overrides into tags, and you can easily  
write a macro to strip out the problem tags and replace them and the  
other tags with correct tages before you reimport the file into Word  
or OO or whatever you use.

<<Regarding those inherited Word docs...  y'know that dictum about  
never attributing to malice what can be explained by simple  
ignorance? Well I'm not entirely persuaded.>>

You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you.


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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