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Errata in the March 2010 release of the 2nd edition of Effective Onscreen Editing, plus miscellaneous useful additions

All corrections and additions to the book will appear on this page. If you find an error or problem that isn't included in this list, please report the problem to me so I can fix it. Comments and suggestions for improvement (including new material) are also welcome!

This page contains the following topics:

Miscellaneous points
Chapter 3: Writing and editing are human endeavors
Chapter 4: Personalizing your software
Chapter 5: Moving around the document and selecting text
Chapter 6: Using revision tracking
Chapter 8: Using the search tools
Chapter 9: Developing style sheets
Chapter 10: Spelling and grammar checkers
Chapter 11: Automating your edits
Chapter 12: Editing in special situations
Chapter 14: Internet resources
Chapter 16: Onscreen proofreading
Appendix II: Protecting yourself while using the computer
Appendix III: Troubleshooting Microsoft Word
Bibliography
Software

Miscellaneous points

Using the eBook: I've provided a document entitled "Using eBooks in PDF format" that provides tips to help you use the book more efficiently.
Word 2010 guide: If you're thinking of upgrading to Word 2010, have a look at Office 2010: The Real Startup Guide, which is published by the experts at Woody's Office Watch. Note that there's a discount for subscribers to their excellent free newsletter, so it's well worth your while to subscribe.

Chapter 3: Writing and editing are human endeavors

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Chapter 4: Personalizing your software

Assigning keyboard shortcuts: If you use Word 2003 or 2007 (and other Windows versions) should generally avoid using the Alt key as part of a keyboard shortcut unless you also add the Shift or Control keys (or both) to the shortcut. The problem? Word uses the Alt key plus a letter to open its menus. You can use the Alt key plus a letter to define a shortcut so long as the letter isn't one for a menu that you want to access from the keyboard.
Customizing contextual menus: Contextual menus are the little lists of options that appear when you right-click with the mouse. Word 2003 and 2008 let you modify the options available in these toolbars. To do so, open the Customize dialog box in the usual way, and in the section for Toolbars, select the checkbox for "Shortcut Menus". You can now modify the items in this toolbar (which provides a list of menus and their choices) following the same procedures I described for modifying any other toolbar or menu.
Customizing Word's built-in commands: Many of Word's commands are implemented using visual basic (VBA), and if you're brave, you can edit these commands. (As always, make a backup and carefully record your changes somewhere so you can retrace your steps if anything goes wrong.) Use the following procedure:
- Open the Macros dialog box (see Chapter 4 for details).
- Under the heading "Macros in:", select "Word commands".
- Scroll down to find and select the command you want to edit.
- Under the heading "Macros in:", select where you want to store the changes (e.g., only the current document).
- To change the command for all documents on your computer, store the changes in Normal.dot.
- Click the "Create" button. Word will open the VBA editor so you can modify the code.
- When you're done, quit the VBA editor; save your changes if Word asks you to do so.
Complete listing of Word 2010's commands: The kind and diligent souls at the Office Watch newsletter have compiled a complete and searchable list of Word 2010's command. Many of these commands (probably most) will also be valid in previous versions of Word.
Changing the tooltip for a macro added to a toolbar: It's easy enough to change the name of a button on a toolbar, as described in this chapter, but what if you want to change the actual tooltip that appears when you hover the mouse over that button? That's a little more complicated. Fortunately, Microsoft provides a macro that will do the job in their article "How to Change the ToolTip for a Custom Toolbar Control".
More about tooltips: Word also lets you display keyboard shortcuts when you display a tooltip, which is a useful way to learn new shortcuts. In the Customize dialog box, first ensure that the checkbox for "Show screen tips" is selected. If you want the keyboard shortcuts too, select
All Word's options: Dian Chapman, one of Microsoft's "Word MVPs", has provided a utility that lists all the options settings available to you in Word. The utility is available in both Macintosh and Windows versions.
Unicode characters on the Macintosh: As noted below (see Chapter 8, Finding the code for a character), Windows versions of Word let you type the four-digit unicode value for a character and press Alt+X to convert that into the actual character. Macintosh versions of Word don't provide that function, but you can fake it easily enough using AutoCorrect. For example, any character you can enter from the Insert Symbol dialog box can be turned into an AutoCorrect entry: simply select the character, open the AutoCorrect dialog box, and create a new (memorably) shortcut for the character.
Reasons why customizations disappear: If you've made a few changes to your setup and shut down for the day, and find them missing the next day, there are two main causes. Both relate to the fact that most customizations are stored in your Normal.dot or Normal.dotx template. First, you may not be able to save changes to these files. This can happen if you're working on a networked computer, and the network administrator has blocked changes to the file. The easiest solution is to create a new global template and use that to store all your personal customizations. (See the online help for your version of Word to learn how to do this.) A similar problem can happen on a Macintosh if the permissions for the file have been changed so that you don't have the rights to change this file. (See the online help for your particular operating system to learn how to change the permissions.) If your templates are stored in a shared directory where other members of a writing and editing group have access to the same templates, it's possible that a colleague's changes are overwriting your changes; again, the solution is to create a personal global template to store your customizations. The second cause of the problem appears to be related to Adobe Acrobat and possibly Adobe Reader. Installation of some recent versions of this software may stop Word from automatically saving such changes. If that problem has affected you, the solution is to open the Normal template directly, make whatever changes you need to make (e.g., add a toolbar or AutoText entry, record a macro), then save the file.

Chapter 5: Moving around the document and selecting text

Navigating directories in the Windows file dialog box: You can move around the file dialog box easily enough using the Tab key (and Shift+Tab to move in the opposite direction), but if you visit certain directories frequently (e.g., while you're working on a specific project), the WordTips newsletter offers a useful tip on navigating to these directories quickly.
Removing items from the Work menu in Word 2008: In Word 2008 (Macintosh), Microsoft seemingly eliminated the ability to remove items from the work menu. Fortunately, ScriptBuilders has provided the RemoveWork Applescript to perform this task. Download the .zip file from this site, double-click to extract the Applescript file, then drag it into the following folder:
[login name]/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items
The default keyboard shortcut for this script is Control+R, but you can simply run the script from the Script menu. There's no need for the keyboard shortcut given how rarely you're likely to use this script.
Autoscrolling: If you don't have one of those scroll wheels on your mouse or other pointing device, you can fake it using a built-in Word command. To access this, you'll need to customize Word using the techniques described in Chapter 4; here, you're looking for the "Autoscroll" option listed under "All commands". Drag this to one of your toolbars, or bind it to a keystroke. When you click this button or type the keyboard shortcut, a double-arrow will appear in the scroll bar; the more you move this arrow up and down the scroll bar, the faster the document will scroll. To cancel this mode, press the Esc key or click the mouse back inside the document window.
Word 2010 and 2011 keyboard shortcuts: Microsoft offers useful guides to keyboard shortcuts for Word 2010 for Windows and Word 2011 for the Macintosh.
Moving multiple words at a time: If you've been editing a manuscript using revision tracking, you can often move around rapidly using the "move to next edit" or "move to previous edit" icons in the Reviewing toolbar or Review tab of the ribbon. If you've created keyboard shortcuts for these commands, you can move around even faster by not taking your hands off the keyboard. This works because many substantive edits change two or more adjacent words simultaneously, and sometimes even a whole clause within a sentence. The two types of move will therefore move the cursor in jumps as large as the number of adjacent words that you edited in a single jump.
Selecting multiple words at a time: What about if you want to select from the current cursor position to the start or end of the sentence in a single keystroke? It's easy to do this: simply create a new keyboard shortcut for the commands SentLeftExtend (to the start of the sentence) and SentRightExtend (to the end of the sentence). I use the keyboard shortcuts Control+Alt+Shift+Home and Control+Alt+Shift+End, respectively—and don't worry, they're easier to do than they look.

Chapter 6: Using revision tracking

Collaborative editing: An error introduced during final revision slipped into the first release of the eBook (and will be corrected in the printed version): the text should say that you can accomplish this online document review using only tools you already have (i.e., that you won't have to purchase any additional software to do this). Oops!
Editor name changes to "Author": If you've set the User Information settings to use your name, but your edits are labeled as having been made by "Author", the problem lies in Word's privacy settings:
- Word 2003: In the Options dialog box, select the Security tab, and under "Privacy options", deselect the "Remove personal information from file properties on save" checkbox.
- Word 2007: In the Word Options dialog box, select the Trust Center tab, click the "Trust Center settings" button, select the Privacy Options tab, then deselect the "Remove personal information from file properties on save" checkbox.
- Word 2008: In the Preferences dialog box, select Security, and under "Privacy Options", deselect the "Remove personal information from this file on save " checkbox.
Track changes in InDesign: Adobe's upcoming update of InDesign (CS5) will offer a track changes feature.
Changing the creator's name for comments: What if you've edited an entire document and realize you need to remove your name from it so that your comments are anonymous? Current versions of Word let you do this in the Security tab of the Options or Preferences dialog box: simply select the checkbox for "Remove personal information from this file on save". But if you want to change one or more names, Alan Wyatt's article "Changing the user name in existing comments" provides a useful macro that will accomplish this.
Problems editing material at the end of a file: Recently, while editing the bibliography at the end of a manuscript, I found that I couldn't move references into correct alphabetical order or insert comments asking for clarification of bibliographic details. No problems anywhere else in the manuscript, so the problem was baffling—until I noticed that all the literature citations earlier in the manuscrip (done in the author/date format) had footnote numbers following the year. The problem was that the author had inserted the citations using Word's endnote feature, and automatically generated the bibliography from the compiled footnotes. Copying and pasting the references into a new file (thereby converting them into plain text) and then back into the manuscript solved the problem.
Don't like editing in Word? If you don't like the Word interface or how Word implements revision tracking, but you're required to use this software because your clients do, there may be a good compromise solution. Try this approach: Make whatever changes you consider necessary in your favorite word-processing software, without tracking them, then save the resulting file in Word format. If you open the original Word file, you can now turn on revision tracking and use the "compare documents" feature to copy your edits into the Word file. Since the original file never leaves Word, there shouldn't be any risk of format corruption from repeated format conversions. The "compare" feature works quite well when there are no overlapping contradictory edits. As an additional bonus, Word will record all the changes more cleanly than the usual dog's breakfast we can create when we edit a little bit here, a little bit there, and end up with puzzle sentences.
Collaborative editing: Google's "Wave" collaboration tool never quite managed to clarify what it was intended to do, and the tool is no longer available. Try using GoogleDocs instead. The Etherpad software is now an open-source "foundation", With luck, it will receive as much devoted attention as OpenOffice and Linux, and will soon become an equally popular tool.
Not enough text in comment balloons? If you do a lot of substantive editing, you may find there are more comment balloons than can fit on the screen; as a result, very little of the comment text appears. Holding the text cursor over the comment will reveal the full content of the balloon, but it disappears fairly quickly. To fit more balloon text on the screen, leave the "Comment Text" style definition set to the same typeface and size as the body text (to facilitate copying text out of the comment and into the manuscript), but set the "Balloon Text" style definition to use a condensed typeface at a smaller but still readable font size.
Side by side editing: In Word 2003, 2007, and 2010 (but not on the Macintosh), Microsoft added a feature that allows "side by side" comparisons of two documents that lets you scroll simultaneously through two documents. To get started, open the two documents you want to compare in separate windows. In Word 2003, open the Window menu and select "Compare side by side with..." In Word 2007 (and presumably 2010; I'm not using that version), select the View tab; click the text button labeled "View side by side" on the right side of the toolbar. Word will tile the two documents left and right and display a small "Compare Side by Side" toolbar (easy to miss if it happens to appear somewhere inconvenient). As you scroll in the first document, the second document will scroll at the same rate so the two views stay in synch. (If not, the first button on the toolbar lets you select this mode.) Click the "Close Side by Side" button in the toolbar to return to the view mode you were using before you tried this feature.
More "collaborative editing" options: The field of collaborative writing and editing tools is constantly moving forward, so many new options will inevitably become available over time. One obvious option if you're using Word 2010 is Microsoft's collaborative authoring option. Microsoft provides a video of how co-authoring works. Also see Microsoft's TechNet article "Co-authoring overview (SharePoint Server 2010)". Google, not to be outdone, offers its Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office service. Unfortunately, the basic documentation states that only Windows Word 2003 and later are supported, and explicitly states that there's no Macintosh support.
Table problems: In some versions of Word and some documents (the behavior seems to be inconsistent but mostly appears in Word 2003 for Windows and Word 2008 for Mac or earlier versions), there's a bug in how track changes works in tables: you may not be able to accept or reject a tracked change that affects all or part of the table. The first step in the solution is the same no matter what type of change is causing the problem: turn off track changes. If the problem relates to a format change, reapply the same format change twice: for example, if you applied italics format, select the italicized text and apply italics format the first time (which removes the format), then reapply the format. If the problem relates to inserted text, copy and then past the inserted text. If the problem relates to deleted text, simply retype the text. (If it's a long section of text, open the "Show" menu and select "Original with no changes"; you should then be able to copy and paste this text.) Turn on track changes and continue with your editing.

Chapter 8: Using the search tools

Finding text that isn't formatted with a specific style: Word can't apply the "not" operator—[!] using wildcards—in front of a paragraph style. But if you want to find any text that isn't formatted using a certain style, you can do it in two steps: First, do a global find and replace so that all text formatted using that style is highlighted (in the "Find what" field, select the style name; in the "Replace with" field, select highlighting). Second, search for all text that is not highlighted (in the "Find what" field, select "Highlight" twice to change the pattern to "not highlighted". You can now use the find function to find all text that is not highlighted (i.e., text that is not formatted using the style to which you previously applied formatting).
Finding the code for a character: In Word 2003 and 2007, it's easy to find the Unicode value for any character: simply place the cursor to the right of the character and press Alt+X. Pressing Alt+X again converts the number back into the original character again. This is particularly useful when you receive a file from someone who is using a font that doesn't exist on your computer; any character that doesn't exist in the available fonts on your computer will typically appear as an empty box. Once you know the Unicode value of the mystery character, you can look up its identity at FileFormat.info using their Unicode Character Search tool, then type the character yourself (or use search and replace to do the hard word for you).
Bookmarks to avoid getting lost: In the section of this chapter where I suggested using a bookmark such as "< >"

to help you find where you'd paused to search for something elsewhere in a document, I chose those two characters both because they were unlikely to occur in a manuscript and because they were typographically distinct; I originally tried using the actual characters that I use myself, the left and right square brackets "[" and "]", but they kept merging into a single character or being split onto separate lines as the page layout evolved. The key to choosing such characters is to make them as simple as possible to type, so anything that avoids the need to use the Shift key or to move your fingers much is a great choice. For example, [[ (two left square brackets) would work even better than my current bookmark.

Highlight all in Word 2007: This feature in the search dialog works very differently from how it worked in previous versions of Word. First, you now select it from a menu in the dialog box instead of selecting a checkbox. Second, instead of selecting (highlighting) all examples of the search text so that you can (for example) apply a format such as italics, Word 2007 applies the highlighter marker format. (You can also remove this format from the same dialog box.)
"Find next" in Word 2011 for the Mac: The search function in Word 2011 is still badly damaged even after the third maintenance patch for the software (December 2011). One example is that the "find next" feature does not work reliably. But there's a simple workaround: First, open the search and replace dialog box (Edit-->Find-->Advance search and replace) instead of using the search field at the top of the document window. Because this dialog box is treated like any other window, you can use the OS X "switch to the next window" keyboard shortcut (Command + `) to change the focus from the dialog box to the document window after you find the search term. Make any necessary changes, then press this shortcut to switch back to the dialog box. Pressing Enter will find the next instance of the search term. Repeat as necessary.

Chapter 9: Developing style sheets

More intelligent use of style sheets: If Word's spelling and grammar tools frustrate you (as they do most editors), have a look at Intelligent Editing's PerfectIt, software that integrates with Word and goes beyond simple spellchecks to include a review of documents against customized style sheets (several of which are freely available on the developer's Web site). Unfortunately, the software's only available for Windows users, but it will work with Word 2000 to 2007. Click the Reviews tab in the Web site's navigation bar to see what various reviewers have said about the software.

Chapter 10: Spelling and grammar checkers

Word 2008 spellcheck bug: In older versions of Word for the Macintosh, the default button in the spellchecker is "Ignore once"; this means that when you encounter a word that is correctly spelled, but not in Word's spelling dictionary, and you don't want to add it to your custom dictionary, pressing Enter or Return will skip that word and move on without taking any action. Often, that's exactly what you want to do. Unfortunately, Word 2008 changes this behavior such that whatever button you last clicked becomes the new default. This can lead to inadvertent replacements of correct words, adding many incorrect words to your custom dictionary, and other undesirable consequences. The only solution I'm aware of is to click with your mouse on the "Ignore Once" button, whether for all correct words or as the first step after you have clicked any other button, thereby resetting the default behavior.
Checking spelling from the keyboard: If you want to check a single word rather than the whole document, and don't want to use the mouse, there are two ways to do this. First, select the word using any of the shortcuts in Chapter 5. On the Mac, press Command+Option+L to bring up the spellcheck dialog. Since the text is already selected, Word will ask you whether you want to check the rest of the text; simply press "N" to say no. In Windows, do the same thing, but press Alt+T to open the tools menu, then press S to check the spelling; again, press "N" to tell Word you don't want to check the rest of the document.
Display problems in the spellcheck dialog box: In Word 2003 for Windows and comparable versions, the spellcheck dialog box shows all your tracked changes, not the final text, whether or not you choose to display these changes in the main document window. There's no solution to this problem that I'm aware of, but there is a workaround: create a temporary version of the file with all changes accepted, and perform your spellcheck in that file. Note down any errors that you find (or use revision tracking to automatically record them in the temporary file) and when you're done, copy those changes into the main document. Word 2007 for Windows fixes the problem: in the spellcheck dialog box, you'll see whatever you see in the main document window (i.e., the text with or without the changes displayed, depending on your "Show" settings). Word 2011 for the Macintosh also solves the problem, though you may prefer Word 2007's solution: in Word 2011's spellcheck dialogue, you'll see the final spelling that results from your changes no matter what you choose to display in the document window.
Word flags correctly spelled words as spelling errors: There are two usual causes for this problem. First, the word may be correctly spelled but may have the incorrect language assigned to it. You can fix this easily enough by manually reapplying the correct language setting. Second, the word may have been added to your exclude (exclusion) dictionary. In that case, the solution is to edit that dictionary to remove the word. A third cause that is most common with authors who use non-Roman alphabets is the substitution of a lookalike character (like the number 1 instead of lower-case L or the number 0 instead of capital O). In some fonts, that can be hard to spot even if you know what to look for. If you encounter many such problems, you can try using the search function to find them; for example, ^$^# or ^#^$ will find the number-for-letter substitution. A fourth possibility relates an obscure setting in the Windows registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0\Override); deleting this entry can solve the problem. However, don't muck about with the Windows registry if you don't know what you're doing. Check Microsoft's knowledge base for "edit the registry" or similar keywords, followed by the version of Windows you're using, and follow their instructions carefully. As always, changing a setting isn't likely to cause serious problems if (1) you backup the registry before you begin and (2) you carefully write down what you did so you can undo that change.

Chapter 11: Automating your edits

AutoCorrect stops working for some words: If the AutoCorrect feature stops working, this may result from a hidden feature of Word operating without your knowledge: the exclusion list. In the AutoCorrect dialog box (Word 2003 and 2008) and the AutoCorrect Options dialog box (Word 2007), click the "Exceptions..." button. To stop Word from creating its own list of exclusions without your permission, deselect the checkbox for "Automatically Add Words to List". Remove any exceptions that Word has already added from the relevant tabs in this dialog box by selecting the exception and clicking the "Remove" button. Note that there's also an "Add" button here that lets you add exceptions that you don't want Word to automatically correct.
Eliminating text boxes: Text boxes are annoying for many reasons, including their invisibility in certain view modes and inability to hold comments inserted using Word's commenting features. Alan Wyatt provides some useful macros for deleting text boxes and copying their text into the main document in his article "Removing all text boxes in a document".
Sharing autotext shortcuts in a workgroup: Word Tips provides some useful tips on how to share your autotext shortcuts by storing them on a network. The short version: create a single global template to hold the shortcuts, and configure Word for all members of your group to load this file from a single shared Startup directory on your network. If you adopt this approach, appoint one person to manage this file and ask group members to send all proposed shortcuts to that person so they can implement them.
Printing autocorrect entries: I store all of my autocorrect entries in a Word file for ease of access and so I can recreate them easily if need be (i.e., if I'm traveling and don't have access to backups of my Word templates). If you want to print a copy of your AutoCorrect entries, try this macro at the Word Tips site.
Using the Organizer to move automatic text entries between files: Visit the WordTips site to learn more about using Word's built-in tools to move your AutoCorrect and AutoText shortcuts between documents and templates.
Transferring AutoCorrect entries between computers: The Word MVPs provide a description of how to move your AutoCorrect entries between computers, including useful macros. It's also worth noting that Word stores AutoCorrect entries in two places: the formatted ones are stored in the Normal.dot template; the others are stored in files whose names end in .ACL.
Bug in Word 2003's macro recorder: If you're trying to record certain steps in a macro, you may find that an operation that works just fine from the keyboard won't work at all if you record it. The Word MVPs provide some useful tips on how to modify a recorded macro that may help. For specific help with the macro in Chapter 12 on changing font color, see the errata for Chapter 12 later on this page.
Word 2003 and 2007 tool for managing AutoCorrect entries: If you're using Word 2003 or 2007, you should have access to a template named "Support.dot". This includes an AutoCorrect Utility that makes it easier to manage AutoCorrect entries. See Microsoft's articles "How to move Word AutoCorrect entries between computers in Word 2003" and "How to move AutoCorrect entries in Word 2007 from one computer to another computer" for instructions on how to install and use this utility.
Abundant free macros: Paul Beverley offers a free 300-page book, Macros for Writers and Editors. Better still, if you need to learn more than I can teach you about writing macros, he offers training courses.
System-wide autocorrect in Apple's OS X: As of version 10.6 of the OS/X operating system, Apple offers the equivalent of Word's "autocorrect" feature in any application. To learn how to use it, consult MacWorld's article "Enable text subsitutions in any app". This feature is expected to be greatly expanded in the upcoming (July 2011) "Lion" version of the operating system.
Typing text in a macro: If you want to have your macro insert a bunch of text, you can't simply type those words into the macro. Instead, you must tell the macro what you want it to do (i.e., type text for you) using the appropriate keywords. There are three main keywords you can use for different circumstances:
- Selection.TypeText Text:="this text"
- Selection.TypeText Text:=MyText
- Selection.InsertParagraph
The first option inserts everything between the quote marks as a single paragraph, the second inserts any text you have stored in a variable named MyText (which you must define separately), and the third inserts a paragraph mark (an empty line). Combining the first and third options lets you inserts paragraphs of text that are separated by a carriage return; combining them with the second option lets you insert different text by choosing different variables.
Macro cookbook: Jack Lyon, well-known macro expert, has released his Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. It's a painless and pleasant introduction to the sometimes arcane art of creating macros in Word. In addition to explaining the hows and whys, it also includes a batch of sample macros you can modify and use on your own. The book is available online from Barnes and Noble.

Chapter 12: Editing in special situations

Error changing the color of HTML tags: If you tried recording a macro for the steps used to change the color of HTML tags, please accept my apologies. I was certain I'd tested this, but somehow managed to miss a bug in Word 2003's macro recorder that prevents the software from recording certain selections in the search and replace dialog box, including the font color. To fix the recorded macro so that it actually makes the desired change, edit the macro following the instructions provided in Chapter 11. Look for the following line:
.Replacement.Text = "^&"
Press the Enter (Return) key at the end of the line to add a new line, and type (or copy and paste) the following text:
.Replacement.Font.Color = wdColorGray25
To access Word's built-in colors, type "wdColor" (without the quotation marks), followed by one of these names: Aqua, Automatic, Black, Blue, BlueGray, BrightGreen, Brown, DarkBlue, DarkGreen, DarkRed, DarkTeal, DarkYellow, Gold, Gray05, Gray10, Gray125, Gray15, Gray20, Gray25, Gray30, Gray35, Gray375, Gray40, Gray45, Gray50, Gray55, Gray60, Gray625, Gray65, Gray70, Gray75, Gray80, Gray85, Gray875, Gray90, Gray95, Green, Indigo, Lavender, LightBlue, LightGreen, LightOrange, LightTurquoise, LightYellow, Lime, OliveGreen, Orange, PaleBlue, Pink, Plum, Red, Rose, SeaGreen, SkyBlue, Tan, Teal, Turquoise, Violet, White, Yellow.
Note: "Automatic" refers to whatever font color is defined by the paragraph style for the text, and the numbers following the word "Gray" are percentages of black (100%); for three-digit numbers, the third number represents 0.5%.
Turning off the Asian document grid without installing Asian language support: One of the problems we often face is weird text display and an inability to change line spacing when an author has turned on the grid feature that is used to align Asian characters. I originally wrote that you need to install Asian language support to be able to turn off the grid, but a little exploration revealed a simpler way. Create the following macro in the Visual Basic Editor following the instructions in Chapter 11:
Sub TurnOffGrid()
' TurnOffGrid Macro recorded 7/4/2011 by Geoff Hart
With ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal).Font
If .NameFarEast = .NameAscii Then
.NameAscii = ""
End If
.NameFarEast = ""
End With
With ActiveDocument.PageSetup
.LayoutMode = wdLayoutModeDefault
End With
End Sub

Chapter 14: Internet resources

Verb conjugation: Conjugation.com offers conjugations of many verbs, including some problematic irregular verbs. It's probably less useful to editors than to our authors, but if you work with many authors for whom English is a second language, this may be a useful link to send them.
Business and other dictionaries: BusinessDictionary.com offers access to a series of dictionaries on business and several other seemingly unrelated subject areas, with a claimed repertoire of more than 20 000 words and a great many links between them.
Oxford dictionaries: The Oxford University Press has made a searchable version of their English dictionary available.
Good advice on article use: If, like me, you work with authors for whom English is a second language, you may find it helpful to point them to the following resources that provide detailed explanations of how to use articles in English: Purdue University's online writing lab, the Learn English Network, David Appleyard's guide, and the University of North Carolina's guide.
Proposed standard style guidelines for medical journals: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICME) has made their "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical journals" guidelines available. It's a useful resource if you have to edit for journals that follow these guidelines, or for creating your own guidelines to meet different needs.

Chapter 16: Onscreen proofreading

Markup in Apple's Preview software: If you use a Mac, you can use the built-in tools to add comments and minor edits to PDF files. To do so, add the relevant tools to Preview's toolbar: open the View menu, select Customize Toolbar, then drag the Annotate and Mark Up groups of icons into the toolbar. You can also access these commands under the Tools menu. Then open a copy of the file, since any changes you make will become permanent. The Annotate tools let you add ovals, rectangles, and notes to the PDF. With the text tool active (select it under the Tools menu), the Mark Up tools let you drag the mouse cursor to select text and then add a highlight (background color), underline the text, or add a strikethrough format. To send these changes to a colleague, save the file. Unfortunately, the changes cannot be undone once you save the file.
Displaying two files side by side: In Word 2003, 2007, and 2010 (but not on the Macintosh), you can display two files side by side and configure Word to scroll the second file simultaneously as you scroll the first file. That's obviously useful for proofreading against the original document. For details, see the description under Chapter 6 in this document.
Reading PDF files aloud: The most recent versions of Adobe Reader have a "Read Out Loud" feature. Bizarrely, it's hidden away under the View menu. But it works surprisingly well, and lets you compare two documents by having the computer read the PDF version of one document aloud while you scan a different version, looking for differences.

Appendix II: Protecting yourself while using the computer

Parklane Mattress (of all places) offers a great collection of general ergonomics links in their article "Ergonomics at work or school".
Anyplace Control software offers another useful resource, "Computer safety and ergonomics: preventing repetitive stress injury".
The Office Furniture Spot offers yet another useful compendium, "Office Ergonomics".

Appendix III: Troubleshooting Microsoft Word

Word's automatic numbering: Shauna Kelly, a well-known Word expert, provides some additional advice on how to successfully number headings in Word. Her Web site contains a wealth of other useful advice on how to deal with Microsoft Word.
Master documents: The good folks at Office Watch believe that this feature is now safely debugged. Visit the Office Watch site to learn more about "Master Documents without pain".
"Disk full" or "too many files open" error message: Microsoft provides another possible explanation for the source of this problem: the document contains corrupt or invalid links. The steps described in this problem seem relevant in later versions of Word too, with appropriate changes due to differences in menus and dialog boxes between versions. If faulty links are at the root of this problem, the "open and repair" option in the "open file" dialog box may also be a useful thing to try.
Office 2010 (and 2011?) guide: The good folks at Office Watch have created "Office 2010: the real startup guide" to help you move from older versions of Microsoft Office to newer versions, and then figure out how to cope with all the changes in these new versions. I haven't read the book, but I've been reading their newsletter for more than a decade, including the articles leading up to the release of this book, and they really know their stuff. Well worth a look. I imagine much of the advice will also apply to Office 2011 for the Macintosh. Tip: If you subscribe to their free newsletter (an excellent resource), you can buy the book for a discounted price. Subscribe at their main Web page.
Word 2011 (on the Mac) slow: Even after installing the third series of patches (as of November 2011), I've found that Word 2011 can be painfully slow. I haven't completely solved the problem, but one helpful trick that should also improve the functioning of other programs is to eliminate duplicate fonts. (Microsoft installs its own set, and some of these may conflict with Apple's fonts.) To solve this problem, quit all progams that are running, then open the Applications folder and run the Font Book software. Under the Edit menu, choose "Select Duplicated Fonts". Reopen the Edit menu and choose "Resolve Duplicates". When the software finishes this task, quit the Font Book and restart your computer. Note that this procedure does not actually delete the fonts; it just "turns them off" by moving them into a separate folder where the operating system won't load them. If you find that you need one of these fonts, you can re-enable it using Font Book.
Crashes and unsaved files: Word sometimes just disappears suddenly, taking all your work with it; most disturbingly, some crashes appear to eliminate all of Word's autosaved backups. For this reason, it's best if you save your work frequently rather than relying on Word, and best if you copy the saved files somewhere safe, like a flash drive. This ensures that Word can't damage those versions of the file no matter how hard it crashes. I'm not using Word 2010, but am told that the software may let you recover some of your work after a crash if you can't find a version of the file that contains your most recent work. When you restart Word, try this: Open the File menu (under the Word button at the top left side of the screen), select Recent, then select "Recover unsaved files". These files can be found in C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles should you want to go looking for them yourself.

Bibliography

Janet McKenzie's book The Editor's Companion (Cambridge University Press) is worth a look as a companion to Effective Onscreen Editing: the author is currently working to produce the revised 2nd edition.
The American University's Center for Social Media has provided a useful guide entitled "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication".

Software

Accounting software: The Gnu open-source software group offers their free accounting software GnuCash for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. Not quite as refined as Quicken et al., but free and worth a try.
Encryption software: The open-source movement gives us TrueCrypt for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux.