Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with wordprocessing

Word processor that organizes docs like OneNote does.

giggleknickers — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:44:21 -0800

Word processor that organizes my docs right there in the interface? I'm looking for a word processor that does something Microsoft OneNote does. It simulates a binder with notebooks so that my documents are all organized right in the GUI of the program. Unfortunately, I don't like OneNote for various reasons, so I'm trying to find another program that does this. I don't need any of the OneNote features apart from those of basic word processing, i.e. font selections, font colours, bold/italic, bullets and tables. Preferably with tabs!

Anything like this exist? If not, anyone want to help me program one? :-P

Save the footnotes

synecdoche — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:28:28 -0800

Is there any way to solve Pages' funny behaviour with long footnotes? For a variety of reasons, I prefer to use Pages to Microsoft Word. For the most part, I'm happy with the program, but it does have one bug(?) that's really irritating: it doesn't seem to know what to do with long footnotes.

What seems to happen is this: if a footnote is longer than the remaining space on a page, Pages breaks up the text so that the footnoted word (and its footnote) is on the next page. As a result, there's a significant chunk of white space at the bottom of the page before the footnote. I think what should happen is that the footnote should be split over two pages, but Pages seems to be incapable of doing this.

I've done some googling and asked on the Apple Support Forums but haven't had any luck solving this problem. The only other option seems to be to convert the footnotes to endnotes but I'd like to see if I can work things out and keep the footnotes as they are what I prefer to use for this particular document.

Does anybody here have any ideas of ways to fix it? (I have submitted a "suggestion" to Apple but I doubt this is likely to get fixed before the next version of Pages, if then.)

Global replace all in Word using the clipboard?

kingjoeshmoe — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:38:04 -0800

How can I (quickly) globally replace text in word with a footnote (or anything from my clipboard)? I have a document that is hundreds of pages long, and has certain phrases that are made repeatedly, and I need to make edits to those repeated phrases. In most cases, this is not a problem. I can get pretty far just by using "Replace All", typing the phrase I need to change in the first box, and the new text in the bottom.

But I'm running into problems when I get phrases with footnotes in them. I can find phrases with footnotes just fine using ^f, but you can't replace that way. The best solution I've got so far is to type a unique phrase in the replace window (like qqqq), and then manually search for each instance of the phrase and replace with a footnote copied from my clipboard. But this means I need to do this search about 80 times each time it comes up. Is there some way to do a global search and replace, where the replace uses whatever is in my clipboard?

Word count software

carmen — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:40:30 -0800

Is there a word count program that you can set to measure the number of words typed in a period of time rather than the number of words that appear on the page? I'm doing some editing-heavy stuff, and (mostly for personal satisfaction) I would like to know how many words I'm actually typing in a work session. The first minus last word count doesn't work, because I often delete large paragraphs or sections of inline notes that are no longer needed. It's sometimes discouraging to work steadily for an hour and end up with fewer pages than you started with!

Anyway, I need something that works on a Mac and preferably is not specific to a word processing program. (Although if it's important, I use Mellel.)

Block these blocks

thomas j wise — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:06:16 -0800

Word2007Filter: A MS Word 2007 document has decided that it wants to insert a dotted line marker (small squares across the page) before and after a block quotation...twice, and only twice. What on earth is this? More to the point, how do I get rid of it? Erasing and retyping the quotation doesn't help, so it clearly has something to do with a mysterious local formatting command. No enlightenment from either Google or Help (help!). My book manuscript will thank you.

Help with autonumbering in Word2007, please!

mateuslee — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:49:06 -0800

How do I number individual tables in Word2007? (I don't mean numbering cells, or inserting captions). The numbering on my dissertation is now all screw up! So, I'm writing a long chapter for my dissertation which involves lots of examples like this:

1) Aka is__ harsta.m
this clothing AC wash I
‘Wash this clothing!’ (imperative)

Whenever I switch from Word07 to other versions of Word the formatting gets all screwed up and, since I already have over 100 examples and growing, I thought best to put these examples into tables (with invisible borders) to stabalize them and avoid a mess like this:

1) Aka is__ harsta.m
this clothing AC wash I
‘Wash this clothing!’ (imperative)

The tables work great, however, they are hard to number using the autonumbering in Word. It seems impossible to have a table exist on the same level as a number, and since some examples are tables and others are not, I would like the numbering to be consistent.

Does anyone know of a solution for this? Thanks!

snsranch had an oopsie! (computer wise)

snsranch — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:05:52 -0800

I Screwed Up My Wife's Computer and I'm In TROUBLE!! HELP! My wife is a teacher and somehow I screwed up her MS Word. It now asks for a key code and I don't have one that works.

Instead of fooling with it and MS, I'd like to find a suitable replacement for MS word for her, and hopefully for free.

Any recommendations for free software that is functionally similar to MS Word?

I'm sure I'll eventually work this out with MS, we have legit copies of Office for students and teachers.

In the mean time, she's on MY machine, and will be until I rectify this!

Many thanks in advance!

Word formatting problem

sulaine — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:33:09 -0800

MS Word formatting issue: it applies any changes to entire document. How do I make Word only apply formatting changes to the selected text? If I highlight one word or sentence or section and try to change the format (bold, change font size, add bullets) it will apply the change to the entire document. Then when I hit undo, it removes the change from the document except for the selected section.

What gives? How do I fix it?

Make writing more satisifying with sound effects!

Citizen Premier — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:32:11 -0800

Make writing more satisifying with sound effects! *Tahtikkatakkatahtakkatikkatitakkatahtitakkatitatakka-ka-CHUNG* Is there a word processing software, or online typing site, or modification for MS Word, which gives me traditional typewriter sounds when I hit the keys? Bonus if I can edit the sound. If there isn't could you make one for me? Thanks!

Tabs, pseudo-columns, and wrapping lines

largecorp — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:11:31 -0800

Name. Tab. Phone number. This creates two columns. One for name and one for phone number, except--when someone has a really long name that goes past the tab setting and impinges on the phone number area. Is there some sort of tab setting that will make that long name wrap around, creating a second line within its own name area? For the record, I know I could use a table to do exactly this, but I'm reformatting a huge amount of text that is already laid out with tabs. Any advice for this poor sap who accepted the job? The text is in an InDesign document, but I can copy it to a word processor or anything that would do the trick. Thanks!

Mac word processor for academic writing in the humanities?

synecdoche — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:13:39 -0800

I don't like Microsoft Word much; it feels really bloated to me, and has so many features I never use. I've been looking for an alternative for some time. What word processor does the hivemind recommend for academic writing? I am a graduate student, about to tackle the beast that is my dissertation, and am hoping to find one word processing program (that is hopefully not Word) that I can use for it as well as the other articles and such that I need to work on. I've been waiting on the official release for OpenOffice 3 (for the native Mac support), but in the current lull in the school year, I was hoping to test the waters and find what works best for me.

My writing is usually pretty straightforward. I have no need for elaborate figures, mathematical symbols, or anything like that. I'm in the humanities, and if it works with MLA format, with occasional forays into, say, Chicago, that's good enough for me. But, on the other hand, I'd like something that produces documents that are portable enough that, if need be, I can use Word or OpenOffice on the school's computers, and can easily send something off to a journal without having to re-format the entire document because it got garbled in translation. I also occasionally receive (and provide) feedback from professors and colleagues who use Word's "Track Changes" and "Insert Comment" features; support for these things would be nice, too.

Oh, and I also use spreadsheets as part of my research workflow.

Am I stuck with keeping Office on my computer? Or can I switch to something else completely? What about Mellel?

Cheap is good, too.

Non-Sharepoint Version Control for Word?

Alterscape — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:21:53 -0800

Alternatives to SharePoint for multi-user collaboration and version control on Word documents (Word 2004 Mac, 2008 Mac)? I'm a grad student. The last paper I worked on had three actively contributing authors, and in the last day before the deadline, I spent almost all day integrating changes submitted via email from the other two authors into a single up-to-date version (we were all working in one office, on separate machines). I know about "track changes" in Word, but that only works effectively when a single document is edited by many people in a serial manner, which isn't terribly efficient.

I don't feel like this is good use of anyone's time. We use subversion and git to version-control software source code, and subethaedit or Google Docs/wikis from time to time to pair-program or work on writing text collaboratively. Subethaedit has no formatting capabilities, as it's meant as a programmer's editor, and neither Google Docs' nor wikis' formatting capabilities are up to par with the complex formatting requirements of some of the venues we publish in. In theory, we could compose the text in google docs/wikis/a version-controlled plaintext document and format it for Word as a last step, but my coauthors often want to see/manipulate the document in Word early on in the drafting process to check length and layout figures/etc.

Since the new xml-based Word documents are in theory plaintext files, I suppose Git could handle them if I handled conflict resolution in a text editor, but many of my collaborators still use older versions of Word that can't export the xml-based files.

I know I could write the text with LaTeX markup, version control that with our plaintext version control system, and render the output the final PDF through LaTeX, but I don't think I could convince the rest of my collaborators to learn TeX syntax, and some of the venues I publish in only provide Word templates.

I personally use NeoOffice and OpenOffice when possible, but I own Word 2008 in order to more easily collaborate with Word users, and I don't think I could convince the people I work with to switch to OpenOffice, so any version tracking system I used would need to accomodate .doc/.docx files anyway.

Sharepoint seems to be the Microsoft-blessed solution, but we're a Mac shop (nowhere to run the server) and I don't think I could convince anyone to spend the money to license SharePoint when there are RAs available to do the grunt work for the cost of their time.

All the same, I'd like to get some kind of collaborative, version-tracking workflow in place for our Word documents. Am I missing any options here? I'm primarily interested in low-cost solutions (no FileNet or Documentum here, sorry) but I'm willing to do some setup grunt work if necessary.

Archive WordPerfect?

yclipse — Sat, 24 May 2008 17:06:51 -0800

Is there a program that will help to convert a batch (10 to 100) of WordPerfect files into TXT or RTF or DOC format so that they can then be archived into a text management program? Most text management programs (think TreePad or Zoot or about 20 others) will handle TXT or DOC files but choke when they encounter a WPD file. Those files can be converted one by one, but I would like to be able to convert a large number at one time. Is there something out there that will do this?

Help Wordprocessor-man!

Neonshock — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:41:08 -0800

I'm fed up of Microsoft Word and Works, what freeware can I use instead? On my new laptop I had the 60 day trail verson of Word, which i didnt realise was a trial. Fine, whatever. Microsoft Works Word Processor is ok but for some reason it wont let me copy/paste into it. Fine, Whatever.
Is there some word-processing freeware I can use?
I need something that accepts word documents as well as other things that ususally open in word.
It would be great if it would be easy to use and student-friendly, by that I mean I'm writing my dissertation (thesis?) at the moment and the loss of my word processing ability is making me want to cry a bit.
thanks!

Why should I use Pages instead of Word?

GardnerDB — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:21:37 -0800

Someone gave me iWork '08 as a gift and I already have MS Office for Mac. I have no experience with iWork. Why would I want to use Pages instead of Word? Why would I want to use Keynote instead of PowerPoint? I only need a word processor and presentation app, so a debate between Numbers and Excel is moot.

Using 'Insert' to stop over-writing

Nayano — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:20:50 -0800

Since I transferred all my data to a new mother board, when I switch from writing emails to writing in Word the 'insert' function changes, that is, if I have been writing an email and something getrs overwritten and I press 'insert' to overcome that, all is good until I switch to Word and the stuff gets overwritten until I press 'insert' and so on, ad infinitum. Is it possible to set the same default for both? I use Windows XP, and am in South Australia.

Somedays, I really hate Word.

AthenaPolias — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:00:45 -0800

Ack! Word has suddenly forgotten my customized bullets-and-numberings settings - but the settings were four years old and I have no idea how to set them right again! One serendipitous night I was complaining about how the bullet feature in Word didn't act as I wanted it to, and so I never used it. Someone I was speaking to immediately sat at my computer, worked for about ten minutes on some fiddly settings, and said "now try this." They were perfect, and I've used them constantly ever since. But suddenly tonight, as I sat down to work on an important project that needs a preliminary outline, I find out that Word has somehow reverted to some other type of setting (it's not default because it has pictures of roses - hardly standard!) and lost all of the nuance that allowed me to use it. I had written down what I thought were the proper settings, but putting those in doesn't correct the problem, it just changes it around. Help me...?

For reference, here is what it did/what I want it to do again:

And what it does now is more like the default setting - if I put in a bullet and then hit tab, the bullet itself stays put, but the text indents. The bullet never changes icon or position. It *used* to change both position and icon, and all looked very neat and orderly.

I'm guessing this is relatively simple if you know what you're doing, but I have never professed to understand much of the inner workings of Word.

What is the secret to being able to edit documents on different word processors without screwing up the formatting?

GleepGlop — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:37:55 -0800

Word Processor formatting screwy filter: I use a few different word processors from time to time and I try to use .rtf since I understand that is a universal format yet when I load a document in a different word processor the formatting always seems to get screwed up. I don't use any fancy formatting: just text, manual indents if needed, bold, underline, maybe italics... I use OpenOffice, Google Docs, MS WordPad, MS Word mainly. The main thing that I gripe about is that the spacing between my point form notes always seems to get screwed up and I have to go through hundreds of pages potentially readjusting everything.

Help with Microsoft Word (underlining)

america4 — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:11:06 -0800

In WordPerfect you had the option when underlining, of underlining all words in a sentence including the spaces in between, or just the words. In Microsoft Word you don't seem to have that option. Is there any way in Word that you can underline a sentence, but have the underlines only appear under the letters and not the spaces? Thanks!

How to move typewriter floppy disk to a PC

banger100 — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:58:43 -0800

An 80s technology throwback question for you. A paralegal in our office has an IBM Wheelwriter 50 Series II (6788) typewriter that she uses for all her wordprocessing. It's from 1988. It has a little computer monitor attached to it that accepts 3.5" floppies. I'm trying to help her move to a PC, but she doesn't want to lose all the documents she has stored on these floppies. I've tried reading the floppies with MS Word and Wordperfect on a PC, but it comes up as nonsense. I've also tried using a utility called CanOpener and OmniFlop with no success. Any other ideas on a utility/process to move the documents over to a PC-readable format?

LaTeX

Aloysius Bear — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:09:55 -0800

Help me with lists in LaTeX! And I'd like some general advice about whether LaTeX and LyX are worth the hassle. I'm using LyX on Windows XP. I want to make a list that looks something like this:



A.1) a) i) Text here.

        ii) Text here.

        iii) Text here.

     b) Some text here.



B.3) Some text here.



B.6) Some text here.

Is this possible in LyX? If not, how easy is it to do in LaTeX itself?

More importantly: I get the impression that the answer to this question might not be trivial. I may need to do this kind of non-standard formatting quite often. Given that, is it worth sticking with LaTeX? I know I could hack together a list that looked OK in Word without so much hassle, so I'm wondering if LaTeX/LyX etc are worth the effort.

I'm writing a number of essays and short answers per week (a few of which contain equations and tables of statistics), and later in the year will start my undergraduate dissertation in the social sciences. I'm pretty competent with software in general, but my aim is to find a word-processing setup which lets me get on with writing, rather than one which has maximum geek-points.

Looking for a mac word processor with French language support to replace Word

Frankieist — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 03:45:32 -0800

I'm looking for a mac word processor with French language support (spelling and grammar) to replace Microsoft Word 2004. I'm studying French and find that Microsoft Word's built-in French grammar check helps me catch a lot of careless errors (accord, proper use of subjunctive, etc.), but since Word runs through Rosetta on my macbook it's a major resource hog and a bit too buggy for writing compositions.

I'm specifically interested in a native (Cocoa) application - not run through X11 or Windows through emulation/virtualization. The formatting doesn't have to be great as long as it has rich-text support. I'd also be open to any suggestions for applications solely designed for grammar checking should such a program not exist.

Free Word or free-er OpenOffice?

sarahkeebs — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:52:15 -0800

So we know that OpenOffice.org is a better value than MSWord...but is it really BETTER? I've just started using a brand-new Vista-included (though currently running XP Media Centre) Toshiba laptop. It came with WordPad and OneNote (both useless), so I've been using GoogleDocs for note-taking (I'm a law student). However, it's time to begin writing term papers and other heavy content docs with lots or formatting and footnotes and such, and GoogleDocs won't cut it. Should I upload my old school (but free!) MSWord on my shiny new machine, or can I shrug off the MS-dependency and make the leap to OpenOffice?

FWIW, I'm not very computer-savvy generally, but I am willing to do a little more work/learning to use a better program...

Zoho, any good?

Karmakaze — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:54:31 -0800

Do you have feelings about the Zoho suite of web apps? My older brother, who thinks I know more about this internet thing than he does, just emailed me asking if I I know much about the Zoho suite of web applications, because he's trying to figure out how/whether to use 'em. I've heard of them, but never really touched them. I'd like to give him a more cogent answer than that, though. Could any of you with direct experience give a few reviews?

Cornell WP template

yclipse — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:33:19 -0800

A watermark to add lines in a word processing template? I want to set up a tempate for a Cornell Notes page, with lines similar to ruled paper in the main notes section. I cannot figure out a way to add the lines without having to manually create a series of horizontal lines. Is there some shortcut I am missing?

I am familiar with the Cornell Method PDF Generator website. For reasons of my own, I want to do this within a word processing template.