Tag Archives: best practices

Next Edition Coming Soon!

book cover of eiw365
Find a faster way through Word

Now double the size, this expanded and updated edition incorporates an entire booklet on working with tables and three sections on ways to customize your workspace and combine and manipulate the features to hack the tools for maximum effect. Plus, it covers all of Word’s updates including changes to Modern Comments, Track Changes, Spellcheck, and the new Editor toolset.

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Q&A: Spellcheck Is Now in “Editor” in Word

QWhere did Spellcheck go!?

AIt’s tucked inside “Editor” now. It’s pretty much the same, except that readability statistics are found in an area of the Editor pane too, not after running Spellcheck. See the demos below.

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When to Use Vertical Lists

Vertical lists are a useful structure in plain language principles for document architecture, because they aid reading. But they also provide visual prominence to the content, and sometimes that’s not warranted or desired. So, when should you use a vertical list and when should you not? Even within the guidelines we find below, there is room for personal preference, house style, and conventions of the medium. For example, recipes will always place ingredients in a vertical list.

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When to Make Silent Changes

When routine changes like turning two spaces into one are tracked, it creates a sea of markup that obscures the changes that 1) actually are negotiable and 2) really matter. It can lead to absolute overwhelm, resulting in a client who just “accepts all” without a meaningful review; or who literally wears out their mouse clicking “accept” on a myriad of non-negotiable changes to house style.

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