This is the first of three small blog posts that will look at challenges with Word styles, current approaches used to address those issues (see Part 2) and will conclude (see Part 3) with a description of some standards-based approaches that can be taken to check and normalize styles in a document (or batch of documents).
Part 1 – The problem with styles
There are few ubiquitous tools in IT, but Microsoft Word™ probably comes as close as there is. With only a few exceptions (where a web-only deliverable means the content is authored directly into HTML or where complex re-use and professional publication requirements mandates the use of XML) we all use Word to author important documents. Whether the documents are internal reports, legal contracts or consultancy proposals it is vital to your organization that the documents:
This is only achievable in Word via the consistent use of styles in well managed templates. However, even if your organization has developed and maintained these templates, documents will frequently have their consistency (and therefore quality) reduced due to:
It is vital that we do not underestimate the issue of user error. Most business users are NEVER trained in Word as, in its simplest form, it is so easy to use. But is not easy to use Word in the right way to achieve consistency even in the most macro heavy templated environment. Many have us have had to take-over complex Word documents from business users in order to try to decipher what has gone wrong and make last minute edits before deadlines. In many other cases these last-minute edits are made blind “I just changed things till it looked right” at the cost of consistency and any other users of the document.
With typical Word workflows, errors in the styles being applied will directly result in presentation errors in the final delivered documents (as the delivery format is Word or PDF). In more complex workflows the Word documents may be:
In all of these more complex workflows the correct use of Word styles is pivotal to the success of the process in order to convert, brand or structure the data appropriately with missing or misused styles leading to invalid or substandard content.
So how do you know if your document has issues and is there any way to prevent or correct them? I will cover some of the options in my next post before suggesting a standards-based alternative that will not only identify problems in a single document but that can be run on an entire library of documents. Lack of style consistency/quality across thousands of documents would substantially increase the cost of any project designed to utilize that library as a consistent data set (and may even call the financial viability of the project into doubt).
If you have issues with Word that impact your production processes please let me know and I will try to discuss them in future posts. Issues that I have encountered include:
Part 1 – The problem with styles
There are few ubiquitous tools in IT, but Microsoft Word™ probably comes as close as there is. With only a few exceptions (where a web-only deliverable means the content is authored directly into HTML or where complex re-use and professional publication requirements mandates the use of XML) we all use Word to author important documents. Whether the documents are internal reports, legal contracts or consultancy proposals it is vital to your organization that the documents:
- reflect the latest corporate brand;
- are consistent with other documents being delivered;
- uses the agreed numbering system (using auto numbered paragraphs that can be dynamically referenced and chapter/appendix prefixes);
- automatically creates the correct table of contents (and table of figures/tables if required);
- can be easily edited by others; and
- are able to have content extracted and re-used in other documents or libraries of information.
This is only achievable in Word via the consistent use of styles in well managed templates. However, even if your organization has developed and maintained these templates, documents will frequently have their consistency (and therefore quality) reduced due to:
- use of old templates;
- creation of Word documents from existing documents that do not use the latest template;
- editing of the document outside of the organization-controlled environment (e.g. sending contracts to “the other side”); and
- user error where formatting is applied manually (via buttons, format painter etc.) or where ad-hoc styles are created and used.
It is vital that we do not underestimate the issue of user error. Most business users are NEVER trained in Word as, in its simplest form, it is so easy to use. But is not easy to use Word in the right way to achieve consistency even in the most macro heavy templated environment. Many have us have had to take-over complex Word documents from business users in order to try to decipher what has gone wrong and make last minute edits before deadlines. In many other cases these last-minute edits are made blind “I just changed things till it looked right” at the cost of consistency and any other users of the document.
With typical Word workflows, errors in the styles being applied will directly result in presentation errors in the final delivered documents (as the delivery format is Word or PDF). In more complex workflows the Word documents may be:
- converted and formatted using InDesign;
- converted to HTML for web publishing; or
- converted to XML for enrichment and/or multi-format delivery.
In all of these more complex workflows the correct use of Word styles is pivotal to the success of the process in order to convert, brand or structure the data appropriately with missing or misused styles leading to invalid or substandard content.
So how do you know if your document has issues and is there any way to prevent or correct them? I will cover some of the options in my next post before suggesting a standards-based alternative that will not only identify problems in a single document but that can be run on an entire library of documents. Lack of style consistency/quality across thousands of documents would substantially increase the cost of any project designed to utilize that library as a consistent data set (and may even call the financial viability of the project into doubt).
If you have issues with Word that impact your production processes please let me know and I will try to discuss them in future posts. Issues that I have encountered include:
- application of styles to wrong content/in wrong order;
- use of manual mark-up instead of styles (or overriding styles to mimic other styles);
- creation and use of non-supported styles (styles not defined in master template);
- use of out of date styles/templates;
- manual numbering (and chapter/appendix prefixing);
- lack of metadata (missing or incomplete properties or fields).