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Setting up Microsoft Word for Editing E-Text

  1. View > Print Layout
  2. Show Navigation Pane: (Windows Mac: View > Navigation Pane) This is a ‘map’ of the structure in terms of the heading styles that been applied in the document. The map provides a quick means of navigating to different headings.
  3. Show all non-printing characters: (Windows: Ctrl+Shift+8. Mac: Cmd+8) This shows formatting characters and marks in the document. There are a few non-printing characters and marks that Word uses (spaces, tab characters, paragraph or ‘carriage return’ characters, and object anchors) that do not show up on the printed page. It can be useful to make them visible while editing.
  4. Show Style Pane: The Styles Pane is useful for seeing what styles have been applied to text, picking styles to apply to text, and managing styles. Style-formatting is a necessary part of making documents accessible.

Set Document Properties

Before you start editing, set up your document properties. Add the title, author, and other information (below). This data will become the book's metadata and is used by assistive technology.

  1. Go to File in the top menu
  2. Select Properties
  3. Enter the Title and the Author of the work
    1. If the book has multiple authors, separate their names with a comma
  4. Enter the National Network for Equitable Library Service in the Company field. Do not use the publisher name of the original book.

Note: do not use underscores (_) in document properties.

See also document metadata.

Load the NNELS Style Template

The NNELS Style Template contains all the styles that you will need to use in your e-text editing. Follow the instructions on how to load it and get started with editing.

When you finish editing, the Styles in Use (as seen in your Style Pane), should look nice and clean. Each style has a specific formatting purpose. Now a reader can easily modify/swap the styles in the document to suit their own needs, adaptive technology can read the styles, and the document can be nicely converted to DAISY XML!

Read more about Styles and Headings

Minimum text size

The minimum text size for NNELS documents is 12 point size (used for captions). Normal font size in 14 point.

Having a minimum text size reduces the number of users who need to make use of browser based text resize or page zoom. This is a particular issue with an ageing audience, many of whom will not be familiar with tools to resize content.

Keyboard shortcuts

Optionally, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to quickly apply styles and conduct other operations that you regularly do while e-text editing: Keyboard Shortcuts

General tips

Sabina: depending on the complexity of the document, I'll have the Word file and PDF open at the same time. I use an Anti-RSI on my computer so that I take regular breaks and move my arms around.

public/nnels/etext/set-up.1534482398.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/08/16 22:06 by 127.0.0.1