Re: On to Styles

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 4981

Posted by stephenz
2006-01-09 10:09:00

I too use PageMaker, actually very frequently (I’ve been too cheap to cough up the $800 for InDesign). I have never bothered to learn about how to import styles into PageMaker… perhaps it is laziness, but I also think you can be more precise with my method, which frequently is as follows:

Write the text in whichever word processor I’m in the mood for. After running spell checks and getting the text where I want it, I will copy and paste it into a plain text editor (I use NoteTab), which essentially strips it of all formatting. Then I import the plain text file into PageMaker, where I create my styles and apply them where appropriate.

The advantages of this process, as I see them, are these:

1. I don’t have to think about formatting while I’m writing my document.

2. Once the text is imported into PageMaker, I don’t have any of the extra formatting styles that usually come along with a Word import. These annoy the heck out of me.

3. I can then concentrate on the design aspect, separate from the writing.

It’s funny, but I’ve seen designers (professionals, not amateurs like me) who are not even aware of styles in their page layout programs. They reformat each paragraph from scratch each time. When I show them the power of styles in their layout program, they have either one of two reactions: “My God, I can’t believe I’ve wasted all this effort over the years;” or “That seems a bit too complicated for me.” The latter go back to their plodding method.

Steve Z.

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