Ron Ross wrote:
>Of the 47 documents, only 8 showed any application of styles. Of these,
>7 were hopelessly confused and inconsistent: heading levels did not
>match the intended structure of the document, styles were misapplied,
>the formating of the text at any particular point sometimes did and
>sometimes did not reflect the formating resulting from a reapplication
>of the style ostensibly in use...
>
>* * *
>This is *not* an indictment of word processor users. The authors of the
>documents I've reported on are educated, intelligent people, and many
>have a long publishing history. If educated and intelligent people are
>still confused by style usage in the word processors they've been using
>for years, then the onus is unquestionably on the design of those word
>processors.
Amen, Ron. Our office recently switched from WordPerfect to Word. The
change has been gutwrenching for most of the clerical staff. Although WP
had styles available, it was so convoluted that no one ever used it. In
making this change, I have found that styles is the *only* way to go with
Word - and I look forward to seeing them implemented in AbiWord. This isn't
a problem for me because my documents are relatively simple in terms of
formatting. Even so, it took me several days of dedicated style preparation
to get them just where I wanted them. But, my secretaries, who draft
numerous different types of documents, steadfastly refuse to attempt to
learn or set up styles. Their complaint is that they are too busy creating
documents to take the time to learn and set up styles. They make a good
point. Unfortunately, for those who learned their craft on typewriters,
styles are a daunting new way of thinking. Good luck to the AbiWord
developers in responding to Ron's challenge.
Virgil
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