I favor the idea that quality starts with designing the process to avoid mistakes.
If we agree that formatting standards for documents produce quality documents, then logically we should set up our tools so that those standards are the only possible way to format. I haven't yet seen an instance where ad hoc formatting was absolutely necessary, but then again, I'm a relative newcomer. Someone should suggest an instance in which they had to override a character or paragraph tag. This, by the way, is why I am such a fan of structured FM. Note that I often *change* the definition of a character or paragraph format. Alas, I'm starting a department from scratch, so I have to design as I go. As much as I can, I change the template as soon as I'm sure my override is what I want. Quality also involves feedback. Joe Malin Technical Writer (408)625-1623 jmalin at tuvox.com www.tuvox.com The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: framers-bounces+jmalin=tuvox....@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+jmalin=tuvox.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Bill Swallow Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 6:44 AM To: rmuller at morrowcorp.com Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: POLL: Which method do you use to apply bold and italics? > Maybe we could start a new thread, "the horrors of FM inline styles, > and how I survived the experience." ;-) > > Might be fun, eh? Might be. ;-) Horrors: * inability to globally update a document from a template (let's say you need to change style based on rebranding) * inability to get consistent output using WWP or M2G * one step farther away from going structured/XML * the WTF moments upon inheriting a book from another author * once you start manually overriding character formats, custom character and paragraph formats aren't far behind... ***chills***