About cautions for a co-worker who will be creating templates in MS Word, that I will want to use in OpenOffice: Jack Lewis suggested that I beg the co-worker to avoid using VBA, Dotan Cohen pointed to a tips page by Solveig Haugland, and Cor Nouws [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] suggested: > Just two basic things - not knowing the lay outs: > - work with paragraph and character styles, not direct formatting; > - use tables for positioning.
Thanks guys. Cor, what in particular did you mean by "use tables for positioning"? That's my preferred method for photos and illustrations (a borderless table - one cell for the graphic object and one cell for the caption), but I was wondering if you had other things in mind when you said that. I've previously had problems with some tables imported from Word, such that I'd end up re-creating the table rather than breaking my head, trying to fix the import. I never did determine whether that was something that could have been prevented by different treatment on the Word side. Anyway, it's a good reminder to check with the other writer how she prefers to place her graphic items. Does anybody know if there's anything to DO or to NOT DO in Word that would help a template or document get along better with OOo's frames? Anything to beware-of, when it comes to cross-references? Variables? Also, how about naming conventions for styles? I see that Word and OOo have somewhat different ways of inter-relating styles and "based on" relationships. If I hope to have the minimum of re-work when importing either the template or other people's docs done with her template, then that might be an area to do a little thinking before-hand. She's just getting started, so she'll accept suggestions... I hope... :-) The only hard-and-fast rule we've ever had for styles in Word is "don't base any styles on 'Normal'!" That doesn't stop people from breaking that rule - to our lasting regret - but it's never stopped being "the rule". Are there any others that would help grease the process of importation? As well, what about going the other way? I'll often be sending docs out for reviews or for SMEs to add sections, and most of them (except for the few subversive ones like me) will be using Word. Thus I'll have to convert/export back into Word before I circulate. I'd like to avoid future surprises in that endeavour, as well. I'm really looking forward to OOo 3. Regards, - Kevin The information contained in this electronic mail transmission may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected from disclosure. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer without copying or disclosing it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
