Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!orc!oliveb!olivej!tonyb
From: tonyb@olivej.olivetti.com (Anthony M. Brich)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Debuggers and DLLs
Message-ID: <61872@oliveb.atc.olivetti.com>
Date: 6 Jul 90 16:58:58 GMT
References: <292600020@trsvax>
Sender: news@oliveb.atc.olivetti.com
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, CA
Lines: 103



	This message is not in response to whatever message may be
	indicated. It is a "fresh" posting. I am posting "in
	response" because our news does not allow posting *except* in
	response to other messages.

	Word For Windows warning!
	
	Direct character formatting is subordinate to paragraph
	style character formatting. 
	
    	I knew this when I started using WinWord, but now I'm really
    	LEARNING the significance of this subtle "design flaw" (if you
    	will permit the use of such dramatic language), at least for those
    	of  us who rely on direct character formatting in our
    	documents.

	I am writing a technical manual. I use Helvetica LowerCase
	10-point bold small caps to indicate keys (like ENTER and DEL)
	which the user must press. I have defined glossary items for
	each key, which includes character formatting. But when I
	insert the glossary item, the character style for the
	PARAgraph in which I am inserting the text redefines SOME but
	not ALL of the character formatting attributes of the string.
	For instance, if I insert the ENTER glossary item in a
	paragraph which has character style defined as Helvetica No-Bold 20
	point Underlined (it's a chapter heading), ENTER comes out
	Helvetica, No-Bold 20 point Small-Caps(!). So, ENTER retained
	the small-caps style, but everything else was redefined by the
	paragraph style. John at Microsoft Support insists that this
	is how Winword works with styles and formatting, that is, the
	character formatting contained in the paragraph mark overrides
	direct formatting of characters. I find this hard to believe,
	but I spent a half hour this morning talking to him about it,
	so there you are.

	Also, if I direct format first, then apply a paragraph style
	to paragraphs which contain direct formatted characters, the
	direct formatting is cancelled.  
	
	John tried to talk me into a complicated workaround involving
    	tables in which cells are specially formatted to separate my
    	ENTERs from the paragraph surrounding them ... I blanched
    	when I thought of what he was telling me. Complicated tables
    	slow Winword down to a crawl, even in short documents. And,
    	it would be very difficult designing such tables in the first
    	place! The table feature may be a powerful object-oriented
    	joy in terms of ease of manipulating tables, but it comes at a
    	significant cost in performance. 
	
	The implications are sobering: I have to carefully PLAN
	mydocuments, before I start writing them!  What a thought!
	I'm of the school:  "the best of plans .... get changed".
	It's a pragmatic viewpoint, maybe a little messy, but it seems
	to hold true.  And the whole point of a good word processor is
	to give you power over your document, not to give the power TO
	your document!

	Now, in Word 5.0 ....

	You have Character styles, as well as Paragraph and Division
	styles, so you have a lot of discretion in defining a
	stylesheet. Also, character formatting is retained REGARDLESS
	of the character format of a specific paragraph style, unless
	you manually turn OFF direct formatting (Alt-SpaceBar, or
	Alt-x-SpaceBar, if you have a stylesheet attached to a
	document). 

	So for those of you considering a move to Winword from
	character-based products (esp. Word 5.0), best to assess just
	what it is that you need from stylesheets. Winword's just
	aren't that powerful.

    	(For the most part, I adhere to the principles of "the fewer
    	fonts used, the more attractive the document", and "documents
    	with simple stylesheets are more readable than documents with
    	complicated stylesheets, or than documents without stylesheets
    	at all". However, judicious use of standard direct character
        formatting can help  make  computer  application  user
	guides more readable by helping the reader distinguish
        between text to be entered  and  special  keys  to  be
        pressed.  I welcome comment on this point.)

        Tony Brich

	P.S. By the way, I think Microsoft support is getting burned
	out. Twice in the last couple weeks, I have received less
	than helpful responses from support techs there, one of whom
	has been great in times past --- friendly, patient,
	helpful. I think the strain of the last few weeks is telling:
	tempers are shorter, the techs seem less tolerant of friendly
	criticism and inquiry, especially with Winword. But hey,
	Microsoft sold it as a GUI upgrade to Word 5.0. So I think
	we're justified in complaining about the missing functionality
	of the product, even as we praise its extraordinary power,
	i.e. macros, customizable menu structre, fair WYSIWYG
	(impressive, given the diversity of displays and printers out
	there. Apple's achievement pales when you consider they
	controlled all the components!). Etc. Anyway, be forewarned.
	You'll be on hold forever, and then you may get a crabby tech!
	Sheesh. And you'll pay the long distance charges for the
	privilege!