Knowledge Work

Solveig Haugland has just posted a brief primer on how to use your word processor, and it should be required reading for anyone who writes as part of their job.

It’s cleverly masked as a article about how to format your documents so that they will be easier to share between word-processsing platforms, but it is, in fact, a lesson on basic word processing. (I think she didn’t want to hurt the audience’s feelings by pitching it as, “Hey, idiots… time to finally learn how to correctly use that program you’ve been using incorrectly all your life…”)

Most word processors, Word and OpenOffice included, are set up to work out-of-the-box for people who have absolutely no clue what they’re doing, and who will use the software like a virtual typewriter–inserting hard returns when they need spaces, or, horror of horrors, using tabs and hard returns when they need indentation.

Making an analogy between formatting a document and packing and labelling boxes when moving to a new house , Ms. Haugland writes:

When you use very specific formatting like tabs to indent text and carriage returns to switch to the next line, it’s like trying to control exactly where your spatulas are supposed to go in the new house [instead of putting them in box labelled “kitchen”]. No two office suites are alike, and the more manual, highly controlled items you have in your document, the more likely the formatting will get messy when you go from one office suite to another. But if you use the formatting capabilities to indent and add spacing–well, that’s more like just labeling a box Kitchen and putting the box somewhere that makes sense.

The formatting tips in this article will also give you more professional-looking documents that are easier to update when the content or formatting rules change.

Word and OpenOffice are both very powerful tools for document production. If you’d like to leave the ranks of the Clueless and learn a little about how to actually use some of the formatting features of your word processor, this is a good article to start with. Once you realize that your computer is more than a fancy electronic typewriter, a world of possibilities will open up.

Smart formatting for better compatibility between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office (Solveig Haugland, SearchOpenSource.com)