[blindLaw] Getting better at formatting

[Robert Munro]

First, a question: what screen reader are you using? You may be able to set it to read the changes in text attributes like size font/italics and so on. You might not want that all the time, but you would want it when you’re editing documents; so it’s a good idea to know how to change on the fly.

Second, consider using the app Ulysses to write long and complex documents. Ulises can export to any format you like, it’s available both on computers and mobile devices, and it uses mark down to define the attributes you want to apply to your text.

Third, consider using mark down in whatever software you use to write documents. It means that, even if you have the text attribute  change function switched off in your screen reader, you will hear the markings spoken aloud by the mark down editor. For example, if you put a # at the beginning of a line, the software will make that a heading. You would add 1 # for heading level one, then immediately, without spaces between, type the name of your heading. Two number signs would mean a heading level two. You would be able to navigate by heading with your screen reader through the document. There are similar markings for italics, bold,  and so on.

Markdown also makes creating lists of various types easy and inserting footnotes is simplicity itself.

I highly recommend using Ulysses for this. That’s a change I made this year and I have not looked back.

Please don’t hesitate to write me back with any questions you might have. Good luck. 

Onward!

Rob

> On Nov 26, 2021, at 01:20, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> In the last few months, I have been keeping track of the formatting
> changes that others have made to documents I have produced. The idea
> in doing so is to map out the precise formatting issues where I need
> to improve and then to figure out how to minimize my errors.
> 
> Here are the common changes that people make to my documents:
> 
> A. Text is sometimes inadvertently bolded or not bolded which they fix.
> B. The font color changes from black for some text [when it is copied
> from sources with non-black coloured text], so they have to make it
> uniformly black.
> C. The indenting requires fixing.
> D. There are multiple spaces when there should be only one, between
> sentences or words. Or the spacing between paragraphs is not uniform.
> E. Superscripts somehow inadvertently crop up in the tex.
> 
> Do you have any strategies in mind for me to be able to detect and
> rectify these issues on my own? I rarely use features like text
> analyzer. When I do, I get confused by all the information it reports
> and do not know what to do. In particular, it reports the location of
> the proposed change in a very weird format which is hard to
> comprehend. So I only do the following, formatting-wise:
> A. Select the entire text and then select the font size and style that
> I want; and
> b. Bold all headings and italicize case names and Latin phrases, like
> prima facie.
> 
> I then send the text to a colleague or intern and request them to fix
> outstanding formatting issues.
> 
> I am wondering what process I should develop to minimize formatting
> errors so that I do not have to outsource so much of this task to
> sighted colleagues or interns. Thanks very much for any guidance.
> 
> Warmly,
> Rahul
> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Rahul Bajaj
> Senior Resident Fellow,
> Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi, India
> Rhodes Scholar (India and Linacre 2018)
> University of Oxford
> 
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