[stylist] Word 2007: Some Things I Learned From Writing Poetry

[Brad Dunse']

Interesting. Thanks.

Brad



On 11/2/2011  12:26 PM Homme, James said...
>Hi People,
>This is how to fix two issues that you can have with writing poetry 
>if you do it in Word 2007. The first is the difference between line 
>breaks and paragraph breaks and what that can do to the reading of 
>your poetry, and how to deal with it. The second is how to keep Word 
>from putting in unintended capital letters at the beginnings of the 
>lines of your poetry.
>
>The difference between a line break and a paragraph break. In Word, 
>to create a line break, it is often said that you hit Return, and 
>that to create a paragraph break, you hit Return twice. That isn't 
>true. To get a real line break, you hit Shift + Return. To get a 
>real paragraph break, you hit Return. This includes the paragraph 
>break after such things as heading styles. Word takes care of what 
>happens visually between paragraphs, even though it doesn't register 
>with your screen reader. If this doesn't happen, then you should get 
>someone sighted to help you alter paragraph styles, usually a Normal 
>or Body style or a Heading style, so that it does what it should, visually.
>
>This is significant when you are doing poetry. Why? Because in your 
>poem, a line of the poem can end with a line break, while a stanza 
>can end as a paragraph break. When you use a screen reader, you can 
>then read a line by pressing plain old Down or Up arrow. You can 
>read an entire stanza by using Control + Down or Control + Up arrow. 
>If you use true line breaks in your poetry, you can also use the 
>sentence reading keys to read sentences in your poems, even if they 
>span multiple lines within a stanza. Reading sentences can help you 
>listen to a whole thought without having to paste things together in 
>your brain. If you use paragraph breaks instead of line breaks 
>within the stanzas of your poetry, this forces the sentence reading 
>keys to stop at every line of your poem. This is probably what you 
>want to avoid.
>
>In Word 2007, to make Word avoid putting unintended capital letters 
>at the beginnings of your lines, just do this.
>
>* Hit Alt + F, Followed by the letter I. This opens up Word Options.
>* Arrow down until you hear Proofing, then press Alt + A for 
>Autocorrect Options.
>* Hit Shift + Tab until you hear a check box about capitalizing 
>letters at the beginnings of sentences. Turn that off.
>* Go to the Close button and press it, then press OK until you are 
>back to your masterpiece.
>* No more unintended capital letters at the beginnings of your poetry lines.
>
>The only down side to this approach is that you will need to make 
>sure that you capitalize every letter of your own sentences, which I 
>think you'd probably do anyway, so no big deal, right?
>
>That's it for now.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Jim
>
>Jim Homme,
>Usability Services,
>Phone: 412-544-1810.
>
>
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Brad Dunse

"Tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I'll remember. Involve me, 
and I'll learn." --Unknown

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