Monday, July 13, 2009
Writing Software Question
So now I have two manuscripts full of short shorts that need organizing via a table of contents with designated page numbers that can be reshuffled around as I add stories. What is the best and easiest program? I have a Mac but I also have Microsoft Word for Mac which is where I keep all my stories on file and I am very computer illiterate, so the simpler the better, but I live with techies, so I can get help. Any advice?
8 comments:
Just my opinion: learn (or get help with) Word's "master document" feature. Once you get the hang of it, doing things like shuffling the order, generating a table of contents, formatting everything the same way, etc. etc. -- that all becomes a lot easier.
(I don't know the Mac version of Word but presumably it's true of that version, too.)
General idea is, you create a new file and tell Word specifically to save it as a master document. This allows you to embed within it however many "subdocuments" you want, just by selecting them from some location on your computer. Once they're embedded, you can view the master document just like it was an entire manuscript, or as an outline, etc.
When you need to change something in a subdocument, you don't use the master document to do it. You open the original document for that individual short-short (in your case); any changes you make to it will automatically appear in any master document which includes this file as a sub-document.
This isn't unique to Word, btw. Other WP programs do the same (or similar) thing.
Hmmm. I will have to set aside a day to experiment with this but it sounds promising if it is something I already have. Thanks!
Dear Squirrel,
The derring do of my computer constantly boggles me. I'm sure they're simple things that if I knew where to look or go would be simple to fix or know.
Hal Space jock, is an Aussie I think, who has developed quite a bit of freeware for writers. His great program yWriter is easy to use and shuffle and set up scenes within chapters and all kinds of stuff I can't explain very well.
I thought I would have trouble switching from Word, and I do still love word for individual pieces but yWriter is brilliant for all the side things and it wasn't hard to master, and never gobbled things.
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html
I highly recommend it!
I love your part of the forest.
Nutkins to you,
Paeony
PS You might need the techies help setting it up on Mac...
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5_Linux.html
But it's doable.
You can do all that on Word for Mac. JES is spot on with the 'master document' feature. Once you get the hang of it, it will do it all for you.
Peonia: Thanks for visiting and the intriguing suggestion and Selma for seconding JES's nomination. It seems word also just has a table of contents feature I might use since I've already put all my stories in one big file with headings and just take them out as I need them for submissions but have a hard time finding them. It's kind of a crazy way to do it. Master Document would have been a better way to start off from the beginning. I may work my way slowly in that direction. I always make things harder for myself by never reading manuals and making things up as I go along.
I can never understand those programs. And each one has some annoying quirk. Good luck.
I hope you don't have the 2008 Word for Mac, which defaults to a different kind of document and does not translate well to the 2003 Office Suite. On the other hand, there is a wonderful program for free called Open Market that has all the features of MS Word. And not to forget Mac Pages, which can also receive and open Word docs.
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