Creating a sidebar and hiding text
Cristov Russell
mean that when I print front and back the sidebar stays on the outside
edge. The sidebar will have two uses. In the instructors manual it
will have notes and icons describing how to present the material. In
the students manual it will be blank space to make notes.
Using one of Microsofts tips
(http://www.microsoft.com/insider/word2000/articles/headside.htm), I
created a template with mirrored margins and made the outside margin
about 3" wide and then putting a text box in the header for both an odd
and an even page. This almost works but the only thing I need now is to
have every page with a different headers and footers so the information
in the text boxes won't be the same on every page. To do that I know I
can insert a section break but that will also make changes to the layout
of the document when I have to update the manual.
One last thing I'd like to do is have a single document manual for both
the instructor and the students. Then I would hide the contents of the
sidebar and print the student manual.
I know this is complicated and I hope I'm being clear. If this can't be
done in Word does anyone know of another product. Thanks
Cristov Russell
cri...@earthling.net
Michael Bürkle
Cristov Russell wrote:
Wouldn't it be enough to use a table with many rows (one for each page or
even one for each paragraph) and 2 columns: a narrow one (as the sidebar) an
a large one for the text? Choose "No Borders" and nobody will see that you
use a table. You can insert a section break into any field of table.
You also can define the sections you need before and then you can paste the
table to all of those sections.
I think that's the compromise one may do with Word as a word processor. I
would do it for a short manual, not for a long one.
A better sloution is a publishing program, such as XPress from Quark.
Michael
Tim Murray
news:37EAE729...@earthling.net...
> ...
> I know this is complicated and I hope I'm being clear. If this can't be
> done in Word does anyone know of another product. Thanks
> Cristov Russell
If you are open to new products, I'd like to suggest FrameMaker. It does
sideheads very, very well (whether text or graphic). Also, it has a feature
called "conditional text." I write a lot of training where there is a
leader guide and a student guide -- but it's really just one document. I
assign certain things to the "leader" condition, then, when I print my
leader guide, they appear. In the student guide, they're gone.
But note that one thing it does NOT do is automatically put sidebars on the
outside edge of the page. The usual technique in Frame is called a
sidehead, but sideheads only appear on the left, like so:
xxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
(You're not limited to one line, as in the illustration, and you can put all
sorts of things out there.)
If you must have sideheads on the right side, you can place them there
manually (using a different technique), but it's labor intensive and if the
page changes from left to right, the sideheads will have to be changed
manually. The bottom line is that if you can live with your special
elements always being on the left, it's a great tool. (Frame 5.5.6 is the
latest release; maybe we'll see new things in 6???)
Tim Murray
Suzanne S. Barnhill
footer will be reproduced on each page. So you need to get away from that
idea. But otherwise what you have done is heading in the right direction.
What you need to do is use a FRAME instead of a text box. (If you decide
this method has merit, you will probably want to use Customize to add Insert
Frame to the Insert menu, but for the time being you can find it on the
Forms toolbar.)
Here's how to do what you want using a frame. Type the text you want to
appear in a marginal note (let's call it that instead of a sidebar because
using this method you're going to have multiple frames in the margin rather
than just one). When you have completed a paragraph, select the entire
paragraph and click the Insert Frame button on the Forms toolbar. (If you're
not in Page Layout view already, Word will switch you to it.) Click on the
frame and drag it into the large margin (resizing it so it will fit). When
you have it approximately the right size and position, select it again,
right-click, and choose Format Frame. Set the width to an exact amount.
Leave the height as Auto. Make the horizontal position Outside Relative to
Page, with the "Distance from text" the amount of space you want between the
frame and your body text. (As you can see, when you add the exact width to
the distance from text and subtract that sum from the outside margin, you
will have the margin between the edge of the page and the edge of the
marginal note.) Make the vertical position 0" Relative to Paragraph.
Now comes the wonderful part: With your insertion point in the paragraph
inside this frame that you have just formatted, choose Format | Style |
New... and give it a name. You'll probably want the "Style for following
paragraph" to be your body text style. Now whenever you want a marginal
note, just type it before you type the text it is associated with and apply
this marginal note style. It will automatically pop into a frame in the
outside margin. You will still see the framed text in Normal view (another
advantage of frames over text boxes), but you won't see it in the margin
except in Page Layout or Print Preview.
Now, the even more magical part: Whenever you want to print your document
without the marginal notes, go to Format Style, select your marginal note
style, and click Modify..., Format, Font..., and change the font to Hidden.
Assuming that you do not have the check box for "Hidden text" checked under
"Include with document" on the Print tab of Tools | Options, the marginal
notes will not be printed. (In fact, another approach would be to set this
style up as Hidden text to begin with and just check the "Hidden text" box
to print it.) Since the marginal notes are in the margins, not printing them
should not affect the appearance of the rest of your document except in
cases where the marginal notes are longer than the body text. If this is an
issue, you may want to change the style to Font Color White instead of
Hidden, since white text does consume space, whereas Hidden text does not.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft Word MVP
Words into Type
Fairhope, AL USA
Cristov Russell <cri...@earthling.net> wrote in message
news:37EAE729...@earthling.net...
> I'm writing a manual and would like to creat a sidebar. By sidebar I
> mean that when I print front and back the sidebar stays on the outside
> edge. The sidebar will have two uses. In the instructors manual it
> will have notes and icons describing how to present the material. In
> the students manual it will be blank space to make notes.
>
> Using one of Microsofts tips
> (http://www.microsoft.com/insider/word2000/articles/headside.htm), I
> created a template with mirrored margins and made the outside margin
> about 3" wide and then putting a text box in the header for both an odd
> and an even page. This almost works but the only thing I need now is to
> have every page with a different headers and footers so the information
> in the text boxes won't be the same on every page. To do that I know I
> can insert a section break but that will also make changes to the layout
> of the document when I have to update the manual.
>
> One last thing I'd like to do is have a single document manual for both
> the instructor and the students. Then I would hide the contents of the
> sidebar and print the student manual.
>
> I know this is complicated and I hope I'm being clear. If this can't be
> done in Word does anyone know of another product. Thanks
>
> Cristov Russell
> cri...@earthling.net
>
Keith L. Smyth
> Cristov Russell <cri...@earthling.net> wrote in message
> news:37EAE729...@earthling.net...
> > ...
> > I know this is complicated and I hope I'm being clear. If this can't be
> > done in Word does anyone know of another product. Thanks
> >...
> > Cristov Russell
>
> If you are open to new products, I'd like to suggest FrameMaker. It does
> sideheads very, very well (whether text or graphic). Also, it has a feature
> called "conditional text." I write a lot of training where there is a
> leader guide and a student guide -- but it's really just one document. I
> assign certain things to the "leader" condition, then, when I print my
> leader guide, they appear. In the student guide, they're gone.
>
> But note that one thing it does NOT do is automatically put sidebars on the
> outside edge of the page. The usual technique in Frame is called a
> sidehead, but sideheads only appear on the left, like so:
>
> xxxxx xxxxxxx
> xxxxxxx
> xxxxxxx
>
> (You're not limited to one line, as in the illustration, and you can put all
> sorts of things out there.)
>
> If you must have sideheads on the right side, you can place them there
> manually (using a different technique), but it's labor intensive and if the
> page changes from left to right, the sideheads will have to be changed
> manually. The bottom line is that if you can live with your special
> elements always being on the left, it's a great tool. (Frame 5.5.6 is the
> latest release; maybe we'll see new things in 6???)
>
> Tim Murray
I have been using Frame since Version 1, and as I remember it,
they have always set the sidehead up for outside edge printing
when the doc is set to print double-sided..
--
Keith L. Smyth
President
Smyth Consulting
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Technical Documentation Consultant
Tim Murray
Keith L. Smyth <Keith....@smythkl.vip.best.com> wrote in message
news:37EFEB2C...@smythkl.vip.best.com...
Cristov Russell
so very much.
Also thanks to all the others for replying and offering their suggestions.
Cristov Russell
cri...@earthling.net