Always Date Stories

If dates don’t fit in your story flow, anchor them at the end. Yesterday I had a frustrating reminder of how important this is. Read on to learn why and how to do this automatically.

Inspired by yesterday’s solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, I decided to polish up my account of viewing a total eclipse in Richland, Washington on February 26, 1979. I knew I’d written the story, but it took some digging to find the file. It was buried in a story I posted online, but I don’t know when I wrote or posted it. Ordinarily this wouldn’t matter, but today it did.

I know when the Richland eclipse occurred. That date is in the story, and I verified it online. I also refer in that document to an eclipse in Hawaii “about ten years later” that friends traveled to watch. Again, I was able to nail the date for that one online as occurring on July 1, 1991 – about twelve years later, not ten.

I have no clear idea when I wrote and posted that container story that begins with a mixed reference to celebrating Christmas and watching an eclipse in partial form in clear Pittsburgh skies while it was cloudy for some others. The original file date is 2010, but I know that’s wrong. That date signifies when I moved the file to a new hard disk. My best guess is 2003, but I’ve searched the web and can’t find anything about any USA eclipse during the early 2000s and my memory of that event has faded to the point I could doubt my own words in that story.

I’m kicking myself for not dating the story, at least in a signature line! A simple name and date would do, but there’s an easy way to ensure stories are dated with a bit more useful information. I generally begin with a story template that that includes these four lines at the end:

I created this template using fields, a mysterious function few of us ever need to learn, though these particular ones are simple enough. The Created date is unchanging. The Edited date updates each time I resave the file. In each of these cases, you click on the Insert tab and select Date & Time. Select your preferred date format. The difference between the two is the Update Automatically option on the right of that menu. Check to see that it’s cleared for the Created date and selected for the Edited one.

The file name field is a little different. It’s also on the Insert tab, but in Word 2013 you’ll find it under Quick Parts > Field. Scroll down the list to FileName, then select your Famat option. You can, if you wish, add the full path to the filename. That used to be helpful, but today, search functions are strong enough that the filename is enough without the path. If you have a different version of Word, you can easily find out how to insert these fields using the Help function or a web search, specifying your version.

To create this template, add  your name, the filename filed, Created date field, and Edited date field to a blank document, leaving a couple of blank lines above. Format them as you wish. I like to reduce the font size a couple of points and italicize it, but that’s merely personal preference. You can add dingbats or anything you wish. You can align it to the left margin. Suit yourself.

Then save that blank document, but not as a .doc or .docx. After you name it, click the Save as type: field directly below the file name and select Word Template (*.dotx). This will place your new template in your Documents folder in a Custom Office Templates subfolder.

To use the template to begin a new story, in Word 2013 select New on the file tab, then select Personal from the line above the template icons. You’ll find your  new template there. Select it and write your story.

This all sounds way more complicated that it is. The five or ten minutes you may spend mucking around to create this template will ensure that you’ll know when you first wrote a story. It would have solved my dilemma today.

If you forget and begin a story in a standard file, no problem. Just copy it all: use Ctrl+a)to select all, then paste it into a new template page and resave.

Now that I think of it, I’m going to add this snippet to my default template so it will be on EVERY document I create. I can always delete it later. If this sounds like a good idea to you, do a YouTube search for “editing default template Word (your version).”

Here’s to anchoring dates!

Two Terrific Tools for Managing Word Documents

Time for some Tech Talk or Geek Speak to answer this reader’s question for the benefit of all concerned.

I have seven chapters and ninety-three pages in my memoir now, and I’m having a terrible time moving around the document. I tried separate files for each chapter, but with seven chapters and counting, even that’s a mess. And I’m a real klutz at moving chunks of text from one place to another. What can I do?

A Faithful Reader

Tah DAH! Help is at hand!

That help is in two little-known features of Word: the Navigation Pane and Outline view. Let’s take a look.

Navigation Pane (F12)

I keep the Navigation pane (or Nav pane as I call it for short) open all the time when I’m working on a long document. Press F12 in a Word document to open it on yourself (or click on the View tab, then click the box next to Navigation Pane). The gray area in the image above is the Nav pane. I can jump to anywhere in my document, whether it has four pages or four hundred, by clicking on one of the items. The arrow points to the section seen at the right. Of course you will not have that red arrow on your screen, but you will see the blue highlight the arrow points to. If I click on Get Off Your Buts and Write!, I’ll instantly be at the top of that chapter.

Here’s the deal. The Nav pane works with Style defined headers. The items above with arrows beside them are chapter titles. Each chapter title has a Heading 1 style attached. Indented items are sections. They have a Heading 2 style. This won’t be as much help in a memoir, because your only headings will be chapter titles, Heading 1. But being able to jump from one chapter to the next will help. And here’s an idea for the adventurous: you could use section headers for your working document and delete them for final copy.

Don’t throw in the towel if your eyes cross at the mention of styles! Believe me, you can learn enough in five minutes to save hours and hours of frustration finding your way around your document, and it will be easier to format later. Here’s the deal. Go to YouTube and search for “using styles in word 2007.” For best results, substitute your version number for 2007 if it’s different. Scan the search results and find one that looks promising. You might want to try two or three.

Outline View (Alt+Ctrl+O)

In Outline view, the Nav pane remains open, but it has a white background so you won’t be confused. In Outline view, you can move chunks of text slick as a whistle. In the view above I have all text displayed. The red arrow points to the round bullet next to a paragraph I want to move. When I triple-click a paragraph or hold the cursor over the bullet, the paragraph background turns gray.

When I hold the cursor over the bullet, it turns into a four-headed arrow.  When the cursor is in that arrow form, press and hold the left mouse button to drag the entire paragraph into a new position.  As you move it up or down, you’ll see a fine horizontal line between paragraphs that show where the one you’re moving will end up if you let go. Spacing will automatically be adjusted. No need to fix extra paragraph breaks, etc.

If dragging with the mouse is awkward for you, or you’re stuck with a laptop touchpad, use the up or down keyboard arrows to move it one paragraph at a time.

You can also highlight a paragraph and use cut-and-paste to move it to a spot too far away to easily drag. Place your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph beneath and paste. Again, all spacing will be adjusted.

By the way, you can highlight and move multiple paragraphs the same way as long as they’re adjacent.

Green arrow

The green arrow points to the outline tools that manage your view. By default the Show Level field is blank and everything shows. Click on the arrow at the right end of that field and you’ll find a number of options. If you want to move entire chapters around, select Level 1. I often work at Level 2, letting me reorder sections.

One other time Outline view really shines is for reordering bullet or numbered lists. Leave the Level view at default (or select All Levels found at the bottom of the list). Move list items around like paragraphs. Numbering will be automatically reordered.

Blue arrow

The blue arrow points to the Close Outline View button, the easiest way out. Please note: the Close button only shows on the Outline tab, and that tab is only there when you are in Outline view.

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While these panels and views aren’t much help for writing simple short stories, but they can be a life saver on longer projects. Take three minutes to explore them. You’ll be glad you did!

What Word tricks make your life easier?