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Eight Ways to Use Authoring Tools to Improve Your Productivity with Drafting

Originally appeared in the ASTD Newsletter, What Works, March 2002.

Most authoring tools have features that can help you improve your productivity. You might be able to benefit from some of these suggestions now; keep the others in mind for future projects.

1. Use templates. Most authoring tools (like Authorware), word processors (like Microsoft Word), and presentation graphics packages (like PowerPoint) have templates for specialized types of documents, such as reports, dissertations, press releases, brochures, and letters. At the least, these templates contain the formatting needed for headings, paragraphs, and specialized types of paragraphs like citations from other sources. In many instances, these templates contain some of the text standardly used in these types of documents.

These templates enhance your productivity by minimizing the time spent on preparing screen and page designs, so you can invest your energies, instead, in effectively communicating ideas.

In addition to templates provided by the authoring tool, some organizations prepare their own templates. Using them lets you prepare documents in the company “look and feel,” without having to do most of the formatting.

2. Use wizards. In some cases, authoring tools have document "wizards," special programs that walk you the process of creating a document step-by-step. If you have never developed a particular type of communication product before, this additional assistance might be helpful. For example, MS Word has wizards for creating a newsletter, memos, and letters (with pre-written form letters included). PowerPoint has wizards for creating sales, technical, and training presentations, that prompt you for certain types of information at appropriate points in the presentation.

3. Use named styles. Named styles in word processors are pre-formatted types of text. You apply a named style to an entire block of text, such as a heading, paragraph, or list. For example, most word processors, desktop publishing programs, and authoring tools provide named styles for heading 1, heading 2, heading 3, and heading 4, for several types of body type, such as quotations, examples, and "normal," a typical paragraph. Named styles offer many advantages:

• They minimize keystrokes needed for formatting because the system already knows how to format. For example, when you indicate that a paragraph is a heading 1, the system automatically formats the paragraph in the correct type font and size, leaves the appropriate amount of space above and below the heading, and, if you indicated, place a tool bar above or below the heading.
• They simply the creation of tables of contents and other features. To create a table of contents, most word processors create a table containing all of the paragraphs that use a heading with a named style.
• They simplify the exchange of files among systems. By using named styles, you can ensure that a heading 1 is always interpreted as a first level heading on any system, even if the other computer uses a different font and size to present that heading. If you do not use named styles,the formatting may be lost when you convert the file for use on another sytem.
• They minimize changes in formatting. If you need to change the formatting of a particular style, you change the definition of that style and the system automatically changes all instances of it. For example, if you decide to increase the size of heading 2s from 12 point to 14 point type, you would change the style, and the system would automatically change each heading 2 in the document.

4. Help readers find information by creating:

• Tables of contents
• Running headers and footers
• Indexes

Most word processors, authoring systems, and desktop publishing packages let you easily create these elements, but the instructions are not readily apparent from the icons available on the display screen or the options listed on the menus. Similarly, most help authoring tools also let you create these elements, but the instructions are not readily apparent. Read the user’s guide or the online help to get instructions.

5. Improve the appearance of documents through the use of:

• Bulleted lists
• Numbered lists
• Special symbols

Most word processors, authoring tools, and presentation graphics programs, and desktop publishing programs let you create bulleted and numbered lists merely by highlight the text that is to be included in the list, and clicking on either a bulleted list or numbered list icon, depending on your needs.

These word processors and desktop publishing packages also provide sets of special symbols that can enhance the appearance of a document. For example, rather than using bullets at the beginning of a checklist, perhaps you could use the checklist symbol: ž . Similarly, precede a telephone number with a telephone symbol () ) and a mailing address with a letter symbol (* ).

Choose the bullets and numbering option from the Format menu in Word and PowerPoint to make these changes.

6. Reduce grammatical errors by using the grammar checker. Most people are aware of the spelling checker and many organizations require, as part of their standard procedures, that people use the spelling checker to identify misspellings before turning in an assignment for review.

However, fewer people make use of the grammar checker. Grammar checkers can help you identify misplaced modifiers, passive voice sentences, excessively long sentences, and other stylistic problems. Using a grammar checker does not preclude the use of a “human” editor, but it does assist you in flagging some of the problems in your text before you send it out for a first review.

7. Insert information from other applications. In many instances, you need to use information that is already available on the computer. For example, suppose you have an online address book and want to write a letter to someone whose name and address appear there. You can eliminate unnecessary keystrokes by copying the information from the address book and pasting it into the word processor. (As a bonus, you also reduce the likelihood of errors, because you do not need to re-enter the information.)

For more sophisticated needs, such as using a chart created from data stored in a spread sheet and that is likely to change as you develop your communication product, you can link the two files so that when information in the spreadsheet changes, the system automatically updates your communication product. See the help for your word processor or authoring tool for instructions on how to use this function.

8. Include summary information with a file so you can easily find it later. Some applications let you store add a description and keywords to a file. Later, if you forget the file name or its location, you can search for the file based on its keywords. Similarly, the comments in the description help another person better understand the file should they assume responsibility for the communication product from you.

Specifically, Microsoft Office applications suggest that you provide the following information:

• Title of the document
• Subject
• Author of the document
• Manager of the author
• Company or organization
• Category (where you might file the document)
• Keywords (that you might use to search for the document)
• Comments (that might be helpful to others looking at the document)

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(c) Copyright. 2002. Saul Carliner. All rights reserved.