6.1011, Sum: Word Processors for Linguists

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-1011. Thu Jul 27 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  276
 
Subject: 6.1011, Sum: Word Processors for Linguists
 
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Editor for this issue: dseely at emunix.emich.edu (T. Daniel Seely)
 
---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Mon, 24 Jul 1995 23:16:17 EDT
From:  jaske at abacus.bates.edu (Jon Aske)
Subject:  Sum: Word Processors for linguists
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Mon, 24 Jul 1995 23:16:17 EDT
From:  jaske at abacus.bates.edu (Jon Aske)
Subject:  Sum: Word Processors for linguists
 
SUMMARY OF QUESTION ABOUT NUMBERED EXAMPLES, ETC. IN WORD 2 FOR
WINDOWS
 
First of all I want to thank all those who showed me how to
number examples in Word and gave me other advice.  Secondly, I
want to apologize for not mentioning that I was referring to
Windows programs, and not Mac programs.  Most people who wrote
figured that one out, probably from the version numbers.
 
In what follows, my comments are in square brackets.
 
This was the original question:
 
> I am thinking of moving ("migrating"?) from WordPerfect 6 to MS Word
> 6, which came bundled with my new computer, and would like to know if people
> with similar experiences have anything of interest to say about such a move,
> such as for example any good references to look into (that are not too basic;
> the software didn't come with a reference manual, just the online manual).
>
> Two specific questions:
>
> 1) NUMBERED EXAMPLES: WP can set up counters, which is how I dealt with
> numbered examples.  Word doesn't seem to have a similar
> capability?  Could that be possible?  How do people deal with automatic
> numbering of examples in Word (as well as cross-references to examples)?
>
> 2) FILE MANAGER: This is something where WP is better than Word by a long
> shot, but I understand there are add-ons for Word out there.  Has anybody
> heard of this?
>
> 3) SEARCH SOFTWARE: While I'm at it, I just got a message about a software
> utility called PowerSearch, by CommTech, which has powerful search mechanisms
> and works in Word or WordPerfect (there are two versions).  Has anyone had
> any experience with this? (it is obtainable with ftp).
 
 
WINDOWS VS. MAC
 
[There are more than twice as much PCs out there than Mac's, but perhaps
among linguists the percentages are more even.  I'm not ready to change
though.  I am quite happy with PCs thank you very much.]
 
From: pdaniels at press-gopher.uchicago.edu (Peter Daniels)
You don't say whether you're a Mac or PC person, but the reviews of Word 6
for Mac were uniformly enormously negative: they actually ported Woindows
onto the Mac! Since we Mac users continually have to escape the really
lousy Windows imitations of things the Mac does gracefully, we can't imaging
why they did that!
The MacUser review recommended NisusWritier as the word processor of choice
now (and if you are evern going to use alien scripts, there's no substitute);
but you shluld also look at FrameMaker (abvailable for lots of platforms,
ioncluding Windows); it can number an idefinitely large number of different
series, cross-refer between chapters that are separate files, etc. It only
isn't WoldScript-sensitive. (Version 4.0.4 was sort of, but was buggy, and
in the just-released Version 5, they abancdoned it.)
 
 
WORDPERFECT VS. WORD
 
[The advantage of WP for linguists is definitely the special characters it
supports, though the special fonts that come with WP (which are True Type)
will work, I believe, with Word, so Word users can get a hold of these
True Type fonts from their WP user friends.]
 
From: SEEGMILLER at apollo.montclair.edu ("STEVE SEEGMILLER")
I am in a similar situation: my new office computer came with
Microsoft Office, which includes WORD. I toyed with the idea of switching
from Word Perfect, but after a minimal amount of tinkering with WORD,
I have about abandoned the idea. The main reason, for me, is that
Word Perfect comes with a fairly extensive set of special characters,
which I use a lot. They include several foreign alphabets, most of
the IPA alphabet, characters for logical notation, and so forth.
WORD, as far as I can tell, comes with hardly any of these. So I have
about decided to erase Office from my hard drive and install what I
really use.
 
 
NUMBERED EXAMPLES
 
[Word can indeed number examples or anything at all.  The
terminology is a bit different though, which is why I was
confused.  In WP you set up COUNTERS, but in Word you set up
SEQUENCES.]
 
[Several people told me that they had gotten this to work, though
they didn't all know how they did it.  However, after they
pointed me in the right direction, I was able to figure it out.]
 
You set up a counter by using the SEQ field (look in your manual
under fields).  Fields are somewhat like codes in WordPerfect,
they have links to things like counters (chapter number, section,
number) or dates, file names, etc.  One of the fields is SEQ.
 
(A) Chose: Insert/Field, click SEQ, which will give you a SEQ in
the bottom window; add "ex /n" to the right of the SEQ code in
lower window, press RETURN (the ex is the name or identifier for
the counter, the /n is to increase the number by 1).  The
first time you do this a 1 will show up, the second a 2, etc.
(You can set up more than one such counter/sequence by giving
each sequence a diferent name an Identifier) (There are many
predefined sequences, e.g. {SEQ chapter} refers to chapter
numbers.)
 
(B) You can create a macro, which then you can assign to a button
or a key combination, which does:
1) Choose a paragraph type you've created which has the right
margins, font size, etc. for your example paragraph; and
2) Right Tab, (, the stuff in (A) above, ), Left Tab.
 
(C) Cross-referencing examples: Very easy.  First you have to
create a bookmark for an example you want to cross-reference:
a) Highlight the number created in (A) above (along with the
parentheses).
b) Choose Edit/Bookmark, give the bookmark a name (40
characters), e.g. donkey_sentence
c) When you want to refer to it, you type, e.g., "As we saw in
example "; then you click Insert/Cross-reference, click bookmark,
click the name of the bookmark, click insert.  Of course, many of
these operations can be simplified with macros.
 
There are many possibilities that I haven't mentioned.  For
instance, if you want to number the examples in Ch. 3 in the
format (3.1), all you have to is before you insert the field for
SEQ, you insert the field for the chapter.]
 
 
Help on numbering in Word 2 came from:
From: SKIESLING at guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
From: RDHOBERMAN at ccmail.sunysb.edu ("R. Hoberman")
From: dodden at magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu ("david_odden at osu.edu")
 
 
NUMBERING EXAMPLES IN DOS:
From: m211744 at er.uqam.ca (BOUFFARD PAULA)
You are right, the automatic numbering of examples in Word(.4,.5 & .6) is
inexistant which is a problem for linguists since we deal with a lot of
examples in our text.  If this can be of any interst for you I have found
an excellent programm which allows me to do automatic numbering of
examples as well as cross-references to examples in the text.  The name
of the program is RENUMBER 1.2 and you can get it by writing to:
 Jonathan Mead;  356 No. Spaulding Ave.; Los Angele, CA; USA  90036
or by e-mailing Jonathan at : izzyt09 at UCLAMVS
I have been told that the fees for this programm are $15. for student and
$20. for non student.
 
[I have used Renumber in the past, and it works well.  It is not
as convenient as the features in Word and WordPerfect though.]
 
 
POWERFUL SEARCHES
 
From: BELMORE at VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA
If you are a Mac user and are looking for super-sophisticated
searching, try NISUS which uses GREP conventions and is the best
going that I know of.
 
From: millerk at gusun.acc.georgetown.edu ("Keith J. Miller")
Regarding your 'search' question, there is a *lot* of stuff available out
there, depending on the scope of your intended use....  If you're just
going for personal use on 1 PC, you may want to look at Eclipse FIND, not
free, but only $99, last time I looked.  (Just my $0.02).
 
[PowerSearch seems to be pretty nice.  I downloaded it from SimTel (ftp
oak.oakland.edu, cd SimTel/win3/winword (or cd SimTel/win3/wpwin), and get the
compressed binary file powersch.zip (or searchwp.zip).  Unfortunatel this
version has the powerful features locked, and to unlock them you have to
send in $50, which I have not done.  The search possibilities seem pretty
impressive.
 
 
TREES
 
From: a.cormack at linguistics.ucl.ac.uk (Annabel Cormack)
Huge advantage if you would make use of it is that you can easily draw
trees, using the integral drawing program (from what people say, it sounds
better than Arboreal). I keep a little file of tree-parts.
 
 
REFERENCE BOOKS
 
[I should say that the Microsoft Office Professional CD-ROM which came wih my
computer does have ALL the manuals in it.  Af first, I wasn't too excited
about these electronic books, but now that I've gotten used to the idea,
it's not so bad.]
 
From: a.cormack at linguistics.ucl.ac.uk (Annabel Cormack)
Books: I have Borland's Running Word 6.  It is fairly adequate.  But it
does not explain about styles and templates sufficiently, to my mind
(admittedly somewhat addled ) and it does not have enough information about
long documents (Master documents).  The index is useless, until you already
know what you want to find out. The Help system is extensive, though again
it is sometimes hard to know what to ask it.
 
From: Bill_Jancewicz at sil.org
     Depending on your learning style, you may be quite
     handicapped without a real manual, but happily there are commercial
     versions available at most bookstores "Prima Visual learning guide for
     Word 6.0" (Prima Publishing, PO Box 1260BK Rocklin, CA 95677) is an
     example.
 
     On the other hand, it is good to get used to the on-line help, because
     it's always there.
 
 
FILE MANAGERS
 
From: Bill_Jancewicz at sil.org
     What do you want to do? delete files? view files? create directories?
     Windows file manager, while not the best option, offers much of this
     function, just a mouse click away. Also, try Word's Find File command
     (under the FILE menu)
 
     I was real happy when I figured out how to do this one: I knew you could
     LOOK at a file in WP without opening it, but I was not sure how to do
     this in Word: Here's how:
 
     From the FILE menu, choose FIND FILE.
 
     Select the file whose contents you want to view. If you don't see the
     file you are looking for, search for it: click on the SEARCH button,
     choose the drive and directory(s) you want to look in, make a wildcard
     filename (like *.rev) choose include subdirectories (if you want to
     check your whole drive, etc), click on OK, and look at the list of files
     found.
 
     To preview the file, select PREVIEW in the View box (still in the Find
     file dialog box.
 
     Then just click on the filename you want to look at, and you will see
     the first page on the screen. You can scroll through it to browse, you
     can delete, copy, open etc. by choosing the COMMANDS button.
 
 
 
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Jon Aske                                    Home address:
Bates College                                12 Bardwell St.
Lewiston, Maine 04240, USA                   Lewiston, Maine 04240-6336
e-mail: jaske at abacus.bates.edu                 -Phone/Fax: (207) 786-0589
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