"Clerical" QA of specs

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Author Message Ed Storer Senior Member Username: ed_storer Post Number: 27 Registered: 05-2009 Posted on Thursday, September 05, 2019 - 03:59 pm:    Before I issue specs that will be priced, I perform what I call "clerical QA" - meaning that it's something that almost any administrative assistant could do. Unfortunately I don't have and AA. Preparation: Run macro to update title/ number/header/footer/and doc info for each section and then compile and print a table of contents. Spell check. This can be easy or time consuming when products/manufacturers are included. Bracket check: I use Masterspec and it's easy to skip past choices that I didn't have information when the spec was drafted. Section References: I search for "section" and make sure that I'm in-sync with the table of contents. Page Breaks: I hate to see paragraphs split between pages and the greatest sin of all is to have "END OF SECTION" alone on the last page of a section. With long paragraphs, I will take them apart one sentence at a time and change to subparagraphs. An added benefit is that the readability of the spec is improved. For EOS, I often find that there is something in the section that is unnecessary or simply inappropriate - and that shortens the section to the point where EOS is not an orphan. Masterworks and a few macros are very helpful here. Multifile "Open and Edit Files" feature is a time-saver. Once you've searched for "section", using CTRL-PGDN will find the next section reference, but it's kind of annoying when using a standard and referencing sections or that standard. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 635 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Thursday, September 05, 2019 - 06:06 pm:    Ed: These are great, and a great help to younger specifiers. I'll steal a few of yours, and add a few: A "shrink macro" that changes a paragraph to a font that is condensed by .3 pts. Handy when trying to get rid of an orphan line or two in a section: you shrink the paragraph text so it pulls a dangling word or two up and shortens the paragraph by a line. We leave (MasterSpec Masterworks) Project Notes at individual paragraphs that still need attention. Masterworks Report will locate them to make sure they're all addressed. I like to pull Editor's Notes out of edited sections to prevent occasional strange occurrences where they end up getting re-styled and printed. This and many other things can be accomplished one document at a time using CONTROL-H commands within a simple recorded macro. Ed hates broken paragraphs. I don't, but I hate errant extra spaces. I've assembled a CleanUp macro with my hit list of double spaces after colons, extra spaces before commas and periods, and other specifier anal-retentive trivia, all of which end up making the page read a little bit better. Regarding these recorded macros using CONTROL-H, they are really easy to learn to create; you can string them together as well in the macro editor. I add them to the Quick Access bar using an icon. I'm hoping Don Harris will chime in here. As the macro guru, he has some multi-file tricks I wish I could learn. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 504 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 07:34 pm:    Ed, you will like the Keep with Next property of paragraphs. Worth trying, though it is buried in newer versions of Word with ribbons! Regardless of MS Word version a keystroke series for this Alt, o, p, then use the 2nd tab (Line and Page Breaks), and checkmark keep with next. You never have to fiddle with adding or deleting blank lines of text as your sections change. It is easy to make a toolbar button for this. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 505 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 07:35 pm:    Phil, I wrote a macro that shrinks the taller-space-before paragraphs by a percentage. So you can shrink, and then shrink more if you like. On Error Resume Next ActiveDocument.Styles("yourstylename").ParagraphFormat.SpaceBefore = ActiveDocument.Styles("yourstylename").ParagraphFormat.SpaceBefore * 0.75 etc. for each style Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 506 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 07:37 pm:    The dir function within a while loop works great for running macros on files in a folder. Don Harris CSI, CCS, CCCA, AIA Senior Member Username: don_harris Post Number: 323 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 10:36 am:    One can add the "Keep With Next" property to the PRT and ART styles and you will never have a dangling PRT or ART at the bottom of a page. You can also do it with PR1, if so desired, but I don't. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 509 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 01:20 pm:    That’s what I do for my paragraphs styles at those levels. I also turn it on for a line or two of whatever comes before end of section in each of my masters so I never worry about it they are either. I made my master formatting macro go to end of section and then go up a line and turn on keep with next and repeat for one more line. That way there’s always at least a line or two of text along with end of section on their page John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1792 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 03:37 pm:    I have to say that I gave up all these tinkering techniques many years ago. In the end, nobody cares and it doesn't make the specs more accurate. And in the PDF world, there's no paper to save. Even the "END OF SECTION" on another page stopped bothering me. I just didn't feel that there was payback in the time to do the fixin'. Marcos are great, I've written hundreds, but they don't write themselves. Most of my macros are those that change two or three keystrokes into one. David J. Wyatt, CDT Senior Member Username: david_j_wyatt_cdt Post Number: 310 Registered: 03-2011 Posted on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 04:17 pm:    I like your style, John. Marc Chavez Senior Member Username: mchavez Post Number: 525 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 05:08 pm:    I'm on johns page with this one. Besides you'll all soon be in Virtual Reality editing specs (in the holodeck... in a film noir PI office on a Underwood #6, while chewing on the tail end of a cigar... Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 510 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 06:14 pm:    Personally I am right there with you guys, but I have had a few times an architect wagging his finger at the EOS at the top of an empty page. So I eliminated the problem.