Hidden Text in guide specs

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Author Message Steve Taylor Senior Member Username: steveatwi Post Number: 19 Registered: 07-2008 Posted on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 - 10:49 am:    I used hidden text for comments in my Word guide specs. (Which are now posted at http://woodworkinstitute.com/publications/manual_guide_specs.asp). My office has changed the comments to regular text in a shaded text box. Is there any strong preference? Which would you prefer? Thanks, Steve Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 937 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 - 11:13 am:    I prefer the hidden text because I can choose not to delete it and it won't print (as long as I have the right things checked). While I normally do delete the edit notes, sometimes I want to be able to refer to them and leave them in. Richard A. Rosen, CSI, CCS, AIA Senior Member Username: rarosen Post Number: 51 Registered: 08-2006 Posted on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 - 11:56 am:    Steve: The editors notes are in hidden text. The dotted lines below the text indicate hidden text which can be turned off. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 411 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 - 05:47 pm:    Most participants in this forum are specifiers, who are intermediate or advanced word processing software users. They know how to use MSWord styles, and how to turn hidden text on and off. Many users of guide specifications are not so MSWord savvy. They may not understand hidden text, or know that the text is there, or how to turn it on or off for view or print. Lately, we've been inclined to keep the style for our clients' guide spec comments as visible text. Power users can reset the style and hide them with a simple command. Not so power users get to see the notes, and then delete them (hopefully) when they're done. That seems like a good idea to us. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1116 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 08:28 am:    We do what Phil does. Steve Taylor Senior Member Username: steveatwi Post Number: 20 Registered: 07-2008 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 11:04 am:    Thank you all for your comments. The way the guide specs are posted, the comment text is "no paragraph style". Would it be better to create a style called "Comments" so that the user could simply change the attributes of that style, rather than change each instance? Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 940 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 11:27 am:    IMHO, that would be great. Ronald L. Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP Senior Member Username: specman Post Number: 802 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 11:38 am:    Ditto Phil's comment. I do the same for the specifications I write for manufacturers. I also agree that converting the comments to a style would be appropriate. Also, Steve, why are there section numbers and titles at the top of each page? That doesn't conform to PageFormat. Ron Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP www.specsandcodes.com (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 01:28 pm:    The PDF document provided that attempts to help a reader understand LEED requirements is a mess. It is painfully obvious that the author has very little understanding of the actual credit requirements. This document will only serve to confuse readers further. Get it right, or get it off the web site. The last thing we need is more confusion. Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 315 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 01:51 pm:    (directed to the unregistered Guest poster Typically, the best way to accomplish what you are requesting is to make the effort to document your comments and then submit them to the entity in question, WWI in this case. Otherwise "the mess" will probably not be updated. If you see where help is needed, and have the ablity, but don't offer it, you are part of the problem, not the solution. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 272 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 02:00 pm:    The first thing that is obvious in the PDF is the references to LEED should now be to LEED 2009, also known as version 3. The painfully obvious is Unregistered Guest should take a valium. Tracy Van Niel, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: tracy_van_niel Post Number: 282 Registered: 04-2002 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 03:08 pm:    Anymore now, we are having to create .pdf files of our specifications and then 'send' them electronically to the printer for printing. You need to be careful with hidden comments/text when 'saving as' a .pdf because if a specific check box is checked, then it prints your hidden comments as part of the final document. We found that out the hard way when a specifier note as to why we have not included a specific manufacturer in our specs was included in the bid documents because the hidden text box was not 'unchecked' when the .pdf conversion took place. Tracy L. Van Niel, FCSI, CCS Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 941 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 03:42 pm:    Oh, yeah! Good point, Tracy. I'd forgotten all about that charming detail (selective memory, I think, trying to forget the embarrassment) Steve Taylor Senior Member Username: steveatwi Post Number: 21 Registered: 07-2008 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 07:52 pm:    Thank all of you for your comments. Regarding the LEED article, it was based on LEED 2.2 and has not been updated to reflect LEED 2009. We haven't had time to do the research to update the article. I believe the article states that it is based on 2.2. If the differences are that great, we will take it down. My last question (for now) is which version of Word you would prefer. I wrote the guide specs in Word 2003, but my editor at WI thinks they should be in Word 2007. There seem to be formatting differences. I'm about to upgrade to 2007 so we can at least speak the same language, but I wonder if we won't create a problem if we use the latest version and there are backward compatibility issues. Does anyone know if there are such issues? Is any particular version preferred or hated? Thanks again for all your help. I can't believe how generous this group is. Steve Ronald L. Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP Senior Member Username: specman Post Number: 804 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 08:16 pm:    Speaking of generous, where do we send our invoices? :-) Ron Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP www.specsandcodes.com Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 316 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 08:28 pm:    Steve, for these simple documents, using the 2003 Word.doc format is fine, and forward compatible for people using Word 2007. If you save the documents in the Word 2007.docx format, you can't use them in Word 2003 unless you download and install the converter. This is also true for Excel files. The converter is free however: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displayLang=en so in summary, using the 2003.doc format is fine Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 943 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, October 09, 2009 - 10:48 am:    Ron, don't ruin our images! Richard L Matteo, AIA, CSI, CCS Senior Member Username: rlmat Post Number: 348 Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Friday, October 09, 2009 - 10:58 am:    However, how do you open hidden text in Word 2007 when the document was created on Word 2003 This is exactly the problem I have with opening the specs Steve sent me to review - for which I apologize to Steve, as right after I got them, I got too busy to look at them. Also, you can't open docx files in WordPerfect - yes, some of us still have that - I'm in the process of converting my office specs to Word, but I still have over 7 years of archives that are in WordPerfect. As for hidden text - I don't use it in my office specs and I'm even getting rid of the text boxes, which don't work well either, and replacing the editing commnets as colored text which can be easily deleted when editing the specs. Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 126 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Friday, October 09, 2009 - 11:02 am:    You can open earlier files in later software, it is the reverse that is not true. When I get a .docx file i usually add this behind it .doc to make it run looks like XXXXX.docx.doc You can even add wordperfect extensions behind it to look like XXXX.docx.wpd or XXX.doc.wpd I have done that for years and it works. Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP CSG Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 127 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Friday, October 09, 2009 - 11:05 am:    Hidden text in Word 2007 is located at Go to the mircosoft logo at top left where there is a drop down list of open, save, print, etc There at the bottom is Tab that says WORD OPTIONS, click it. Go to DISPLAY> you will see the options to view hidden text and to print hidden text if you wish too as well Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP CSG Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 273 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Friday, October 09, 2009 - 12:26 pm:    Steve, I think the LEED article is OK, easlily understood. I am uncertain what the advasarial criticism is about. Venting their spleen perhaps. A notable difference between LEED v2.2 and LEED 2009 is in M&R credits. LEED 2009 has dropped the credits 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, etc. They are now simply credit 2 or credit 3 or credit 4 etc. For example, credit 3 is either 5% material reuse for 1 point or 10% material reuse for 2 points. Keep up the noble effort but please abbreviate and streamline the spec language by starting with removing occurences of "shall be" and replace with ":" (colon) which is the gospel according to CSI. Wayne