Re: Options are always good
It's surprising what I've found Word users doing to "format" their work.
Maybe that's why our use of LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office has been so successful:
1 - our focus is on contents, not styling. If we want styling we get a designer to help, that's why we have them (who, by the way, took a while to get going for Affinity products but are now actually quite happy with them);
2 - we don't have super complex spreadsheets because that will hamper our audit processes;
3 - we give every member of staff a mini course in the use of styles and templates..
That last one does add some time to initial staff training and there's talk of turning it into an educational video, but we found that coaching people in the use of styles and templates tends to result in far better documents.
First of all, as said earlier, it helps to get people to focus on structure and contents and worry about the pretty stuff later (IMHO one of the major flaws of MS Office is that it seems to prioritise looks and fiddling with the controls over contents, something most evident in Powerpoint), secondly, when it's time to lay out the contents it's done so consistently and a LOT faster than when done all manually.
This, by the way, would also help especially Word users.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
