Layout Work is Not as Easy as You Think

I really can't help but be a bit more than ordinarily particular about how a document should be presented. I believe that presentation matters just as much as content, which is why I can't completely let go of layout work now, although I've already graduated from my responsibilities as layout head from last year's reviewers and other barops-produced materials. If you don't want to hear me complain about the trials and travails of a layout editor, skip this next paragraph.

One of my biggest frustrations in being such a layout Nazi is that layout is such a grossly under-appreciated part of anything that requires it. Take barops for instance. Many content producers seem to take for granted that fixing the layout is not as easy as pie, especially with all those bullets, numberings, paragraph spacing, and indentation inconsistencies. Too often have I experienced being under pressure because of the bottleneck created by layout since the raw files were submitted late. It isn't as if those things will be automatically fixed once the content is created!

I know not everyone can relate though. It's not surprising that not a lot of people care about how difficult it is to make the effort to fix appearances. But I really can't help but be fastidious about it. I just wish that people who don't care too much about it would at least care more about the people who do, and the people who take the time to actually do the fixing. (If you're one of those who don't see why this work should be so hard, ask me, I'll give you a sample to fix. ;-))

Thank goodness for keyboard shortcuts. At least the computer (and the software) makes layout work a lot easier. There is a way to fix and modify text styles on Word 2007, and thankfully you can assign shortcuts to apply those paragraph styles to a particular portion of text!

This discovery of mine has made layout work so much more bearable. It's a comfort to know that if other people won't help make life easier, at least your computer will.