Mellel and Word for Mac 2004 - very important

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hipertracker
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Mellel and Word for Mac 2004 - very important

Post by hipertracker »

I am using MacBook Pro and I am writing a book using Word for Mac 2004. I have bought Mellel editor because it is much faster and looks much better designed. The problem is, mu publisher wants *.doc format but I want to use Mellel. All I need is to import/export from/to Mellel-Word with saved styles. Having kept correct styles are crucial for making any longer text like a book.

I tried to export RTF file from Word and import it into Mellel, but it loses styles (sic!) The most important thing is keeping styles. I do not want to change fonts manual. It make no sens for longer text. I have (and I want) to work with custom defined styles. But I have no idea how to import text from Word without losing the. And vice-versa: I want export from Mellel RTF file and open it in Word for Mac 2004 with saved all styles. I do not care about fonts. If I have correct styles, I can fix this in easy way.

I must admit, I am very dissapointed I cannot do it in Mellel. Or maybe I just do not know how to make it? Is there any work around? Word is de facto a standard in the word no matter what we like. And any other product should at least be able to provide good export/import with saved styles and footnotes.
DanZac
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Re: Mellel and Word for Mac 2004 - very important

Post by DanZac »

I know its not the answer you want to hear, but this isn't going to happen. Most of us aren't happy with the answer.....
Declan
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Re: Mellel and Word for Mac 2004 - very important

Post by Declan »

Any progress with this matter? I need to submit .doc to the publisher, and I'm wondering how to prepare the export so as to create the least possible confusion. What is the optimum export practice for preserving styles, cross-references, and so on? What version of Word understands mellel exports best?

Finally, given that many long manuscripts prepared with mellel will be for publication, is there no chance of an export to Indesign option? If there was a way to skip the .doc stage, would we not all be happier?
laup
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Re: Mellel and Word for Mac 2004 - very important

Post by laup »

Are you absolutely sure that your publisher won't accept pdf? It is even possible that your publisher's representative thinks that .doc is required, but--upon asking--would find that .pdf would be fine. If you were lucky on this, it would solve your problem. To further explain, a publisher may demand a .doc file, but then delete all styles, and then completely reformat it in the publisher's style. If so, an imperfect .doc file and a .pdf file that looked the way you want it would be fine to guide the reformatting. You can always ask.

If you absolutely have to have .doc, then exporting to .rtf, opening in Word, saving-as to .doc, and then doing a proof read is the only thing I know to do. In my experience, there are not that many glitches--enough perhaps for 2 hours of correction per 100 pages, but not 2 days per 100 pages. Correcting the errors in Word can be quicker if you are also pretty good with Word styles, find and replace, etc. In my rather stressful experiments, there have been some glitches with (1) small capitals not being exported as such (a Mellel error); (2) small glitches in line breaks/page breaks; (3) footnote or endnote symbols (e.g., *) being turned into numbers (easy to change in Word), (4) colored cells in tables not being exported with color (requires redoing the coloring in Word), and (5) .pdf graphics looking poor in Word (Word doesn't handle pdfs properly) (requires using a different format for the graphic). This sounds scary, but try it; don't assume the worst; you may have minimal problems.

Now, if the publisher edits the document and you get that back with line-in line-out comments, you can edit the edits in Word. This would mean that your Mellel manuscript would not quite match the publisher's final. You could in theory enter all of the editor's changes in your Mellel document and then edit them, re-export, etc., but that would likely not be feasible.

As others have said, perfect compatibility is not in the cards--for any word processor. Heck, Microsoft even mucks up details of translations among Office versions.

What you can't do easily is have Mellel use its styles, have Word use its styles, and send the manuscript back and forth between them with automatic correct translation. If the styles were unique (e.g., a size 10 font was used ONLY for some style), then you could in principle build some find-and-replace sets. In practice, however, this type of this can be a bridge too far in my experience.
Paul
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