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By Leslie, July 25, 2011 3:33 am

Everyone take a deep breath and read on! Has this ever happened to you?

Your editor, agent or crit partner reviewed your manuscript. She loves what you’ve done! But she has a few things she wants you to look at. She’s sent back her changes in a copy of your manuscript. Maybe she used the tracked change feature, maybe she’s commented in-line but used a different color font. Now, when you look a the document you cannot tell what she added. You need to review those changes, but when you open the file they are gone! Well, not gone exactly but absorbed into your current document, and you can’t tell what’s original and what’s a change!

Maybe you inadvertently “Accepted All” changes or maybe the Demons of Microsoft ate them. Are you screwed? Well, perhaps not. If you need to know what was changed, removed, or added, and you have a previous version of the same document, you are golden. Yes, I do mean that, so pull up a chair and read on.

The wizards at Microsoft have embedded a number of useful yet oddly-named tools in their MS word application. The ability to Merge Documents is one. How can Merge Documents resurrect my lost changes? Because when the tool merges, it actually creates a Merged Document with all differences between the two tagged as tracked changes. Essentially, this tool answers the question:

How does this work? First, you need an older or original version of your document and the new version containing the hidden changes. The screen captures shown in the steps below are from Merge Documents in MS Word 2011 and 2008 for the Mac, but an analogous tool, calledCompare documents in Word 2007 for Windows, works the same and is found in the Review ribbon. See…(Look at windows screen capture on your right…) The comparison and document merging shown below can be done in both the Mac and Windows version of MS Word.

Step 1: In MS Word, open Compare Documents from the Tools menu.Selecting this will open the Merge Documents dialog box.

Step 2: There are really only two things to add and one setting to check in Merge Documents and I show them circled in red below:

1. Choose the old file, the one that has the unchanged information.
2. Choose the new file, the one that has new changes.
3. VERY IMPORTANT! At the bottom underShow changes in: choose New Document. This ensures that your original or revised document will not be overwritten! Luckily, this is also the default setting.

You can also change what you want compared in Comparison settings. Word defaults this to everything and I usually just leave it that way.

Once you have done this, click OK.

Step 3: The new merged file will now open. This file uses the Original document as the base and applies the changes from the Revised document as tracked changes. Sound complicated? It’s not. Here’s what it looks like for my current WIP Internet Millionaire’s Copilot:

You can now review the changes, accept what you want and toss the ones that you don’t need. Easy!

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By Leslie, April 25, 2011 3:32 pm

***Queue music……Ta..Da..Da….Daaaaaa!

Okay, okay they are LATE! Sue me.  I posted my results from last year’s goals in the previous post. Well, I’ve been busy. Not slacking, working! Yes, yes on my goal targets.  Hey, I had them I just didn’t POST them!

This year’s goals are presented by:  my sons Thelen and Walker (no name comments, please),  my dog, Kyra, and my Nelson’s Albino Milksnake, Audrey Lou.

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By Leslie, August 25, 2010 8:20 am

No, seriously, do you have one?

I had an out of body moment this morning. I lost the latest version of my manuscript. Sync services ate it.

I use a system for writing that involves two computers, SugarSync, and Scrivener among other programs. Now, I adore Scrivener. It allows me to manage my complex manuscript like the project it is. A Scrivener project is built around a package of individual text files indexed by the Scrivener application and presented in the UI as an integrated whole. There is a variety of metadata around each file that includes attributes like last changed, scene, status, or anything else you could possible imagine or create. It also allows you to take snapshots (i.e. versions) of any part of the project and save them so you can roll back if you decide that the outrageously brilliant plot twist involving slugs and penguins was just a wee bit too far out.

It also means that there are about a bazillion tiny files inside a Scrivener package. Not a big problem, unless you are syncing the files individually. Ahem.

Syncing between computers is hard. I’m certain of this because I’ve used a broad assortment of sync services over many years with little to no success. Man, it must be a freaking hard problem. But in the past couple of years, sites like SugarSync, Apple’s .Me, and DropBox all seem to have it working pretty well. Until it doesn’t, of course. And let me say here that I use all three services for different things.

That’s what happened to me today. I lost my latest version of my manuscript A Fault in Time in a sync collision that corrupted the Scrivener package. This is the manuscript that finaled in the contest, the one that an agent has requested. I said I had an out of body moment, because that’s what it was. An out of body moment.

I looked stupidly at the terrifying error message that told me my file was horribly corrupted.

I said, “*&%#”.

I launched Time Machine, restored the file, and kept working.

Total elapsed time lost….about 20 seconds. (Ignoring the time to blog about it.)

Total data lost….nothing.

What’s your backup strategy? Have you tested it lately?

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By Leslie, July 24, 2010 4:57 am

An iPad is an odd beast. It’s like a toothbrush.

My husband and I both have iPads. He visited our oldest son a few weeks ago. Old Son does not have an iPad but is a technodweeb and lusts after all things shiny. I asked how he liked the husband’s iPad and there was a long hesitation in the chat window.

Mom: did u play w/ iPad?

.

.

OS:  no. iPad too personal. u know?

HUH? I had never thought of the iPad as more personal than any of the other devices he wrenched out of my hands to fondle nearly as soon as I unboxed them. Then I thought about it, inspected my iPad, and he’s kind of right.  But that goes along with my growing realization that the iPad is not bastardized/turbocharged webpad or a replacement for the MacBook Air. It’s a whole different class of device.

I use it to do some of the things I used to do on my phone like quickly look up contacts and news, and some of the things I used to cart my MacBook Air around the house for like control the sprinklers and the Apple TVs and look up arcane bits of info in IMDB. It stays by my bed so I can check my mail in the morning and it goes in my purse now, not my MacBook Air. And lets not forget all the recipes that I now have at the swipe of a greasy finger.  Oh…and the books!! But even then, I will choose to read on my light weight Kindle before dragging out the iPad.

The theme here is easy  and personalized data access from multiple sources delivered in a single device. That is true power.

If I’m going to do serious writing, the Air comes along. I’ve got a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad, but that’s silly, my Air is my writing device of choice anyway.

So, do I need the iPad? No, I guess not, but try to pry it out of my fingers now….  iPad….Personal Access Device