Dear Microsoft - or should that be Dear Apple?

[major_clanger]

Word is supposed to have a feature whereby I can refer to one footnote from another, and the reference will be automatically updated if I insert or delete footnotes so changing their numbering. Except that it doesn't seem to be working.

Ah, looking at Help it says I should select all text and press F9.

This, of course, does what pressing F9 has done since OS X 10.3 introduced Exposé, and nicely tiles all my window, because OS X helpfully intercepts the F9 keystroke before Word has a chance to see it.

More searching finds this document, which leads me to discover that Cmd-Opt-Shift-U is (naturally and obviously) a substitute for F9.

Which works. But now I feel as if I've used up all the brain I was relying on for the actual work...

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

There's a setting in the keyboard prefpane to set function keys not to do the hardware functions. Or you can use Fn+F9. Or switch Exposé off. :-)

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Word? For a serious academic document?????

I didn't think anybody did that! What you want is LaTeX, and I can recommend TeXShop for the mac... Not only will it do your footnotes properly it can typeset properly as well.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

In the humanities, I don't think anyone uses anything else. To quote the authors' guidelines from our own journal: 'Text should be in Microsoft Word format where possible', and it's what we are assumed to use for electronic submission of essays. I probably could arrange to submit in another format by prior discussion with my supervisor and the department (because it has to go to external markers), but why make life more difficult? I know that TeX is very powerful for writing scientific papers, but that's not what most legal academics do.

(I say 'most' because I'll make an exception for people doing research into computational legal reasoning. Having read some of their papers for my course, I suspect they probably were produced with TeX. But that's very unusual.)

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

And this, right here, makes me glad that we don't get to submit our essays electronically, I'd never considered being forced to use Word before now.

I'm an Open Office fan here, but maybe I should poke around at other options.

(BTW, I found you via EasterCon/SF things and added you to my f'list ages back)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

We are allowed to submit in RTF as well, which I understand most word processors can produce these days. To be honest, electronic submission is something I liked a lot when the OU introduced it (no more panic about getting TMAs to the tutor) and it worked very well even as a full-time residential student.

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Yes, when I did OU it was just before they allowed electronic submission on the course I was doing, now I'm at Birkbeck and everything has to be physically handed in, on paper. Which I do admit to preferring, a few people whine about it but not many really.

Allowing RTF though is at least sensible.

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

LOL. I have been there.

[ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com]

At least you're not still playing Alan Parsons ...

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I am an Alan Parsons Project fan and proud of it! Very good music to work to, I find, along with baroque classical and ambient electronica.

Mind you, I was the only one in the cinema who laughed at the APP joke in Austin Powers 2, so I'm under no illusions how widespread my enthusiasm is...