In The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap X, I discussed how I use Insert Query to insert a query or comment into the manuscript. Sometimes an inserted query needs to be modified or deleted or just reviewed. With Microsoft’s system, you need to find that inserted comment and go to it. Most of the time I do not want to leave my current editing location, but Microsoft doesn’t let me stay. Consequently, I use EditTools’ Comment Editor to deal with already-inserted comments.
Comment Editor, shown below (you can make an image in this essay larger by clicking on the image), lets me either move to the comment and then return to where I was in the manuscript (#1 and #2 in image; if I check the boxes in #1, I will automatically be taken to and returned from a selected comment every time I select one, whereas #2 lets me make the leap only when I click the buttons; I prefer to use method #2) or deal with the comment without moving from my current location. In addition, it gives me the ability to find the comment I want to modify (or delete) without having to go through each comment (#3). This is particularly useful in a chapter with a lot of comments (in the example shown in the image, the chapter has 54 comments).
The Comment Editor dialog
Comment Editor shows all of the comments I have inserted in the manuscript using either Insert Query, which was discussed in The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap X, or Microsoft’s method. In other words, Comment Editor does not require using Insert Query. Comment Editor also displays comments that were inserted by either the authors or other editors before I was given the manuscript. It is not necessary for a comment to be inserted using Insert Query for it to appear in Comment Editor; it just has to be a properly inserted comment.
Comment Editor lets me use the scrollbar (#4 in image below) to scroll through the comments until I find the one I want. When I find the comment I want to review, edit, or delete, I select it (#5). The complete text of a selected comment appears in the text box (#6).
Selecting a query for editing
With the selected comment text in the text box, I can edit the comment, as shown here:
Editing the selected query
The highlighted text in the above image identifies the change I made. (The highlighting is just to show the modification I made; you cannot highlight the comment text. Although Comment Editor makes editing of comments easier, it is still limited by what actions Microsoft will allow.) Clicking Update (#7) modifies the comment in the document. If I want to delete the comment, I click Delete (#8). I generally do not keep Comment Editor open as I work as I do not often have to edit or delete a comment. But when I do keep it open, I click the Refresh button (#9 in the above image) to refresh the list of comments displayed (#10). Refreshing will show the comments that remain in the manuscript and their renumbering. In other words, had I deleted rather than modified the selected comment, then the comment immediately following it would have become FES25. Refreshing would show that change without requiring closing and reopening Comment Editor.
Microsoft imposes limits on the length (i.e., number of characters including spaces) a comment can be (#11 in the above image). I admit that it is rare that I would write a comment that comes close to that limit, but there have been a couple of times in my editing career when I have come close to that limit. Sometimes a lengthy explanation is needed. Remember that we are talking about characters with spaces, not words. To give you an idea of the difference, the preceding paragraph (“The highlighted text…and reopening Comment Editor.”) is 160 words but 943 characters. The maximum size a comment can be is 2000 characters; Comment Editor keeps me posted on the length of a comment (#11).
A good example of the utility of Comment Editor is shown in the next image. While editing the chapter from which these examples are drawn, I came across the initialism ITP, which can substitute for several diseases. Based on context, I replaced ITP with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP); however, the author could have meant idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Consequently, I inserted the comment shown.
An example
Note that it is the third comment in the chapter. Suppose the author defined ITP much later in the chapter as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. That means I erred in my expansion of ITP earlier. Of course, there are several ways to locate the earlier expansion of ITP, including using Bookmarks (see The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap IV for how bookmarks can be used), but what I really need to know is whether I misdefined ITP and did I query it. I can check Comment Editor and when I find comment numbered FES3, I can move to it, correct the expansion, run the Enhanced Search, Count, and Replace macro (see The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap IX for a discussion of this macro), return to where I was in the manuscript when I discovered the error, and either delete or modify the comment.
Although not necessary, I view Insert Query and Comment Editor as complementary — a united pair of macros; that is, I insert all comments using Insert Query and I edit all comments using Comment Editor. Comment Editor is an easy way to navigate and modify comments. Combined with Insert Query, it minimizes the amount of time needed to locate and deal with comments. The quicker and more efficiently I can deal with comments, the more profit I make.
Do you have a more efficient method for editing comments and queries?
Richard Adin, An American Editor
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An American Editor
The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap XI
Tags: AAE approach to editing, Comment Editor, copyediting roadmap, editing comments and queries, guide to copyediting, Insert Query, inserting comments and queries, methodology
In The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap X, I discussed how I use Insert Query to insert a query or comment into the manuscript. Sometimes an inserted query needs to be modified or deleted or just reviewed. With Microsoft’s system, you need to find that inserted comment and go to it. Most of the time I do not want to leave my current editing location, but Microsoft doesn’t let me stay. Consequently, I use EditTools’ Comment Editor to deal with already-inserted comments.
Comment Editor, shown below (you can make an image in this essay larger by clicking on the image), lets me either move to the comment and then return to where I was in the manuscript (#1 and #2 in image; if I check the boxes in #1, I will automatically be taken to and returned from a selected comment every time I select one, whereas #2 lets me make the leap only when I click the buttons; I prefer to use method #2) or deal with the comment without moving from my current location. In addition, it gives me the ability to find the comment I want to modify (or delete) without having to go through each comment (#3). This is particularly useful in a chapter with a lot of comments (in the example shown in the image, the chapter has 54 comments).
The Comment Editor dialog
Comment Editor shows all of the comments I have inserted in the manuscript using either Insert Query, which was discussed in The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap X, or Microsoft’s method. In other words, Comment Editor does not require using Insert Query. Comment Editor also displays comments that were inserted by either the authors or other editors before I was given the manuscript. It is not necessary for a comment to be inserted using Insert Query for it to appear in Comment Editor; it just has to be a properly inserted comment.
Comment Editor lets me use the scrollbar (#4 in image below) to scroll through the comments until I find the one I want. When I find the comment I want to review, edit, or delete, I select it (#5). The complete text of a selected comment appears in the text box (#6).
Selecting a query for editing
With the selected comment text in the text box, I can edit the comment, as shown here:
Editing the selected query
The highlighted text in the above image identifies the change I made. (The highlighting is just to show the modification I made; you cannot highlight the comment text. Although Comment Editor makes editing of comments easier, it is still limited by what actions Microsoft will allow.) Clicking Update (#7) modifies the comment in the document. If I want to delete the comment, I click Delete (#8). I generally do not keep Comment Editor open as I work as I do not often have to edit or delete a comment. But when I do keep it open, I click the Refresh button (#9 in the above image) to refresh the list of comments displayed (#10). Refreshing will show the comments that remain in the manuscript and their renumbering. In other words, had I deleted rather than modified the selected comment, then the comment immediately following it would have become FES25. Refreshing would show that change without requiring closing and reopening Comment Editor.
Microsoft imposes limits on the length (i.e., number of characters including spaces) a comment can be (#11 in the above image). I admit that it is rare that I would write a comment that comes close to that limit, but there have been a couple of times in my editing career when I have come close to that limit. Sometimes a lengthy explanation is needed. Remember that we are talking about characters with spaces, not words. To give you an idea of the difference, the preceding paragraph (“The highlighted text…and reopening Comment Editor.”) is 160 words but 943 characters. The maximum size a comment can be is 2000 characters; Comment Editor keeps me posted on the length of a comment (#11).
A good example of the utility of Comment Editor is shown in the next image. While editing the chapter from which these examples are drawn, I came across the initialism ITP, which can substitute for several diseases. Based on context, I replaced ITP with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP); however, the author could have meant idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Consequently, I inserted the comment shown.
An example
Note that it is the third comment in the chapter. Suppose the author defined ITP much later in the chapter as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. That means I erred in my expansion of ITP earlier. Of course, there are several ways to locate the earlier expansion of ITP, including using Bookmarks (see The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap IV for how bookmarks can be used), but what I really need to know is whether I misdefined ITP and did I query it. I can check Comment Editor and when I find comment numbered FES3, I can move to it, correct the expansion, run the Enhanced Search, Count, and Replace macro (see The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap IX for a discussion of this macro), return to where I was in the manuscript when I discovered the error, and either delete or modify the comment.
Although not necessary, I view Insert Query and Comment Editor as complementary — a united pair of macros; that is, I insert all comments using Insert Query and I edit all comments using Comment Editor. Comment Editor is an easy way to navigate and modify comments. Combined with Insert Query, it minimizes the amount of time needed to locate and deal with comments. The quicker and more efficiently I can deal with comments, the more profit I make.
Do you have a more efficient method for editing comments and queries?
Richard Adin, An American Editor
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