Anybody using revisions? I tried it last night but the colour (red) kept reverting to black. Any advise?
Thanks.
Jeco
Are you talking about the revision pens? I don’t think Windows has that ability yet.
How are you attempting to use revision with different colors?
this is good to know, I’ve been trying to figure out what they were supposed to do and not coming up with anything different.
Revision pens are basically just forced text colours. Whatever you type will always be in that colour. The text colour tool itself is more like a traditional formatting tool, where you select the text you want to adjust, and unless you start typing within that range of text or copy and paste some of it elsewhere, the colour will not spread to other areas of the document.
Windows at the moment just has the latter tool, as already noted. If you want to use colour to mark out revisions you’ll have to do so by hand that would probably represent too much work. I’d recommend just using Snapshots instead. While you can’t run comparisons between Snapshots now, that is a feature that will be coming in time, so taking snapshots now will ensure you can compare in the future.
Actually, I use highlights for my revisions. The part that’s annoying about that is that there are only five highlight colors in the drop-down menu: to highlight all seven of the types of issues I’m working with (Characterization, Voice and POV, Plot and Structure, etc.), I have to keep going into the Other Colors.
But I highlight problems, then scan through and fix them … and this sounds slightly different?
I prefer annotations for what you are using highlights for. I put a keyword in the annotation to note what the problem is (like “POV”) and then describe the problem if necessary, or just leave it as a keyword in that spot. Highlights are basically doing the same thing with less typing, so long as you only have a set number of problems to work with. So if you are having to work around the 5-colour limitation, you might try switching to a format that has no limits.
Revision pens work differently though in that they let you see what you’ve actually changed. Because the text colour is forced to a revision level colour (like red or blue), everything you type in is easy to spot. The only thing it doesn’t record are deletions (though you can do strikeouts in that colour, if you don’t mind going back later and removing the strikeouts). So it’s more a retrospective tool than the highlighter and annotation tool, both of which are good for adding things to your to do list.
Hi Ioa,
Thanks for your input. The method I use is basically this:
- Format
- Font
- Colors
- (I choose red)
The problem I have while editing, say, a long paragraph, is when I work on different sections of the same paragraph. Every time I do that I loose the red color having to go back to format and select red again. Wouldn’t it more logical to have it checked until chosen otherwise?
Thanks.
Jeco
I would say yes and no. Yes in that it would be useful (more on that below), but no in that this would go against what typical formatting tools work like. Again, the colour tool as-is is meant to be a like any other formatting tool, like bold. If you toggle on bold, it doesn’t stick to bold if you move the cursor some place else, but like bold if you put the cursor in the middle of a red block and start typing, it will be red as well.
One thing that will make things easier for you: rather than doing the whole menu dance, use the Format Bar instead. The “A” icon next to the highlighter pen is for text colour. Click the arrow to access the contents of the Format/Font/Colors/ sub-menu right there. Bonus: when you choose a colour you’ll note the “A” acquires a heavy underscore in that colour. From now on you can select text and click this button once to apply that same colour. If you don’t see the format bar, hit Ctrl-Shift-R.
A colour that sticks wherever you click is basically all revision mode is, so changing the current colour tool would be changing it to the revision tool—which is coming but not there yet.