Randall Farrar

Checking if a Word Document is Dirty

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:31:34 +0000

Here’s a function that will tell you if the word document needs to be saved:

Private Function IsDocumentDirty(ByVal oWord As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application) As Boolean
      Dim x As Boolean
      x = Not oWord.ActiveDocument.Saved
      If oWord.ActiveDocument.Path.Length = 0 Then
           x = True
     End If

Return x
End Function

Metadata Opinions – Are You Complying?

SusanMcClellan — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:37:18 +0000

All across the United States, the debate surrounding and attorney's professional responsibility regarding metadata continues...Law associations throughout New York, including The New York State Bar Association, the New York City Bar Association and the New York County Lawyer's Association have released formal opinions on attorneys' ethical responsibilities regarding metadata.

MINNESOTA LAWYERS PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY BOARD DRAFTS OPINION ON METADATA: LAW FIRMS NEED TO PREPARE

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:23:53 +0000

Written by me and originally printed in the March 2010 issue of the Minnesota ALA’s Verdict Newsletter

On January 26, 2010, Minnesota’s Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board released Proposed Opinion No. 22 that deals with a lawyer’s ethical obligations regarding metadata, as follows:

“A lawyer has a duty under Rule 1.6, Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC), not to knowingly reveal information relating to the representation of a client, except as otherwise provided by the Rules. The lawyer’s duty not to knowingly reveal such information extends to and includes metadata in electronic documents. Accordingly, a lawyer is ethically required to take reasonable care to avoid improper disclosure of confidential information in metadata in electronic documents. If a lawyer receives a document which the lawyer knows or reasonably should know contains inadvertently sent metadata, the lawyer shall promptly notify the document’s sender as required by Rule 4.4, MRPC.”

For the full draft of the opinion including the applicable rule and other published opinions on metadata, visit http://www.mncourts.gov/lprb/Opinion22.pdf

Get the full article here

Fallout of the i4i/Microsoft Patent Infringement – Alternative iCreate Demo

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:43:10 +0000

It all boiled down to how custom XML was accessed. For those vendors who decided to go with XML Tags it didn’t go well. They had either to drop out of the Template market or rewrite their code.

We decided, early on, to use content controls in iCreate v7. On the down side, Content controls were not backward compatible with Office 2003, but we felt that Microsoft’s content controls were the future. Content controls are flexible, dynamic and can be built to be very smart. PLUS, I couldn’t stand the way XML Tags looked in the document. If not done right they could throw off pagination. That would’ve been a support nightmare.

Join us for a free iCreate webinar tomorrow (3/17/2010) that shows the power of Office 2007

iCreate: Smart document templates and formatting for law firms – https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/681602433

Below is a matrix that shows how iRedline enhances the Microsoft Word 2007 comparison and collaboration process. I hope to make you a believer in the Word 2007- iRedline 7 combination.

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:30:33 +0000

Below is a matrix that shows how iRedline enhances the Microsoft Word 2007 comparison and collaboration process. I hope to make you a believer in the Word 2007- iRedline 7 combination.

Feature	Word 2007	iRedline 7 Added
Comparison Process is performed inside of Word	Yes	Yes
The result document from an original and revised document creates a Tracked Change document for further collaboration	Yes	Yes
The result document from an original and revised document creates static changes (non-tracked changes)	No	Yes – iRedline creates a result document with "iRedline changes"
Accept and reject tracked changes	Yes	Yes
Accept and reject iRedline and DeltaView changes	No	Yes
Convert tracked changes to iRedline changes	No	Yes
Convert iRedline and DeltaView changes to tracked changes	No	Yes
Navigate to tracked changes	Yes	Yes
Navigate to iRedline and DeltaView changes	No	Yes
Create different comparison schemes for tracked changes and iRedline changes	No	Yes
Browse system files for original and revised documents	Yes	Yes
Browse DMS for original and revised documents	No	Yes
Full DMS integration	No	Yes
Print pages with tracked changes	No	Yes
Print pages with iRedline changes	No	Yes
Create a three way view	Yes	Yes
Create a three way view at any time	No	Yes
Synchronize any two documents of a three way view	No	Yes
Email all three documents (original, revised, result) with one click	No	Yes
Create a composite document with original and revised zipped inside the result document	No	Yes
Add Change numbers to each revision	No	Yes
Tag text to be ignored during comparison	No	Yes
Create a statistical report for Word’s native comparison documents	No	Yes
Add a report after the fact (at any time)	No	Yes
Add Office 2003 animation to changes	No	Yes
Condition the original and revised document before comparison for more accurate results	No	Yes
Update TOC before comparison	No	Yes
Detailed footnote and endnote comparison	No	Yes
Unlink fields codes before comparison	No	Yes
Remove comments before comparison	No	Yes
Remove unnecessary bookmarks before comparison	No	Yes
Convert Auto numbering to text for more accurate comparison	No	Yes
Compare Moves	Yes	Yes
Compare Formatting	Yes	Yes
Compare Insertions and deletions	Yes	Yes
Compare only moves and NOT insertions and deletions	No	Yes
Compare only formats and NOT moves, insertions and deletions	No	Yes
Compare text at Word or Character level	Yes	Yes
Compare table cell changes	Yes	Yes
Add line numbers to result document	No	Yes
Customize both revision authors	No	Yes
Remove change date from revisions in result document	No	Yes
Create Hyperlinks for each change in a report	No	Yes
Remove hidden text before comparison	No	Yes

Tracked Changes and Tables – a Complex Issue

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:09:46 +0000

I often am asked, “How does iRedline handle tables during the comparison process?” I say, “Great, because iRedline leverages Word 2007’s comparison engine, and Word tracks revisions in tables accurately.” This question is asked because comparison products that compare tables (Word documents) outside of Microsoft Word use very different comparison algorithms and usually have a difficult time with Words tables, especially complex tables, and the resulting documents have messed up table.

Under the hood, Word tables are very complex, and in Word 2007, they have hit a completely new level. I believe this is one of the reason many OpenXML (Microsoft Office’s new file format) will make it difficult for many non-Microsoft document viewers to show Word’s tables with Tracked Changes accurately. I’m amazed at how well Word handles tables during the comparison and document revision (Track Changes turned on) process, because of this complexity.

Observe the simple table below. This table has two deletions, one insertion and three deleted cells (pink). Yet look at the underlying OpenXML code below (see Simple Table as OpenXML Code) is very complex. The OpenXML code lists 18 revision changes and many of them are nested inside other changes.

Simple Table as OpenXML Code

xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/
wordprocessingml/2006/main">

w:w="0" w:type="auto" />

w:val="single" w:sz="12" w:space="0" w:color="auto" />

</w:tblBorders>

w:type="fixed" />

w:w="30" w:type="dxa" />

</w:tblCellMar>

w:val="0000" />

w:id="0" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="0" w:type="auto" />

w:val="single" w:sz="12" w:space="0" w:color="auto" />

</w:tblBorders>

w:type="fixed" />

w:w="30" w:type="dxa" />

</w:tblCellMar>

w:val="0000" />

</w:tblPr>

</w:tblPrChange>

</w:tblPr>

w:w="3240" />

w:w="180" />

w:w="840" />

w:w="1440" />

w:id="1">

w:w="3240" />

w:w="90" />

w:w="1440" />

</w:tblGrid>

</w:tblGridChange>

</w:tblGrid>

w:val="310" />

w:id="2" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:val="310" />

</w:trPr>

</w:trPrChange>

</w:trPr>

w:w="3240" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="3" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="3240" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="Heading1" />

w:val="0" />

</w:numPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

Chemical Composition</w:t>

</w:r>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

w:w="180" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="4" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="180" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

w:w="840" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="5" w:author="Randall Farrar" />

w:id="6" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="840" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="7" w:author="Randall Farrar" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

w:w="1440" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="8" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="2400" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

w:id="9" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

Typical</w:delText>

</w:r>

</w:del>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

</w:tr>

w:val="310" />

w:id="10" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:val="310" />

</w:trPr>

</w:trPrChange>

</w:trPr>

w:w="3240" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="11" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="3240" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

Ca(OH)</w:t>

</w:r>

w:val="000000" />

w:val="subscript" />

</w:rPr>

2</w:t>

</w:r>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

xml:space="preserve"> </w:t>

</w:r>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

w:w="180" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="12" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="180" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="center" />

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

w:w="840" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="13" w:author="Randall Farrar" />

w:id="14" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="840" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="15" w:author="Randall Farrar" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="center" />

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

w:w="1440" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

w:id="16" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:w="2400" w:type="dxa" />

w:val="clear" w:color="000000" w:fill="auto" />

</w:tcPr>

</w:tcPrChange>

</w:tcPr>

w:val="center" />

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

</w:pPr>

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

96.</w:t>

</w:r>

w:id="17" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

0%</w:delText>

</w:r>

</w:del>

w:id="18" w:author="Randall Farrar">

w:val="000000" />

</w:rPr>

5%</w:t>

</w:r>

</w:ins>

</w:p>

</w:tc>

</w:tr>

</w:tbl>

xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/
wordprocessingml/2006/main" />

Word 2007 Irritant – Comments in the Reviewing Pane

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:32:45 +0000

Navigating through your document using Words Next and Previous revision buttons is straight forward, except when there are comments in your document. This is when you’ll get a little surprise. With comments in your document, and while you’re navigating through your document, Word will automatically open up the Reviewing Pane (if it’s not already open) when it hits a comment. Word then places the insertion point in that comment in the Reviewing Pane. At this point, you’re no longer in the document; rather you’re in the Reviewing pane.

Don’t panic, because if you click the Next or Previous button again it goes on to the next or previous revision in the document and out of the Reviewing Pane. Things only get sticky when you actually click in the Review Pane (it’s now the active Window) and at this point you’ll be navigating inside the Reviewing Pane (see How to Navigate your Revisions Inside the Reviewing Pane). You have to click back into your document or close the Reviewing Pane.

Solutions:

Close the Reviewing Pane when it appears using the keyboard shortcut Shift+Alt+C.

Hide your comments in the Show Markup option by unchecking comments in the drop-down list (see Figure – Show Markup below).

Show Markup

iRedline handles this much more elegantly by ignoring the comments (using iRedline’s Next and Previous buttons) and navigating only the revisions in your document.

Navigate your Word 2007 Revisions Inside the Reviewing Pane

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:58:43 +0000

Most people don’t know that you can use the inside of the Reviewing Pane (see Figure – Reviewing Pane below) to navigate your revisions. When you use the Reviewing Pane in this way, you’ll actually be navigating from one revision to the other inside the Reviewing Pane. This approach will highlight each revision inside the Reviewing Pane and at the same time scroll the document to show where that revision is located.

How to Navigate your Revisions inside the Reviewing Pane

Point to a revision text beneath the bordered change type in the Reviewing Pane with your mouse pointer
Click your mouse
Click the Next button to navigate to the next revision
The next revision will be highlighted and you’ll see the actual revision in your document to the right.

The Reviewing Pane

Word 2007 Irritant – Revisions in Tables

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:40:46 +0000

When working with rows and cells in a table, word will only be able to track inserted and deleted cells, while editing. Word is unable to track merged or split cells. Merged and split cells can only be tracked when you compare or combine documents… in Native Word or iRedline v7.

Word 2007 Irritant – Navigating Revisions

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:31:07 +0000

Unfortunately there are no keyboard shortcuts for the Previous and Next button for navigating your revisions. Word forces you to use your mouse.

A way to solve this is to map two keyboard shortcuts to the Word commands:
NextChangeOrComment and PreviousChangeOrComment.

iRedline v7 has solved this by mapping the keyboard shortcuts to iRedline’s Previous and Next revisions navigation button (which also gives you’re the ability to navigate DeltaView changes):

Move to Previous revision – Ctrl+Alt+P
Move to Next revision- Crtl+Alt+N

Navigating Between Moves in Word 2007

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:52:23 +0000

Often it isn’t obvious where a move tracked change has moved to or moved from, because it may be on another page. I really like the way Microsoft has implemented this feature. Using your mouse, right-click on a move and select Follow Move in the short cut menu (click image below). This simple short-cut will navigate to the related move.

Navigating Moves

Google’s Spiders Ready to Expose your Google Docs to the World

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:00:06 +0000

From the TheNextWeb blog:

“…Google just announced in an email to Google App admins that starting “in a few weeks” Google Docs published and shared to users outside of one’s domain and linked to from a public website will be crawled, indexed and appear in Google search results. “This is a very exciting change as your published docs linked to from public websites will reach a much wider audience of people,” said Google in its announcement…”

Excited?! No… they said “very excited.” Yea, we want our documents read by a “much wider audience.” Not! And I thought document metadata was high risk.

The blog goes on to say…

“Thankfully, Google has given Google App admins the ability to regulate sharing to users outside of their domain. However, the sharing options that Google currently offers are not nearly as granular as they need to be. Businesses using Google Apps may likely want tiers of users giving some the ability to share while prohibiting others. In addition, a business might also want to allow sharing with users of specific domains while prohibiting all others…”

This will kill Google Docs or relegate it to a niche market. What law firm or company wants a document accidentally indexed and shown to the world? It only has to happen once. A miss step on Google’s part. Trust me, enterprises are not going to trust their users to not “publicly publish”.

Man… right when I was going to put resources into this platform! Forget that…for now. Then, if Google uses attenuated terms like “document management” or “knowledge management” they may get some traction.

Can someone recommend an organic spider insecticide?

Read full blog here…

Word 2007 Irritant – Reviewing Pane and Moves

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:08:31 +0000

The Reviewing Pane show Moved From as Moved (insertion) when in fact it is a Deletion… very confusing. I have no idea what Microsoft is trying to convey, except that the “result”, where it “moved to” is an insertion. That is confusing. Click the example below.

I believe the best way to handle Moves in the Reviewing Pane is to use them as Move location markers. Double clicking on the specific Move in the Reviewing Pane will move the insertion point to that move revision in the document.

Revision Types in the Word 2007’s Reviewing Pane

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:48:37 +0000

I feel that the Reviewing Pane, when tracking changes, is one of the most under utilized features of Word 2007. The power lies in the fact that it acts as a hyperlink list to your changes, gives a count of changes in your document, and tells you what has changed for each revision.

The powerful Reviewing Pane can also be used to review changes in an iRedline result document as well.

Below is a list of the types of revisions you’ll see in the Reviewing Pane.

Insertions – Revisions that are "new" content typed, pasted or moved to another location in the document (if Track Moves is unchecked in Change Tracking Options).

Deletions – Revisions that are deleted content deleted, cut or moved to another location in the document.

Moved (Deletion) – When tracking moves, these revisions are tracked as "moved from". Only paragraphs and sentences can be marked as a move while editing the document.

Moved Up (Insertion) – When tracking moves, these revisions are tracked as "moved to" when they are moved above Moved (move from). Only paragraphs and sentences can be marked as a move while editing the document.

Moved Down (Insertion) – When tracking moves, these revisions are tracked as "moved to" when they are moved below the Moved (move from). Only paragraphs and sentences can be marked as a move while editing the document

Formatting – This revision occurs when any "direct" formatting or style has been applied to the content.

Style Definitions – When a style has been changed in the document it is marked in the Reviewing Pane, but it is not a revision you can navigate to.

Track Changes – Moves

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:52:44 +0000

While editing a document “Moves” can only be paragraphs or sentences. If you drag any non paragraph or sentence content to another location, it shows as an insertion and deletion and not as a move.

Word 2007 Irritant- Paragraph Numbering Changes

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:45:53 +0000

Word doesn’t show paragraph numbering changes in the revision pane, and won’t navigate to it. It shows the list change as a formatting revision. That isn’t very helpful if you have large number of paragraph changes spanning multiple pages. The user has to manually navigate those changes visually (click on example below).

Solution:
Use iRedline to compare two documents with numbering lists to convert the auto numbers to text, which gives you a much more accurate result document.

Word 2007 Irritant – Moving a Moved To

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:08:52 +0000

If Track Changes is turned on you cannot move a “Move Up” or “Move Down” revision. You will get a message that says, “The selection is marked as deleted text”

Talk about irritating and confusing, because the text has been inserted (Moved To). I bet this “corrected adjective use” won’t be mentioned in a Service Pack.

Tracked Changes – Change the Font Style for Balloons

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:23:59 +0000

If you like to use balloons but prefer the font to be different (larger) than Word uses by default, you can change it by modifying the Balloon Text style.

On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the Styles Dialog Box Launcher (see Figure 1 – Styles Dialog Box Launcher).

Figure 1 – Styles Dialog Box Launcher

In the Styles task pane, click Manage Styles , and then click the Restrict tab.
In the Select a Style to edit list, select Balloon Text
Click the Modify button
Change the Font characteristics and click OK
Click OK in the Manage Styles dialog box

Word 2007 Irritant – Revision count

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:01:14 +0000

The Reviewing Pane is a handy reference for counting the revisions in your document, but I disagree with the way Word counts revisions. Word counts a contiguous revision as one.

I believe that if a paragraph has been inserted it should be two (the text and the paragraph mark) or one if is a lone paragraph mark. I base my belief on the way Microsoft marks revisions in the underlying OpenXML content of the document. Contiguous Text in a paragraph and paragraph marks are marked separately. When iRedline counts revisions (for reports and iRedline Document Properties) the revised text and paragraphs are counted separately as Microsoft marks revisions in the OpenXML content.

Also, a move is a move. When you move a paragraph its one move. Word tracks this as two moves, iRedline tracks it as one.

Word 2007 Irritant – Showing Markups

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

This is so confusing. The difference between Final Showing Markup and Original Showing Markup have no effect unless balloons are showing. This little settings is completely missed by users who are completely confused by it, and ignore these settings all together. Who wants this as a support issue?

Changing the Review Display for Track Changes

If you want to view your document in different scenarios or views for various stages of the edit process, you would use the Display for Review list (see Figure 1 – Display for Review) in the Tracking group. Each of the four options in the list provides a different view of the document. Final Showing Markup is the default when you open any document.

Figure 1 – Display for Review

Final Showing Markup – This view displays the final document with all tracked changes and comments showing. This is the default view for all documents opened in Word. When balloons are displayed, the insertion are shown as inline revisions and deletions are shown in the margin in balloons.

Final – This view displays the document without tracked changes showing. Don’t worry, any tracked changes that have not been accepted, rejected, or deleted are still in the document.

Original Showing Markup – This view displays the original text with tracked (display balloons to see this view). Only deletions are shown as inline revisions and insertions are shown in the margin in balloons.

Original – This view displays the original document without tracked changes and comments showing. Don’t worry, any tracked changes that have not been accepted, rejected, or deleted are still in the document. In other words – what did the original document look like?

iRedline provides the Display for Review list button on its Ribbon without having to switch back to the Review tab.