First IPEd-wide science editors Zoom meeting
by Jane Fitzpatrick
The inaugural Zoom meeting of IPEd science editors on 9 October concentrated on technology.
Margie Beilharz kindly took us through some of the ways she is using macros to avoid tedious, repetitive work in styling documents and comparing tables between an Excel version and a Word version. Resources and tips mentioned in the meeting included:
- Paul Beverley’s website, which has information suitable for beginner through to advanced macro users
- Other useful resources for macros
- Allen Wyatt (of WordTips fame) has a macro that cleans out styles that aren’t used in a file
- Did you know the straight line in macros is called a pipe?
- A useful reminder with macros is to always do a test run on a dummy document
- The ‘20-minute macro course’ is a good starting point
- customise your Quick Access Toolbar in Word
- A reminder: you can have your own customised dictionary in PerfectIt.
We also briefly discussed time management tools: Toggl Track was a popular choice. Also mentioned was the free app Hours Keeper, which works fine, but Toggl Track may have more versatility. Another suggestion is Clockify.
Discussion followed about possible shortcuts for checking numerous species names. One suggestion that might be of use was EditTools (from WordSync), which has datasets for drugs, organisms and journals.
Postscript: Further research by Natalie after the meeting revealed this: ‘Merops appears to have the ability to check species names AND insert genus name in full at first use, and can also format drug names. Sounds pretty amazing to me, but also a bit pricey for me (£29.99 per month for 30,000 words).’
Next meeting: early in 2021 (date to be confirmed).
Topics: please email suggestions for future discussions to Jane at edvic.vicepres@editors-iped.org.