On 26/01/2024 10:25, TimS wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2024 at 09:18:43 GMT, "David Sankey" <David.Sankey@stfc.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> The subsequent near 40 years have consisted of trying persuade people to
>> use styles in Word!
>
> Yes.
>
> 1) to get them to understand that a word processor is not a f***ing typewriter
> and would they please stop imagining that in order to have space between
> paragraphs, they need to press Return twice.
>
> 2) and that, further to the typrewriter issue, there is no need to press
> return 50 times at the end of a document. But then, perhaps they imagine that
> a sheet of paper with their scribblings will emerge from a slot at the top of
> the display. Who knows.

And don't even get started on the use of spaces to make indented text,
or (mis)aligned columns.

I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.

Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
was all standard files.

--
Andy H

Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

[...]
> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>
> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
> was all standard files.

I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
thumbnails instead of the original pictures.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

In article <uovtdk$2otu9$1@dont-email.me>,
David Sankey <David.Sankey@stfc.ac.uk> wrote:
>The subsequent near 40 years have consisted of trying persuade people to
>use styles in Word!

We once had a project where we tried to extract structured information
from people's CVs. Some of them used a standard Word style, and we
hoped this would make it easier to analyse the document.

It turned out that a significant number of them, while displaying
plausibly, had the entire document inside the title field, with line
breaks and font changes for the formatting.

-- Richard

Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>
>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>> was all standard files.
>
> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.

When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.

--
Cheers, Alan

Am 27.01.24 um 12:37 schrieb Liz Tuddenham:
> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>
>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>> was all standard files.
>
> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.

And you are the absolute expert on everything you do?

--
"Gutta cavat lapidem." (Ovid)

Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>
>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>> was all standard files.
>>
>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>
> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.

OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.

--
"Gutta cavat lapidem." (Ovid)

Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> wrote:
> Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
>> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>>
>>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>>> was all standard files.
>>>
>>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>>
>> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
>> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
>> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
>> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
>> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
>> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
>
> OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.

Yes I know that. I tried my best with ABBYY but was often thwarted by very
poor quality often folded, badly crumpled printouts.. Attempts at OCR
technology have been around for a long time - before your and certainly my
time?

<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_optical_character_recognition>

--
Cheers, Alan

Am 28.01.24 um 08:58 schrieb Alan B:
> Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> wrote:
>> Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
>>> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>>>> was all standard files.
>>>>
>>>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>>>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>>>
>>> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
>>> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
>>> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
>>> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
>>> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
>>> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
>>
>> OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.
>
> Yes I know that. I tried my best with ABBYY but was often thwarted by very
> poor quality often folded, badly crumpled printouts.. Attempts at OCR
> technology have been around for a long time - before your and certainly my
> time?
>
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_optical_character_recognition>

I just used OCR-software in the 90s and not very often. My specific know
how is rather limited and a thing of the past.

--
"Gutta cavat lapidem." (Ovid)

Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>
>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>> was all standard files.
>
> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.

Yes, and those too. Often a thumbnail copied and pasted into a Publisher
document, then emailed.

I never even understood how they only got the thumbnail so easily.

And not forgetting those that would do a screen grab of the image, then
crop it, and leave the crop box visible, and then email it at about 150
pixels.

I never understood how they found it easier to paste into the Publisher
document (or one of the other formats they could use), and then email that.
Rather than simply email the original image.

Many comments were regarding not understanding email attachments, but they
managed all that processing. Go figure.

I did try tutoring some of them, but it was mostly in vain, they never
really got it.

(It always reminded of that transcript that was floating around about the
guy that got sacked for telling a customer to take the computer back to the
store because they were too stupid to own a computer - I sympathised (and
yes, I’m aware the story was probably just that, a story)).

--
Andy H

Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>
>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>> was all standard files.
>>
>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>
> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.

Yeah, got a few of those too, as well as a few hand-written ones - which
often got complaints because I couldn’t read half of what they’d written,
and I’d retyped them wrong. In the end I refused to include handwritten
stuff.

I also got some articles that had been typed, printed, and then scanned as
an image, and then emailed as an attachment.

--
Andy H

Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
> Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> wrote:
>> Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
>>> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>>>> was all standard files.
>>>>
>>>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>>>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>>>
>>> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
>>> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
>>> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
>>> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
>>> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
>>> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
>>
>> OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.
>
> Yes I know that. I tried my best with ABBYY but was often thwarted by very
> poor quality often folded, badly crumpled printouts.. Attempts at OCR
> technology have been around for a long time - before your and certainly my
> time?
>
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_optical_character_recognition>

Yup, I also tried using OCR, but spent so much time proofreading, and
correcting the incorrect words, and weird characters (you often get
accented characters if there was any extra marks on the page), that it was
usually quicker just to retype from scratch, and apply correct formatting
and styles.

--
Andy H

Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:

[...]

> > OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.
>
> Yes I know that. I tried my best with ABBYY but was often thwarted by very
> poor quality often folded, badly crumpled printouts.. Attempts at OCR
> technology have been around for a long time - before your and certainly my
> time?
>
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_optical_character_recognition>
>

I worked on Scan-Data flying spot OCR macines in the early '70s

This link requires a user a/c but you may be able to see a preview:
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/30204017>

--
^Ï^. Sn!pe, PA, FIBS - Professional Crastinator

My pet rock Gordon just is.

On 28/01/2024 07:18, Jörg Lorenz wrote:
> Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
>> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
>> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
>> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to
>> email me
>> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long
>> time
>> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
>> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
>
> OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.

It isn't just club level stuff, the big publishers are in the same boat.

There's certainly evidence of OCR screwups in ebooks, where the
publisher presumably never got an electronic version of a book from the
author, so had to resort to scanning the thing in.

Thankfully that's less common in newer books!

--
Chris

On 27/01/2024 12:11, Alan B wrote:
> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>
>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>> was all standard files.
>>
>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>
> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email me
> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.

And those who do know how to use styles and follow the template
supplied, but find they have slightly too much for a full page so
instead of editing their words they tweak the style to make it fit.

And then, when you insert their submission into the main newsletter,
Word blithely changes the existing style to match the incoming one
instead of issuing a warning or rejecting the import and you find that a
dozen carefully laid-out articles are all screwed-up.

If you're lucky the change is immediately obvious. If you're unlucky
it's more subtle and you don't notice until you've made several more
changes, which usually have to be thrown away.

It became so frustrating that I wrote a set of Word macros to rename the
styles used in the template to something unique in each submission (e.g.
Heading1 -> AAHeading1, Heading1 -> BBHeading1 in the next submission)
so that importing a submission would retain the tweaks the author had
made without corrupting the rest of the document.

But thanks Microsoft's Word team - you keep deluding yourselves that
you've saving people's time with your 'productivity' software. Oh,
right, you don't call it that anymore, it's just 'office' software.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey, England

On 28/01/2024 22:59, Bruce Horrocks wrote:
> On 27/01/2024 12:11, Alan B wrote:
>> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me
>>>> for
>>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>>
>>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>>> was all standard files.
>>>
>>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>>
>> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
>> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
>> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to
>> email me
>> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long
>> time
>> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
>> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
>
> And those who do know how to use styles and follow the template
> supplied, but find they have slightly too much for a full page so
> instead of editing their words they tweak the style to make it fit.
>
> And then, when you insert their submission into the main newsletter,
> Word blithely changes the existing style to match the incoming one
> instead of issuing a warning or rejecting the import and you find that a
> dozen carefully laid-out articles are all screwed-up.
>
> If you're lucky the change is immediately obvious. If you're unlucky
> it's more subtle and you don't notice until you've made several more
> changes, which usually have to be thrown away.
>
> It became so frustrating that I wrote a set of Word macros to rename the
> styles used in the template to something unique in each submission (e.g.
> Heading1 -> AAHeading1, Heading1 -> BBHeading1 in the next submission)
> so that importing a submission would retain the tweaks the author had
> made without corrupting the rest of the document.
>
> But thanks Microsoft's Word team - you keep deluding yourselves that
> you've saving people's time with your 'productivity' software. Oh,
> right, you don't call it that anymore, it's just 'office' software.

I did all my work for the church in Pages, it was just after the demise
of AppleWorks, but Pages was pretty OK by the time I was doing this.

However, when I got Word documents, I used to import them into
TextWrangler, and use its tools to strip the document back to plain text.

Sometimes it was a little bit of work to scan through and correct the
odd bit it missed, but it did make it a lot easier.

Then it was a simple matter to copy/paste into Pages, and then apply my
own styles.

--
Andy H

On 28 Jan 2024, Andy H wrote
(in article <up55nm$3rb22$3@dont-email.me>):

> Alan B<alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
> > Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> wrote:
> > > Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
> > > > Liz Tuddenham<liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > > > > Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > [...]
> > > > > > I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
> > > > > > inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
> > > > > > would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
> > > > > > Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
> > > > > > not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
> > > > > > was all standard files.
> > > > >
> > > > > I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
> > > > > thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
> > > >
> > > > When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
> > > > was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
> > > > never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email
> > > > me
> > > > an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
> > > > ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
> > > > retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
> > >
> > > OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.
> >
> > Yes I know that. I tried my best with ABBYY but was often thwarted by very
> > poor quality often folded, badly crumpled printouts.. Attempts at OCR
> > technology have been around for a long time - before your and certainly my
> > time?
> >
> > <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_optical_character_recognition>
>
> Yup, I also tried using OCR, but spent so much time proofreading, and
> correcting the incorrect words, and weird characters (you often get
> accented characters if there was any extra marks on the page), that it was
> usually quicker just to retype from scratch, and apply correct formatting
> and styles.

+1

MST

On 28 Jan 2024, Chris Ridd wrote
(in article <up66kv$1pfh$1@dont-email.me>):

> There's certainly evidence of OCR screwups in ebooks, where the
> publisher presumably never got an electronic version of a book from the
> author, so had to resort to scanning the thing in.

My copies of the Lee Child novels were clearly OCR-ed, to the extent that I
had to do a global search-and-replace to change "Rachel" to "Reacher"
throughout.

MST

On 29 Jan 2024, Andy Hewitt wrote
(in article <up7cq6$b6ip$1@dont-email.me>):

> I did all my work for the church in Pages, it was just after the demise
> of AppleWorks, but Pages was pretty OK by the time I was doing this.

Since then, of course, the new Pages has many of the useful facilities
removed. The Search and Replace in the new Pages, for instance, is dreadful.

Nisus does a competent Search and Replace.

MST

On 2024-02-01 14:03:24 +0000, Martin S Taylor said:

> On 29 Jan 2024, Andy Hewitt wrote
> (in article <up7cq6$b6ip$1@dont-email.me>):
>
>> I did all my work for the church in Pages, it was just after the demise
>> of AppleWorks, but Pages was pretty OK by the time I was doing this.
>
> Since then, of course, the new Pages has many of the useful facilities
> removed. The Search and Replace in the new Pages, for instance, is dreadful.
>
> Nisus does a competent Search and Replace.
>
> MST

It'll always be a mystery to me why they scrapped ("improved"!!) Pages
'09. I hung on to that as long as possible. Just noticed I still have a
copy of Bean. Anyone else still use that?
--
Cheers ... Mark

On 01/02/2024 13:59, Martin S Taylor wrote:
> On 28 Jan 2024, Andy H wrote
> (in article <up55nm$3rb22$3@dont-email.me>):
>
>> Alan B<alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
>>> Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> wrote:
>>>> Am 27.01.24 um 13:11 schrieb Alan B:
>>>>> Liz Tuddenham<liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>> I used to edit a local church magazine, and the stuff people sent me for
>>>>>>> inclusion in it was astonishing. It wasn't even consistently bad, they
>>>>>>> would mix in the odd correctly formatted paragraph too.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Then, there were others who'd insist on using Publisher, or the old MS
>>>>>>> Works files (usually didn't even know there was a difference), so I'd
>>>>>>> not even be able to open the things. They usually just assumed that it
>>>>>>> was all standard files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've had all of that too -- and documents submitted for publication with
>>>>>> thumbnails instead of the original pictures.
>>>>>
>>>>> When I was producing a club newsletter/magazine, the most annoying aspect
>>>>> was receiving printed material obviously produced using some WP tool. It
>>>>> never occurred to the writers that it would be far more helpful to email
>>>>> me
>>>>> an attached document or supply it on a floppy disk (yes it was a long time
>>>>> ago). Despite advising the members concerned, I often ended up having to
>>>>> retype the whole caboodle on my Mac.
>>>>
>>>> OCR-software exists and existed at that time already.
>>>
>>> Yes I know that. I tried my best with ABBYY but was often thwarted by very
>>> poor quality often folded, badly crumpled printouts.. Attempts at OCR
>>> technology have been around for a long time - before your and certainly my
>>> time?
>>>
>>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_optical_character_recognition>
>>
>> Yup, I also tried using OCR, but spent so much time proofreading, and
>> correcting the incorrect words, and weird characters (you often get
>> accented characters if there was any extra marks on the page), that it was
>> usually quicker just to retype from scratch, and apply correct formatting
>> and styles.
>
> +1
>
> MST
>
Apart from the reliability issue at the time it was also quite costly.

Martin S Taylor <correspondence@mRaErMtOiVnEsTtHaIySlor.com> wrote:
> On 29 Jan 2024, Andy Hewitt wrote
> (in article <up7cq6$b6ip$1@dont-email.me>):
>
>> I did all my work for the church in Pages, it was just after the demise
>> of AppleWorks, but Pages was pretty OK by the time I was doing this.
>
> Since then, of course, the new Pages has many of the useful facilities
> removed. The Search and Replace in the new Pages, for instance, is dreadful.
>
> Nisus does a competent Search and Replace.

Yes, ‘09 was definitely a better app than what has followed.

I did use Nisus for a while too, but was a bit too heavyweight when I
stopped doing the church magazine.

The latest Pages (and the rest of iWorks) is more than I need these days,
so I just stick with those now.

--
Andy H