Once a proposal is accepted, rules for formatting should be established by the publisher. In the case of Palgrave, instructions have been written for PC-users mainly; there are features for the PC version of MS-Word that are not available on Mac editions. Since the published has not suggested any work-arounds, we are left with the sample text as a guide, and a generic idea of how texts can be assembled that allow for changes that bring all of the chapters into conformity.
There is one simple rule: every part of the essay should be defined by a style that can be easily identified and adjusted. The chapter number, title, author, headers, text body (with first, non-indented and subsequent, indented, paragraphs), notes and bibliography should have styles with style names that can be found by an editor and tweaked to match the style of the book.
Many authors begin by using the Normal style and modifying it manually each time a format changes. This may seem to be the easiest way to do it, but it making changes requires the author or editor to retrace each footstep and manually alter each and every instance. Instead of changing 80 paragraphs with one click, 80 paragraphs must be individually fixed. You can do the math.
The styles needed for the essays can be defined and named easily, by using the FORMAT pull down menu and selecting STYLES. A dialog box pops up that allows you to select a generic style, “normal” usually, that you can then redefine and rename. For example, the first paragraph following a header should not be indented. this can be defined and named something easily identifiable, such as “ipsa-firstparagraph.” The style can include the style that should follow, and this means that you must define “ipsa-secondparagraph” before you define the first, so that this style name will appear and you can select it as the style of follow “ipsa-firstparagraph.” If you forget to do this, you can always go back and change it later.
Using STYLES for every part of the document gives editors a way to adjust how the document looks. At some point, EVERY document has to be converted into a “styles-only” document. The question is why would an author do something manually, knowing that it would have to be converted, laboriously, later on. It takes about 30 minutes, tops, to set up styles. It would take two to six hours to fix an un-formatted document.
Other good practices are about following a style guide. Where to put quote marks, whether to use double or single quotes (mainly a US versus Europe thing), how to mark notes and in what style. Follow the sample text.
Special Characters
Every operating system has some version of special characters. Find the one that, on your system, is the easiest to use. Apple OS users have an Emoji and Symbols menu that has about everything, but it’s also possible to find options simply by holding a key down until a small menu pops up. Slavoj Žižek or Héloïse Fink fans would be in trouble without this, also anyone with a déjà vu experience. Accents and special characters, such as we use in Lacan ┼ Environment, are available. Learn them and use them.
Using Software to Advantage
The Apple and Microsoft operating systems differ considerably. As someone remarked, Apple is the Catholic Christian of the two, allowing anything to be OK as long as you go to confessional. MS-Word, like the OS of PCs, is Protestant through and through. Even if you think about sinning, you will be punished, and there are elaborate rules, many of them hidden, behind the multiple masks, layers, toolbars, and option menus. Unfortunately there is no Buddhist OS, which would be content with whatever happens. Working methods work best when they are habits integrated into the process of composing and editing a document. The best worker is obsessively repetitive, always doing everything the same way; this means that if there are changes to be made, all examples can be found quickly and efficiently. This typing guide may help in the preparation of final texts.