Text-edit/copy-fitting program info?

[pscates]

Hey guys -

I'm trying to help out a co-worker who writes the company newsletter, articles for our base and local newspaper, as well as employee profiles and articles for various projects we produce at my job.

This lady comes from a newspaper background and she's looking for a Mac-based program that somehow calculates word count and lets you write for a certain space/word count.

Trust me...she's not visually-oriented (or particularly font/layout savvy) in any way, so the easier and more straight-forward something is, the better.

:)

I don't know if a program like this exists (and affordable one, at that), but to be honest, she always overwrites and guess who's the guy who has to sit with her and back and forth edit and trial and error stuff?

That's right...me. And it's getting old.

We do enough work around here (busy, busy, busy) that it would be so cool if I could just say "Sandy, you need to write for 5 inches..." or something like that.

Also, Mac OS X-native would be very cool, as Sandy is on an iMac and being that she's not stuck waiting on Photoshop and stuff, she's been using OS X for the past month or so and now that our order of Office v.X copies are on the way, she will be one of those lucky people who will probably never have to launch Classic to get her job done: Word and Entourage are the only things she really uses.

Anyone know of a program like I've described above? Are any of you from a newspaper/magazine background or environment with some suggestions or advice?

Thanks in advance!

[Belle]

Well, there's QuarkCopyDesk, but being Quark the price is somewhat astronomical ($299 I think?). I've had a quick search and can't find anything else, but I'm sure there must be something out there.

[kaboom]

This may be a dumb solution but why not just calculate the words per inch?
For instance:
Take a 1 inch block, type the letter "M" (a nice blocky letter) over and over again until you fill up the space. Then count how many letters you fit in that space. This should take leading into account as well. Then you'll be able to tell her to write 5" worth.

Just a thought.

[pscates]

That would probably work, kaboom. And it's cheap too.

:)

We have a severe case of whiner-itis where I work, by people outside the graphics crew (although, we can bitch and moan with the best of them) and some of my co-workers (Sandy being a prime example) just truly seem to not "get it", regarding Macs, printing, truly knowing their system, getting themselves out of a jam, troubleshooting their own crap, etc.

To be quite honest, I started this thread because today I was at my wit's end...sick of hearing her, in the next cubicle, piss and moan about everything (I don't know what her problem was today), so I basically said "I'll see what I can find, if you'll put a sock in it for a while..."

:D

The prospect of HER going online and doing a search and trying to help herself in this situation never once, I'm certain, crossed her mind.

It's just easier to slump back in your chair and go "Pauuuuuullllllll..."

:mad:

[wellformed]

i am also intrested to know about that.searched but did'nt found anything

[Marvin]

i am also intrested to know about that.searched but did'nt found anything

It's an old thread bumped by a spammer who I've removed but they are basically talking about using document layout software. This is what graphics designers use as opposed to say a work processor. You set the document size to a standard print size and then you can create blocks of text that match exact guides.

Pages, Indesign, Quark are all software that does this. For something cheap, Pages would be the way to go and it has a Word processing mode too.