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The vagaries of work...
Apr. 25th, 2012 05:13 pmIncorporating changes into text files is rapidly dropping down my list of preferred jobs (not that it was all that high up on the list to begin with, but I digress...).
I got a job a couple of days ago to incorporate what appeared to be rather significant changes to a 20,000 word document. After settling down for the long slog, imagine my surprise to find that all of the changes shown in the Russian file were already incorporated in the English file.
Over the years, I've found the best policy in such cases—where I suspect something is awry—is to let the client know immediately. I did and was told to put the job on hold. As I sort of expected that outcome, of course there was no problem.
This morning, I was told the end client had spoken with their Russian counterparts, and that there were, indeed, changes in the Russian that needed to be incorporated into the English.
So be it. Back to work.
And then, about an hour after continuing from where I stopped (and not finding any changes that weren't already reflected in the English text), it occurred to me that every change in a Microsoft Word document is tagged with both the name of the reviewer and the date and time the change was made.
Good old Internet! It turns out (via a web page titled 10 Proven Tips for Working around the Shortcomings of Word’s Track Changes) that there's a printing option that lets you print just a list of a document's markup, which was (in my case) exactly what the doctor ordered.
The printed document was 78 pages long (I should have printed to PDF) and revealed (as I suspected) that the most recent change in the Russian version of the document sent to me was made sometime in 2005.
The job has since again been put on hold while the end client checks whether the right file was received from their Russian counterparts (which is sort of what I had hoped they would do after my first note).
Since then, more work has come in, making my ability to actually do this assignment rather problematical should a new (and correct) file to work from be sent.
Cheers...
I got a job a couple of days ago to incorporate what appeared to be rather significant changes to a 20,000 word document. After settling down for the long slog, imagine my surprise to find that all of the changes shown in the Russian file were already incorporated in the English file.
Over the years, I've found the best policy in such cases—where I suspect something is awry—is to let the client know immediately. I did and was told to put the job on hold. As I sort of expected that outcome, of course there was no problem.
This morning, I was told the end client had spoken with their Russian counterparts, and that there were, indeed, changes in the Russian that needed to be incorporated into the English.
So be it. Back to work.
And then, about an hour after continuing from where I stopped (and not finding any changes that weren't already reflected in the English text), it occurred to me that every change in a Microsoft Word document is tagged with both the name of the reviewer and the date and time the change was made.
Good old Internet! It turns out (via a web page titled 10 Proven Tips for Working around the Shortcomings of Word’s Track Changes) that there's a printing option that lets you print just a list of a document's markup, which was (in my case) exactly what the doctor ordered.
The printed document was 78 pages long (I should have printed to PDF) and revealed (as I suspected) that the most recent change in the Russian version of the document sent to me was made sometime in 2005.
The job has since again been put on hold while the end client checks whether the right file was received from their Russian counterparts (which is sort of what I had hoped they would do after my first note).
Since then, more work has come in, making my ability to actually do this assignment rather problematical should a new (and correct) file to work from be sent.
Cheers...
