Comments on: Farbey’s Law of Document Stability

By: Barbara Seaver

Barbara Seaver — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:58:48 +0000

I hear these stories more often than I care to think about and it’s really the same story. People are using a tool but haven’t read the manual yet. TOC – It works if you use styles and it stays put and you don’t have to worry about bookmarks because you don’t use bookmarks! I’ve been troubleshooting Word documents since Word 97 and have NEVER found a Word document that went bad on its own. Sometimes it’s because text was copied from an old Word Perfect document or from the internet or even from Excel. Most often it has to do with a lack of understanding of styles and/or sections and/or graphics properties.

Don’t blame the tool if you haven’t read the manual! (Or taken a GOOD class – not the kind that are offered by “generic” training companies.

By: Steve Rickaby

Steve Rickaby — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:23:01 +0000

This really happened: I was there, I watched…

Long time ago, I worked as a contractor for a small but upwardly mobile company. At that time the staff occupied a single floor of an office block in West London, a couple of directors, a secretary and a bunch of engineers.

One of the senior staff came in with the words ‘This memo is urgent: can you get it out quickly.’ [BIG mistake]. The secretary set to work typing up the one-page memo in Word. Something went wrong, she struggled with it, and got nowhere. So she called over one of the very bright and highly-paid engineers to help. He struggled with it and got nowhere, so he called over one of his colleagues. I don’t know what they were struggling with, but the words ‘I’ve never seen it do that before’ occurred more than once.

After a while most of the company’s technical staff were helping the poor girl to lash Word into producing this one-page memo. Finally they succeeded, and the print command was issued. The printer jammed. One of the highly-paid engineers unjammed the printer. The print command was issued again… and again the printer jammed. I cannot remember how many times this happened, but I do distinctly remember that at the very point when the printer was finally coaxed into life, just as I thought ‘Surely, nothing else can go wrong’… the toner cartridge exploded.

I am not making this up.

By: Cecily

Cecily — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:16:10 +0000

Like all the best laws, yours is painfully true. (It also helps that you have an uncommon surname; if I ever formulated a law, I think I’d use my first name.)

By: David Farbey

David Farbey — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:57:15 +0000

Thanks Sarah. I’ve actually been using the “DF” on the pencil for a couple of years. It was my idea, but I paid a graphic artist to do it properly using part of an image I’d bought from istockphoto.com

By: Sarah Maddox

Sarah Maddox — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:11:27 +0000

Ha ha, been there, done that! I loved the story, David! I tweeted it and retweeted your tweet too, just because I can.

BTW, I’ve never before noticed the “DF” pencil in your picture at top right. Is it new? Awesome!

Cheers, Sarah

By: Ivan Walsh

Ivan Walsh — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:30:15 +0000

Hi David,

It could be worse.

We sent a doc out many years ago with a reference to the IT Mange instead of IT Manager.

Ivan

By: Colum McAndrew

Colum McAndrew — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:48:07 +0000

Well David. You did achieve a kind of fame as I have quoted your tweet in an article I have written for the Spring 2010 Edition of the ISTC’s Communicator journal. It certainly made me smile. See you at the London Tech Writers social BTW.

By: Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:42:56 +0000

Old age: That stage in life when you move from being a law breaker to a law maker