![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricSo I set out to create a manuscript description, happy in the knowledge that no easy-to-use description of Cotton Nero A.i has already been made.
What I want in a MS description:
* items clearly laid out, with modern English descriptions where appropriate
* first lines of homilies in Old English
* texts identified by their common title as well as their MS title
* clear quire divisions within the list
* references to editions
* the ability to scan the description either quire-by-quire OR by content type
Which means a table. Vertical axis numbering items and listing foliation. Horizontal axis listing content type (Insitiutes, laws, homilies, other). So one can scan down the 'homily' column if one so desires, or one can isolate the fifth quire, or whatever. FABULOUS.
BLOODY DIFFICULT TO CREATE IN MS WORD.
An exel table would be fine. Lovely. But difficult to print out and bind into a thesis.
So we have lots of individual one-page tables, which have to be prevented from binding themselves together and aligning cell widths (the Homilies column, for example, having been squashed up when there are no homilies on the page, so as to make space for Institutes).
And then I discover that you can't footnote a table.
This, people, explains why no one has made a user-friendly Manuscript Description of Cotton Nero A.i.
But I will not be defeated! When I am done, the Reader will be able to flick through my table with ease!
Sigh. The Reader will be me, and whatever unfortunate souls mark the thing. Oh, the futility.
What I want in a MS description:
* items clearly laid out, with modern English descriptions where appropriate
* first lines of homilies in Old English
* texts identified by their common title as well as their MS title
* clear quire divisions within the list
* references to editions
* the ability to scan the description either quire-by-quire OR by content type
Which means a table. Vertical axis numbering items and listing foliation. Horizontal axis listing content type (Insitiutes, laws, homilies, other). So one can scan down the 'homily' column if one so desires, or one can isolate the fifth quire, or whatever. FABULOUS.
BLOODY DIFFICULT TO CREATE IN MS WORD.
An exel table would be fine. Lovely. But difficult to print out and bind into a thesis.
So we have lots of individual one-page tables, which have to be prevented from binding themselves together and aligning cell widths (the Homilies column, for example, having been squashed up when there are no homilies on the page, so as to make space for Institutes).
And then I discover that you can't footnote a table.
This, people, explains why no one has made a user-friendly Manuscript Description of Cotton Nero A.i.
But I will not be defeated! When I am done, the Reader will be able to flick through my table with ease!
Sigh. The Reader will be me, and whatever unfortunate souls mark the thing. Oh, the futility.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 11:52 pm (UTC)currently I'm endnoting, which seems to be the better option (more page space for the table) but I'm just waiting to see if the endnotes get into a fight with the footnotes already in the chapter, when I paste the tables into it.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 06:50 am (UTC)Also, if you've started work in Word but want to continue in Excel, you can also copy and paste your table directly into Excel.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 06:55 am (UTC)Although, if I write the whole thing out in 12-point, when in two months I have more stuff to add, then I can scale the font down... :)
B- woweee. The things I never knew.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 07:07 am (UTC)