Formatting your draft document
When you print a Draft from an IdeaMason Composition, IdeaMason transcribes the Materials subject titles and the organizational elements (Chapter and Section Titles) used in the Composition into Style Headings and Outline Levels recognized by Microsoft Word templates.
The style you select in the Portfolio Properties window, is the style in which your draft and the associated bibliography will be formatted. However, the design of this template based system gives you the option to adjust and customize a specific template to meet more specific formatting style needs and requirements easily.
Customizing the style of your final draft document
Before you begin customizing a template it is important to understand the special output style requirements required by IdeaMason to properly compile a Composition into a formatted Microsoft Word document. This is not as hard as it sounds. Basically each organizational element (Chapter and Section Titles) in the IdeaMason Composition must be represented by a Style Heading or Outline Level in the Microsoft Word template. All you need to do is be sure not to delete any headings or levels in the template that have an IM next to them. The image below shows the default template as displayed in Microsoft Word with the IM (IM stands for IdeaMason). You can also change the size, font and position of anything within the template as you customize your own template.
The easiest way create a new template or customize a template is to make a copy of the template that closest fits your needs, rename it, and then make any formatting adjustments necessary to your new template.
The default templates can be found in C:\Program Files\IdeaMason\templates\IM_DraftFormat.dot . Once you have located the file/template you want to customize, copy the file and rename it. Then open the newly renamed template in Microsoft Word to edit it. To view the template settings click on Format on the menu bar and select Styles and Formatting as shown below. A side panel will open to the right of the window that will show all the style settings in the template. You are free to make the necessary style changes using the options in Micrsoft Word. You change the size, font and position of any Heading Style and Outline Level to adhere to your specific format requirements. For more general information on changing Microsoft Word styles, see the Help in Microsoft Word. Before you exit the template be sure to save it.
Set this new template as the default in IdeaMason
To set this new template as the default template return to the IdeaMason application. Click on Tools and then Options on the menu bar of the IdeaMason portfolio homepage. You will see the following Options Window (see below). Click on the "Other" tab in this window. Then simply select a new draft template using the browse button. This will now be the default template used by Composition when you print a Draft in Microsoft Word.
Create a Table of Contents and Index
The fact that your Composition of materials in IdeaMason is transcribed into a Microsoft Word document means that you are free to use all the tools within Microsoft Word to help you edit and format your final document.
The organizational elements used in an IdeaMason Composition translate directly into the Style Headings and Outline Levels used in Microsoft Word. This lets you use the tools available in Microsoft Word to create a Table of Contents or an Index with ease. IdeaMason has already done most of the formatting work required in this activity. Once your draft document has been transcribed from an IdeaMason Composition into Microsoft Word just click on Insert on the menu bar and then on Reference for the index and tables option (see below). Follow the instructions for creating a Table of Contents or Index as laid out in the Microsoft Word Help documentation.
