Chapter Four. Text Automation

Writing is not easy. Regardless of whether you use quill and ink, pen and paper, a typewriter, or a word processor, the process of getting your ideas together, organized and on paper is challenging, if not daunting. Compound that effort with the back and forth of editing and revising, fact-checking, and even simply styling the page, and it becomes real work.

That's why we've abandoned the quill and ink, opting to write this book in InCopy CS2. Thus far you've seen a number of advantages to using InCopy, but much of the composition many of us do in this day and age is more about automation and less about actual writing. We've already seen some of these features, such as applying styles or customizing keyboard shortcuts.

In this chapter, we focus on tools for streamlining and automating the process of writing so you can concentrate more on the words and less on the process.