Shame really.
Yesterday's rant was about clients who do not provide images for their project with meaningful names. I just realized that the same applies to copy and just about everything else clients send.
A plea - from the heart - MEANINGFUL FILE NAMES - PLEASE!
We recently had a client upload a document containing copy for a publication. This was a Word document, which isn't a good thing for a start. Send Word, and we have to reformat the copy into plain text before we can use it. We don't mind doing that at all, but it takes time, so the client is actually delaying the completion of the project.
But in this case, the file name was appendix.doc.
Now, you and I both know what an appendix is and I don't mean that pesky little internal body part as you very well know. Where is an appendix in a book? At the end. Correct.
So we studied this copy and tried to make sense of it. I studied it. Other people studied it. There was no indication where it was to go other than the document title. Part of the document seemed to be a table of contents so was it an index that they wanted at the back of the publication? It didn't seem like an index - not a complete one, anyway. Furthermore, an index can't be completed (forgive me for stating the obvious) until the publication is complete and we know what goes on which numbered page.
So what was it?
The obvious thing of course is to get on the phone to the client and say "what the hell is this?" but you know, the customer is always right, we can figure it out, are we being thick here, blah blah blah etc.
Well, it turned out that the document called appendix.doc was actually intended to go at the FRONT of the publication.
Now why didn't we think of that? "Ah, here we have a document called appendix. An appendix goes at the back of a publication. But, because we have telepathic powers, we know that it's actually going to go at the front of the publication. Of course".
And people wonder where those gray hairs come from ....
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