BFMI

Two points to this post:

1. I came to learn a new-to-me acronym BFMI. On the Techwr-L list, this message started a thread:
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   -----Original Message-----
   From: Robert Lauriston
   Sent: Monday, December 19, 2016 6:40 PM
   To: TECHWR-L
   Subject: automatic reformatting of a whole document?
   I remember that Word used to have an AutoFormat feature that would sometimes improve documents that had a mess of direct formatting, extra blank lines, and so on.
   Does that still exist? I can't find it in Word 2016 on the Mac, and I can't find the widget where you can customize the ribbons with commands that aren't there by default.
   I could also try Google Docs or Libre Office or whatever.
   This is something I like about Confluence, the formatting's too limited for people to make so much of a mess.
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   Until eventually, Lin Sims wrote:
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   You know, if I were given this, what I'd do is plotz the whole thing into a text editor to clean out all the shit, dump the text back into a Word document that has a strong template, and then apply styles as needed to match the original.
   Sometimes, there is no elegant way, it just takes BFME to get the job done.
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   To which Monique Semp started an OT thread to ask what BFME meant and then Lin Sims wrote:
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   Brute Force. Massive Ignorance. 
2. I do not like the Confluence editor for the same reason Robert does. I think not being able to create and edit paragraph and character styles is a true weakness for a documentation tool. As I said before, working in Confluence was a lot like editing a Word doc with manual formatting, which is what Robert was dealing with in the first place! In fact, he describes the document in this thread as follows:
   
   • "It doesn't look anywhere near right. It's hard to read. I'd just clear all the formatting but since the guy didn't know what he was doing that makes it even less readable."
   • "most of the document is in Heading 3 with direct formatting."
   • "80% of the doc is Heading 3, with direct formatting applied to make it running text, bullet lists, and so on."
   That sounds a lot like a case where separating content from presentation would be totally applicable!

Editor's Note: More information here.