question about overrides

[Deirdre Reagan]

Hi all, good morning.

FM 8.0, XP.

This is really a best practices question.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion about overrides, and how
they should be used rarely or not at all.

So I thought about that and started to watch our use of overrides.

We use overrides all the time.  For instance, if a figure would be
better placed at the top of the next page, we create that override
(our figure tag is set at Anywhere).

We also used Top of Page when we want to keep a paragraph from
breaking over two pages.

Is it really preferable to create a paragraph tag for each instance of
formatting?  I'd end up a lot of one-time-use-only tags.

Also, most of these overrides occur in the editing process, after the
content has been established and we are focused on making the document
look professional.  Should I be creating tags as I edit the document,
rather than override the existing tag as I make layout decisions?

A second question, now that I'm really thinking about this:

I'm really bothered by the Top of Page as an override, because if we
add text to the front end, that override is going to force a Top of
Page we might not want.  But I haven't been able to find a "keep
together" option, like Word has for keeping lines of text together.
Next Pgf is similar, but it works differently in significant ways.
You can't Next Pgf a single paragraph, for instance, but you can keep
it whole without forcing it to the top of the next page in Word.

Anyway, any comments and insight into the override / editor's role /
tidying up the document / is there a "keep together" issue would be
most welcome!

Thanks,

Deirdre