Text Development Suggestions

Suggestions for completing your grant application

All fields must have any entry. Blank fields are not allowed. If an item is not available,
then enter 'none' in the text field.
Numbers should be entered without commas, dollar signs, or percent signs. These characters will not
be detected as numbers, and you will get a warning that the entry is invalid. A single decimal point is
acceptable.
Some fields are read only. The form will calculate these values for you.
The maximum character counts are hard limits that are enforced by automation. If you exceed the
maximum number of characters allowed in a text frame, your text will be truncated.
Text will wrap automatically in the text areas, but the number of lines is not constrained. Try
to keep your text inside the text frame provided. The reviewers may overlook some of your text, if
they have to scroll to see it. Any text that is outside the viewable frame will not be visible when
you print the form.
Web forms are volatile, which means the data is not preserved if you inadvertently leave the current
webpage without saving or submitting the form. We highly recommend that develop sections 6-11 offline,
as recommended below, to prevent catastrophic data loss.
This form does not provide any spelling or grammar checking. You may prefer to develop your text in
another application, like Microsoft Word. You can paste text into the text frames. Depending on how
you paste the text, the character counter may not update until you click another text frame.
The performance of your browser, computer, and network interface are beyond the control of the HATS
STEDTRAIN Committee and the webmaster. Our interface has been designed, tested, and validated using
standard conventions and coding practices and should work well on most computers.
If you have technical questions about the forms or the website, please contact the administrator
for assistance. The administrator can not help you with the content of your application, and he can
not and will not answer questions that should be directed to the STEDTRAIN committee.

Suggestions for using an off-line editor to develop your text.

Use a fixed width font, like “Courier New,” to develop your text.
Set the margins so that the line is exactly 78 characters wide. We suggest 1/2-inch margins
margins in Word using 11 point Courier New font for a standard 8.5-inch page in Print
View. This will simulate text wrapping in the online form and minimize the amount of
editing required after the paste.
In Word, check your character count by using the Document Properties window.

Microsoft Word 2007:

Click on the Office bubble button
Select Prepare → Properties
Click on Document Properties at the top, right corner of the properties window
Select Advanced Properties
Select the Statistics tab
Read the “Characters (with spaces):” value to get the character count.

Microsoft Word 2000/XP/2003:

Select File → Properties
Select the Statistics tab
Read the “Characters (with spaces):” value to get the character count.