in the land of the dex

Still frantically (for I've just passed the second deadline), but as cautiously as possible to avoid typos and such, compiling that index. Almost, almost done. I skipped over the biggest single entry so that I could use the data in other entries to help guide the sub-entries for this one. But it's not a simple process because entries involving two indexable points are not always reciprocal. (Delete long explanation here.)

So I'm moving a lot of data around Excel databases and retyping it into Word - or, more usually, cut-and-pasting using Notepad for my draft files, because Notepad deletes the Excel formatting and Word doesn't: if you paste Excel cells into Word, the data comes in little boxes, and I don't want that.

The bane of all keyboard shortcuts, the mistyped chord, has been plaguing me. I keep issuing commands that I didn't intend, have never seen before, and have no idea how I got. One in particular in Excel is annoying. So I'm copying and pasting data between cells to avoid retyping it: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, right? Far too frequently, something in this process suddenly takes me - no matter that the file is only a couple hundred fields long - to a place thousands upon thousands of empty fields below. It's like passing by the Hidden Centuries in The End of Eternity. And then I have to scroll back. Again.