Here is an amusing exercise, of tangential relevance to computer science:

  1. Download the scan of a purported memo from 1972 regarding George W. Bush's disputed National Guard service, recently the subject of a CBS 60 Minutes "investigative report". It's available either from my site, or from the CBS news story page (look in the sidebar on the left for the "August 18, 1973" memo).
  2. Open a recent copy of Microsoft Word, and verify that its default settings (12 point Times New Roman, 6" wide margins) are engaged.
  3. Tab over 4" (this is one of MS Word's default tabstop locations) and type the "18 August 1973" header line.
  4. Keep typing the rest of the "memo" as it appears in the scan. Be sure that MS Word's "AutoFormat As You Type" option is engaged (in the dialog accessible via the "Tools -> AutoCorrect Options..." menu item, select the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab, and be sure that the "Ordinals (1st) with superscript" option is checked). Note how MS Word helpfully superscripts "th" in the "187th" of the first paragraph, exactly as in the scanned "memo". Or download the Word document I ended up with after this step.
  5. Print the resulting Word document.
  6. Using a photocopier, either make a photocopy of the Word document, reducing it by about 93%, or make a photocopy of the printout of the scanned "memo", enlarging it by about 109%. (Yes, I know these don't multiply to unity; my copier is evidently not quite precise about these things.)
  7. Hold the two documents up to the light together, so that you can see through the two layers.
  8. Enjoy!

Hints: Use two blank lines between the date line and "Memo to File", two spaces between "SUBJECT:" and "CYA", and two spaces after periods.

Note that the match of the Word document and the "memo" on screen is not as good, because Word's font renderer presents slightly different results for the superscript "th" than the PostScript version that's sent to the printer. The printouts should match precisely, to within the limits of the scan's resolution.

Also, it's clear that the scanned "memo" was actually reduced, either in the original forgery, or in the scan, rather than composed at (say) a 10 point font, because the ratio isn't 10/12, and because the coincidence of the 4" indentation of the date doesn't work out otherwise.

For those without access to MS Word (count yourself lucky) or a photocopier capable of the correct reduction, I have provided a PDF distilled version of the Word document, already reduced by the correct amount. But I encourage anyone with Word to try producing the document for herself, just to see how exactly it turns out given Word's defaults.

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