> Yes - you can insert pictures and there are different text alignments and 
> you can fiddle with the margins and insert headers and footers and a few 
> other bits that nobody uses. But basically, it's WordPad with bells on.

You really have no idea how Word is used in the real world, do you?

A few things you didn't mention which are used *extensively* by most 
companies I've dealt with:

- Document templates
- Reviewing/markup
- Styles
- Spell check
- Page breaks
- Tables
- Picture editing (brightness/contrast)
- Table-of-contents
- Cross-referencing
- Forms and document protection
- Drawings/diagrams

And things which are used less often, but certainly not only by uber geeks:

- General VB scripting
- Mail merge
- Columns
- Address label creation
- Thesaurus
- Automatic emailing of form data
- Simple formulae in form boxes

What I hate most is people who don't know how to use Word, and treat it like 
WordPad.  There is so much power there I don't understand why people don't 
take just a small amount of training for something they probably use almost 
every day.

Post a reply to this message

>>> You don't play many video games, then.
>>
>> Yeah - and? ;-)
> 
> Nothing :)  As long as you realize that the limits of your experiences 
> are not the same as the limits of others'.

I did say that *I* had never heard of it. ;-)

> In other words, *all* the features that are in Word are there because 
> there are a significant number of people who use them.

Really?

And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?

I would imagine most of the features are there because it makes the 
feature list look longer - and that makes it "better", doesn't it?

>> But what if you only actually want to run Word?
> 
> Then you should run Linux on an EeePC, or an embedded system.  You could 
> even buy a 15 or 20 year old Word Processor - basically a laptop that 
> only runs Notepad :)

...or just not bother with Vista?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> You really have no idea how Word is used in the real world, do you?

You're right. My place of work isn't the real world at all.

> A few things you didn't mention which are used *extensively* by most 
> companies I've dealt with:
> 
> - Document templates
> - Reviewing/markup
> - Styles
> - Spell check
> - Page breaks
> - Tables
> - Picture editing (brightness/contrast)
> - Table-of-contents
> - Cross-referencing
> - Forms and document protection
> - Drawings/diagrams

And how many of these features aren't in Word 2.0?

(I don't recall it having templates or styles, and it likely didn't have 
picture editing, but I'm pretty sure everything else on that list was 
there.)

As an aside, at work we try to avoid document templates to the maximum 
extent possible because they cause Word to crash. I'm also 98% sure none 
of the Word power users know about styles.

> - General VB scripting
> - Mail merge
> - Columns
> - Address label creation
> - Thesaurus
> - Automatic emailing of form data
> - Simple formulae in form boxes

Now at least we come to some things Word 2.0 didn't have - specifically 
I don't recall it having VB. Or address label creation. Or forms. I'd be 
really surprised if anybody out there actually uses VB though.

> What I hate most is people who don't know how to use Word, and treat it 
> like WordPad.  There is so much power there I don't understand why 
> people don't take just a small amount of training for something they 
> probably use almost every day.

Because M$ tells us that "Word is easy". Why would you need training for 
something that is "easy"?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

487efeda$1@news.povray.org...
> And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?

They have this:
http://www.microsoft.com/usability/studies.mspx

Also, when they don't get something right or when something's missing they 
have gazillions of users who tell them a piece of their mind, like this guy:
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp

G.

Post a reply to this message

> You're right. My place of work isn't the real world at all.

Exactly, you seem to base your assumptions of how the whole world uses Word 
based on how the people in your company use it.  You regularly present lots 
of evidence about how screwed up IT is in your company, so don't you think 
that there might actually be other companies out there that are a tad more 
organised in this sort of thing?

> As an aside, at work we try to avoid document templates to the maximum 
> extent possible because they cause Word to crash.

See, it's comments like that that really show a completely screwed up IT 
mentality.  Does it not occur to you that something else might have been 
causing the crashes, given that it is likely millions of people actually do 
use templates daily without Word crashing?  How on Earth do you keep 
consistent looking documents without using templates?  Don't you think it 
would be headline news on every IT website if nobody could use document 
templates without Word crashing?  Don't you think MS would release a fix 
straight away if there was such a problem?

> I'm also 98% sure none of the Word power users know about styles.

WTF?  You really need to send your "Word power users" on a beginners course 
for Word.  And be concerned that they are happy to manually change the font 
styles for every heading/caption/sub-heading and never ever consider that 
there might be a faster way to do it.  What else are they doing in their job 
so stupidly that they could be doing much more effectively?

> Now at least we come to some things Word 2.0 didn't have - specifically I 
> don't recall it having VB. Or address label creation. Or forms. I'd be 
> really surprised if anybody out there actually uses VB though.

Googling "VBA in Word" gives 5460000 results, seems like a lot of people 
have something to say about it.

> Because M$ tells us that "Word is easy". Why would you need training for 
> something that is "easy"?

I think it says more about the mentality of the user if they don't seek to 
find more efficient ways to work.  Not just in using software, but in other 
things too.

Even though we did two MS Office courses at work ages ago, I still quite 
regularly think to myself "oh there *must* be a quicker way to do this, 
surely someone else has needed to do this before" - and 99% of the time, 
sure enough, there is functionality built-in to Word/Excel to do this. 
That's what is the difference between Office 2008 and Word 2.0 / WordPad / 
whatever.

Post a reply to this message

>> In other words, *all* the features that are in Word are there because 
>> there are a significant number of people who use them.
>
> Really?
>
> And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?

Of course they do, I can't believe you would think otherwise.  THey don't 
just sit there in a closed off building, and out pops a new version of 
Office every few years.

Post a reply to this message

>>> In other words, *all* the features that are in Word are there because 
>>> there are a significant number of people who use them.
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?
> 
> Of course they do, I can't believe you would think otherwise.  THey 
> don't just sit there in a closed off building, and out pops a new 
> version of Office every few years.

Are you suggesting that somebody somewhere *wanted* The Paperclip??

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> You're right. My place of work isn't the real world at all.
> 
> Exactly, you seem to base your assumptions of how the whole world uses 
> Word based on how the people in your company use it.  You regularly 
> present lots of evidence about how screwed up IT is in your company, so 
> don't you think that there might actually be other companies out there 
> that are a tad more organised in this sort of thing?

The people who work in IT are pretty screwed up. The regular users at 
the UK site are just normal people trying to get their job done. In 
particular, we have two report writers who spend practically their 
entire way working with M$ Word and do almost nothing else.

>> As an aside, at work we try to avoid document templates to the maximum 
>> extent possible because they cause Word to crash.
> 
> See, it's comments like that that really show a completely screwed up IT 
> mentality.

> Does it not occur to you that something else might have been 
> causing the crashes, given that it is likely millions of people actually 
> do use templates daily without Word crashing?

I'm still waiting to see hard evidence that "millions of people actually 
do use templates without Word crashing".

Word's tendancy to crash at the slightest provocation is the stuff of 
legend, to the point that nobody even bothers to *try* to fix it any 
more. We just placidly accept that if you use Word it *will* crash, and 
there's essentially nothing you can do about it.

> How on Earth do you keep 
> consistent looking documents without using templates?

Hint: It's very slow and tedious.

(Actually, I didn't say we *don't* use templates. I said we *avoid* 
using them. Some customers demand that we use the templates they supply. 
 From what I understand, some of these templates work OK, and others 
cause endless crashes, much to the frustration of people trying to get 
their job done...)

> Don't you think 
> it would be headline news on every IT website if nobody could use 
> document templates without Word crashing?  Don't you think MS would 
> release a fix straight away if there was such a problem?

I thought it *was* headline news that Word is cripplingly unreliable?

Again, Word has a selection of "well known" bugs that have never 
actually been fixed. For example

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/PageXofY.htm
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm

Just two articles explaining ways to cope with Word brokenness. (And 
written by MVPs, no less.)

>> I'm also 98% sure none of the Word power users know about styles.
> 
> WTF?  You really need to send your "Word power users" on a beginners 
> course for Word.  And be concerned that they are happy to manually 
> change the font styles for every heading/caption/sub-heading and never 
> ever consider that there might be a faster way to do it.  What else are 
> they doing in their job so stupidly that they could be doing much more 
> effectively?

Spending many, many hours correcting formatting glitches *is* 
practically their entire job description.

[That's slightly unfair - they also made corrections, add new 
information, rearrange sections, etc. Since they use Word every single 
day, for hours on end, they know way more about Word than I do. For 
example, they apparently comprehend how Track Changes is actually 
supposed to work. But I've never seen them attempt to use styles...]

>> I'd be really surprised if anybody out there actually uses VB though.
> 
> Googling "VBA in Word" gives 5460000 results, seems like a lot of people 
> have something to say about it.

On second thoughts, allow me to clarify: I'd be really surprised if 
anybody who's job is to "use Word" actually sits down to *write* VB. 
There probably are a number of users who *use* VB that somebody else has 
written for them...

>> Because M$ tells us that "Word is easy". Why would you need training 
>> for something that is "easy"?
> 
> I think it says more about the mentality of the user if they don't seek 
> to find more efficient ways to work.  Not just in using software, but in 
> other things too.

Seems to me they're all just resigned to the fact that Word is horribly 
awkward to use? *shrugs*

But you have to admit, when M$ spends millions telling us how "easy" 
their software is to use and how it will "effortlessly transform the way 
you work", it does seem counterintuitive to think that you would need to 
expend effort to "learn" it. (Personally I'd suggest that M$ is vastly 
exaggerating just how "easy" their software is...)

> Even though we did two MS Office courses at work ages ago, I still quite 
> regularly think to myself "oh there *must* be a quicker way to do this, 
> surely someone else has needed to do this before" - and 99% of the time, 
> sure enough, there is functionality built-in to Word/Excel to do this. 
> That's what is the difference between Office 2008 and Word 2.0 / WordPad 
> / whatever.

I, personally, don't spent enough time using Word for this to crop up.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Are you suggesting that somebody somewhere *wanted* The Paperclip??

A woman in my office uses it.  That's 1 out of 8 people, or 12.5%.  When 
you have millions of users, that kind of percentage translates to a 
*lot* of users.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

> I'm still waiting to see hard evidence that "millions of people actually 
> do use templates without Word crashing".

Well most of the people in my company worldwide use our standard corporate 
templates, as did everyone at the previous company I worked for.  Plus 
everything I've seen coming out of companies like Nokia, Sony Ericson, BMW, 
Ford, Daimler is in standard format - I *highly* doubt they have not used 
templates to create these documents.  That's probably well over a million 
people using templates in just the area of industry I work in.  Do you 
really think all these people would use templates if they were always prone 
to crashing?

> Spending many, many hours correcting formatting glitches *is* practically 
> their entire job description.

So surely they should have been on numerous training courses to get the 
absolute maximum out of Word as efficiently as possible?  But they don't 
know how to use styles?  I still can't believe that.

> But I've never seen them attempt to use styles...]

Why don't you teach them?  It will save them hours of work - per day! 
Really, are they manually setting the font size, alignment, style etc for 
EVERY single heading/subheading/caption in every document?  What a complete 
and utter waste of time.

> Seems to me they're all just resigned to the fact that Word is horribly 
> awkward to use? *shrugs*

But it just smacks of complete incompetence when a) they should have been 
trained for this if it's their main job, and b) they don't ask anyone if 
there's a more efficient way to do it.  Especially when there usually *is* a 
more efficient way than just typing as if it is wordpad.

Post a reply to this message