MS word's worst feature

[bradhurley]

I don't know about big issues, but even little things like where to find an envelope format. In WP it's under "format" - in Word, it's under "tools." An envelope is not a tool, it's a format. Also, there may be a way in Word to view your document with embedded codes, but I haven't been able to find it. In WP it's just Cntrl-F3. Word Perfect is a piece of cake to me. I hate Word.

This looks like a case of "you hate what you're not used to." It's the same with operating systems: nearly everyone I know who switches from Windows to Mac or Mac to Windows absolutely hates it for months, but then you get used to it. I started on Mac and hated Windows when I had to use it for work, but now I like (and hate) Windows and Mac OSX equally. I dislike WordPerfect because, while I did use it for 2 or 3 years, I've now been using Word almost exclusively for nearly 10 years and I can't find my way around WordPerfect, plus it crashes several times a day (Word has crashed on me maybe twice in the past five years). But if I were using WordPerfect all the time I'd probably hate Word too...because nothing would be where I expect it to be and nothing would make sense.

By the way, in Word if you press Shift-F1 it reveals the formatting codes.

[buddhu]

...By the way, I fooled around briefly with the beta of Word 2007. It kept crashing so I uninstalled it.

Dale

I thought the versions Microsoft released and sold in stores were the betas...

I don't know which is most annoying: Microsoft's repeated release of supposed final versions of progs that are so bloated that they are nowhere near debugged (and making users pay for the priv' of bug testing); or Google's habit of keeping everything in beta for so long that you start to wonder if they have any confidence in their R&D teams.

Office Assistant

Oh hell, yes...

[susnfx]

By the way, in Word if you press Shift-F1 it reveals the formatting codes.

Thank you!

[Dale]

.... or Google's habit of keeping everything in beta for so long that you start to wonder if they have any confidence in their R&D teams.

That is odd, isn't it. Gmail is still in beta. I've been using if for two years next month.

[Wanderer]

If anyone can tell me a way of switching this capitalisation off, I'd be very grateful. I can type capitals myself, if I need to. All the time I've saved by learning to touch-type is lost in fouthering about with this kind of nonsense.

Open your word document.
Go to the menu titled "Tools" and select "AutoCorrect Options"
click on the "AutoCorrect" tab
uncheck the "Capitalize the first letter of sentences" box.
Click OK

I had to learn this early, else every line of every poem starts with a cap.

I make lots of tables and diagrams where there isn't a complete sentence in each box/area and they don't need to be capped.

[Walden]

I had to learn this early, else every line of every poem starts with a cap.

I don't use word very much, preferring more basic text editors for most tasks, but I usually capitalize the first word of every line in a poem... I got this habit from looking at hymnbooks, which usually do that. I have lots of terrible quirky habits like this.

[DCrom]

I had to learn this early, else every line of every poem starts with a cap.

I don't use word very much, preferring more basic text editors for most tasks, but I usually capitalize the first word of every line in a poem... I got this habit from looking at hymnbooks, which usually do that. I have lots of terrible quirky habits like this.

I'm not a poet, but I prefer plain text editors too.

I sometimes need to use Word (and have written some fairly long documents using it), and I think most of my complaints have already been mentioned.

Basically, it makes it very easy to do a well-formatted simple document, and fiendishly difficult to do anything even slightly more complex.

Quite honestly, I was happier (and could produce well-formatted complex documents faster) using a plain text editor, Unix text macros, and the "roff" family of runoff programs. But Word's the standard at my current job, so I use it when I must and ignore it the rest of the time.

[Cynth]

I know I could figure it out if I tried, but the tabs drive me insane. All these different-shaped little angles at the top, little t's, little right hand things, little left hand things. I looked it up once. I just make spaces with the space bar and count them because it is so horrible. And some you can move and some move when you don't want them to. Please don't tell me how to do it. I rarely type that sort of thing anymore.

Autoformatting also is so horrible. I know I could figure it out somehow but I don't care anymore. Every time I go into Word now something totally different has happened to a document. It changes itself. I know it doesn't seem possible but the document will have settings I've never even heard of and have no idea what they mean. But I don't have to produce documents anymore so I don't care.

I know it's just a matter of learning it. I doubt for me any other program would be any better. It's fun to complain though.

[BillChin]

The worst thing is the data format. Create a new document, type in "hello" save it, and it is like 80,000 bytes. For what? Because some lazy programmers want a lot of extra space for stuff that may or may not be needed. Email that document to someone with dialup and they have to spend a long time to try and open it. If they have a different version of Word, it may not open. Okay, enough of a rant.

There are freeware wordprocessors, and I have made the switch. I am using OpenOffice and it reads MS Word docs. Folks in an environment where all the software is standardized don't have a choice.

[Flyingcursor]

Lord, let me count the ways. Just one, huh? Hmmmmm.......

Yes....it's a challenge. I only expect to live a few more decades.

I'd nominate Headers & Footers. Trying to create a long document with different page numbering, for example, NO page numbers on some pages, is nightmarishly difficult.

By the way, I fooled around briefly with the beta of Word 2007. It kept crashing so I uninstalled it.

Dale

Didn't my solution work?


Nested bullets aren't too bad. Use the "indent" buttons.

Better yet, create three or four styles like bullet1, bullet1, bullet3 and define them with specific indentations. Make new buttons so you can click the one you want and save the whole mess in normal.dot so you will always have it.

[Scoon]

Imagine taking the office assistant to the pub...

"I can see you're ordering a pint. Do you want help with that?"
"No."
"I would suggest that you buy brand X, instead of asking for heavy - it's more specific"
"No. Go away."
"I can see that you now have a pint. Would you like some crisps as well?"
"No."
"Would you like chicken, or barbequeue?"
"Look - get lost. I'm going for a slash."
......
"I can see you're going to the toilet. Would you like me to hold it for you?"

BIFF

lol

[bradhurley]

Better yet, create three or four styles like bullet1, bullet1, bullet3 and define them with specific indentations. Make new buttons so you can click the one you want and save the whole mess in normal.dot so you will always have it.

The thing is, I bet 99% of Word users don't know how to use styles, they just format text manually on the fly within the "Normal" template. I work in a fairly large company (1,500 people) and I've only encountered two or three other people besides me who understand styles and the benefits of using them. And the company even offers training courses in Word.

Most of us don't have time to learn how to use software the way it was designed to be used...we just dive in and try to figure things out as we go along. I used to get riled about that, as I've seen people waste many hours of their lives working with incredible inefficiency, but now I just accept it as a reality of human nature.

I think this is partly why so many people dislike big feature-bloated programs like Word -- most of us will only ever use a tiny fraction of the features available, and the program is overwhelming in its complexity. When the program does something we don't expect, we don't know how to fix it because we've never taken the time to read a manual or take a course.

A lot of small software companies are recognizing this now and there's been an increasing drive toward simplicity, or at least the appearance of simplicity. Google is a good example, the iPod is another. As other people have mentioned, there are quite a few simple word processors available; it's just that most of us are forced to use Word because it has become a nearly universal standard.

[RonKiley]

I have Word and WordPerfect. I much prefer WP. It is much more intuitive. However when I am writing a short letter or something I use NotePad. Sometimes less is more. My computer system is homebuilt but my original software included Word. I bought the Corel suite because I preferred it.

Ron

[Flyingcursor]

Better yet, create three or four styles like bullet1, bullet1, bullet3 and define them with specific indentations. Make new buttons so you can click the one you want and save the whole mess in normal.dot so you will always have it.

The thing is, I bet 99% of Word users don't know how to use styles, they just format text manually on the fly within the "Normal" template. I work in a fairly large company (1,500 people) and I've only encountered two or three other people besides me who understand styles and the benefits of using them. And the company even offers training courses in Word.

This is where every Word book or training course I've ever seen falls down. Understanding styles makes a world of difference yet they don't get their share of attention.

I had to develop a template at work using a specific set of 60 or so styles with lots of VBA goodies in the background. We have many documents with multiple authors and of course they all did things differently. The resulting documents are often riddled with problems converting to PDF or printing, thus the template. I even removed the ability to modify styles and the ability to modify the toolbars so now if the author wants a smaller font or bullets or numbers they have to specifically pick the style either via a button or the style dropdown. I always had hated Word but now I think "meh". No more applying a bullet to normal style.

[buddhu]

My all time favourite WP was one that run on MS DOS. It was called Protext. Small, fast and as stable as a brick outhouse.