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MS Word - what a mickey mouse pile of sh!t.



 
 
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  #11  
Old January 22nd, 2005, 07:29 PM
Gordon
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HT wrote:
There are other choices, Corel Wordperfect, Firefox, Safari, Lotus Notes..

Is there a point in here?


Yes. For some reason, it seems that most organisations have gone for MS
Office. Why, I'm not quite sure......so that's why most people don't
have a choice. Private individuals certainly have a choice, but I should
think they are far outnumbered by those who use Office at work.


--
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Just waiting for Broadband to complete the conversion!(4 weeks and
counting!)
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!
  #12  
Old January 25th, 2005, 05:42 PM
Cindy M -WordMVP-
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Hi Amedee,

OTOH, Gentoo has this system of USE-flags. Got a feature you don't
need? Don't use it! Need it later? Activate the flag and recompile!
Like this:
app-office/msoffice -VBA -WIZARD -SPELL

In theory, this would compile MS Office without VBA, that bloddy
stoopid paperclip, and spellling checker. (find the joke)

Control Panel/Add-Remove Softare. Choose Office from the list. Click
Change. Find the options you want to enable/disable and set "Run from
my computer" or "Unavailable". OK. Comes to about the same amount of
work, I imagine...

Of course, MS Office is NOT Open Source

That's right, it's not. Advantages and disadvantages. Advantages?
Someone in this thread mentioned they couldn't understand why so many
companies choose/chose the MS product over others on the market. One
reason is standardization (definitely NOT provided by open source).
IT departments want to have *control* over what's installed, and when
people call in with problems, have an idea what it could be. When
Open Source involved, that's more of an issue. As is having some
assurance that the source of the program will still be around in a
few years.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow
question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

  #13  
Old January 25th, 2005, 09:02 PM
Greg
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Then my choices are work here with MSOffice or work someplace else.
There are always choices.

  #14  
Old January 26th, 2005, 10:32 AM
Gordon
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Greg wrote:
Then my choices are work here with MSOffice or work someplace else.
There are always choices.

That's not really the point though is it? My thoughts were *why* Office
has become so widespread. Take the comparison between Office and
Smartsuite. I find (as an Advanced Excel user) that there are some
things that Excel does which 123 doesn't, and there are some things that
123 does that Excel doesn't. (The ability to email PART of a worksheet
directly from that worksheet springs to mind). I find Outlook is
exceptionally good in the corporate environment. Smartsuite doesn't have
an email client - perhaps that may be one of the reasons why office is
used rather than Smartsuite? I don't know. I also find that Word is one
of the most infuriating and illogical WP applications I have ever used!
Yes it's very clever if you need to produce fancy formatting and graphic
documents - most users just need to write letters and memos, and for
that Word is far to complex and complicated and does some of the most
irritating things imaginable. Example. You want to indent the first line
of a paragraph. Logical action, place the cursor at the beginning of the
line and press tab. In Word? Oh no! That indents the WHOLE paragraph!
And that's the DEFAULT setting! And then you try to get it back to where
it was in the first place. A real waste of time.

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
Just waiting for Broadband to complete the conversion!(4 weeks and
counting!)
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!
  #15  
Old January 26th, 2005, 03:26 PM
TF
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Example. You want to indent the first line
: of a paragraph. Logical action, place the cursor at the beginning of the
: line and press tab. In Word? Oh no! That indents the WHOLE paragraph!
: And that's the DEFAULT setting! And then you try to get it back to where
: it was in the first place. A real waste of time.


Gordon

What you have described above is NOT normal: it is because Normal Style has
been set to automatically update. If you use Format, Style and select
Normal, you will see an Automatically Update check box that should be
cleared.

What you say about just writting letters and memos is also nonsense. Just
writing a letter more than a couple of times means that you are constantly
typing in your address, entering the current date and a signature block,
etc. All these repetitive actions are wasting your precious time. Spend just
five minutes creating a personailised letter template and reap the rewards:
you will never have to add your address or the current date again.

Take some time and learn to use Word's powerful features: it will save you
loads of repetetive work and make your output consistent, error free and
faster.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://word.mvps.org/


  #16  
Old January 26th, 2005, 03:41 PM
Gordon
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TF wrote:
Example. You want to indent the first line
: of a paragraph. Logical action, place the cursor at the beginning of the
: line and press tab. In Word? Oh no! That indents the WHOLE paragraph!
: And that's the DEFAULT setting! And then you try to get it back to where
: it was in the first place. A real waste of time.


Gordon

What you have described above is NOT normal: it is because Normal Style has
been set to automatically update.
If you use Format, Style and select
Normal, you will see an Automatically Update check box that should be
cleared.


But that's just my point - that is the the *DEFAULT* setting - unless
you "undo" it, that's how Word is installed. At least with Office XP.
You shouldn't have to "undo" a function that isn't needed and causes a
lot of irritation - those who DO need it should be able to enable it,
not the other way around.


What you say about just writting letters and memos is also nonsense. Just
writing a letter more than a couple of times means that you are constantly
typing in your address, entering the current date and a signature block,
etc. All these repetitive actions are wasting your precious time. Spend just
five minutes creating a personailised letter template and reap the rewards:
you will never have to add your address or the current date again.

Take some time and learn to use Word's powerful features: it will save you
loads of repetetive work and make your output consistent, error free and
faster.


Don't quite know where you got that lot from in my post :-) - I can't
see any mention of that! Of *course* I use templates etc,and have done
in all the WP apps I've ever used, my point was that Word does some very
illogical and unintuitive things which other WP apps do NOT - and the
"average" user (and by that I *don't* mean secretaries, I mean those
people to whom Word is not something that they use sufficiently
frequently to warrant advanced training in all it's functions) finds
these blips frustrating.



--
Registered Linux User no 240308
Just waiting for Broadband to complete the conversion!(4 weeks and
counting!)
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!
  #17  
Old January 26th, 2005, 03:43 PM
Gordon
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Amedee Van Gasse wrote:

Closed source software does NOT give you any assurance that the source
will be around when the company that developed it goes out of business.


In fact it's happened with MS - the Outlook 2003 pst file format is NOT
backwards compatible!



--
Registered Linux User no 240308
Just waiting for Broadband to complete the conversion!(4 weeks and
counting!)
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!
  #18  
Old January 26th, 2005, 03:44 PM
TF
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If an SME buys a server with open source OS (Linux), when something doesn't
work as expected, who is going to fix it? Who is going to patch the security
holes when they are discovered? Who is going to sort out the
incompatibilities? OTOH, if an SME buys a standard Microsoft solution, they
know how long it will supported by Microsoft and they know which products
are compatible and who will sort out the problems.

Buy a server from IBM and they will tell you the server is Linux compatible:
they will not sell you a server with Linux: but they will introduce you to a
company that will provide Linux. HP and Dell are the same: they let a third
party sell the Linux. But they all provide - and will support - an MS
Windows based server.

I work for a company that provides IT management and support for SMEs and I
can absolutely guarantee you that the company with 200 users spread over
several sites using a standard MS solution will spend a fraction on support
than a similar company that has splashed out on Linux, Novell, Notes and
other non-standard solutions. It is the cost of supporting these systems
that far out-strips the initial purchase cost. Open Source provides
absolutely no benefit to the average company: all they want is the IT to
support their work with minimum of interruption. A standard solution
provides just that.

Terry Farrell


"Amedee Van Gasse" wrote in message
...
: Cindy M -WordMVP- shared this with us in
: microsoft.public.word.newusers:
:
: Hi Amedee,
:
: Of course, MS Office is NOT Open Source
:
: That's right, it's not. Advantages and disadvantages. Advantages?
: Someone in this thread mentioned they couldn't understand why so many
: companies choose/chose the MS product over others on the market. One
: reason is standardization (definitely NOT provided by open source).
:
: May I mention LSB here?
: http://www.linuxbase.org/
:
: IT departments want to have control over what's installed, and when
: people call in with problems, have an idea what it could be. When
: Open Source involved, that's more of an issue.
:
: You have a point there, however one might argue that some non-MS
: systems give IT departments even more control and standardization. It
: all depends how well it is implemented. I'm sure you'll agree on the
: implementation argument.
:
: As is having some assurance that the source of the program will still
: be around in a few years.
:
: I do not agree. (or: I don't understand your point of view)
:
: Closed source software does NOT give you any assurance that the source
: will be around when the company that developed it goes out of business.
: I can name you dozens of excellent closed source programs that are lost
: for humanity forever, because the makers stopped.
: I know about escrow services, but these can be quite expensive, and the
: escrow system only works if you registered the software before Bad
: Things Happened.
:
: Open Source software OTOH will always be available as source - why,
: that's the very definition of Open Source. Your opinion seems to differ
: so could you please explain?
:
:
: --
: Amedee Van Gasse using XanaNews 1.17.1.2
: If it has an "X" in the name, it must be Linux?
: Please don't thank me in advance. Thank me afterwards if it works or
: hit me in the face if it doesn't. ;-)


  #19  
Old January 26th, 2005, 04:02 PM
Gordon
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TF wrote:

I work for a company that provides IT management and support for SMEs and I
can absolutely guarantee you that the company with 200 users spread over
several sites using a standard MS solution will spend a fraction on support
than a similar company that has splashed out on Linux, Novell, Notes and
other non-standard solutions.


Umm I wouldn't call Novell and Notes a "non-standard solution"!!! there
are still a VERY large number of organisations using both.

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
Just waiting for Broadband to complete the conversion!(4 weeks and
counting!)
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!
  #20  
Old January 26th, 2005, 04:21 PM
Suzanne S. Barnhill
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I've been using Word for so long that of course I've customized it a good
bit, but whenever I get a new computer, I start from scratch with a clean
copy of Office, and I don't believe that indenting when you press Tab is the
default setting. If it were, why would we have so many questions in these
NGs asking how to get Word to do it? It would be easy enough to check this
by starting Word with the /a switch, and I'll do that when I get time.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
Greg wrote:
Then my choices are work here with MSOffice or work someplace else.
There are always choices.

That's not really the point though is it? My thoughts were *why* Office
has become so widespread. Take the comparison between Office and
Smartsuite. I find (as an Advanced Excel user) that there are some
things that Excel does which 123 doesn't, and there are some things that
123 does that Excel doesn't. (The ability to email PART of a worksheet
directly from that worksheet springs to mind). I find Outlook is
exceptionally good in the corporate environment. Smartsuite doesn't have
an email client - perhaps that may be one of the reasons why office is
used rather than Smartsuite? I don't know. I also find that Word is one
of the most infuriating and illogical WP applications I have ever used!
Yes it's very clever if you need to produce fancy formatting and graphic
documents - most users just need to write letters and memos, and for
that Word is far to complex and complicated and does some of the most
irritating things imaginable. Example. You want to indent the first line
of a paragraph. Logical action, place the cursor at the beginning of the
line and press tab. In Word? Oh no! That indents the WHOLE paragraph!
And that's the DEFAULT setting! And then you try to get it back to where
it was in the first place. A real waste of time.

--
Registered Linux User no 240308
Just waiting for Broadband to complete the conversion!(4 weeks and
counting!)
gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk
to email me remove the obvious!


 




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