Another great example of how Word 2007 "brings commands closer to the surface"

Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?


"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
I could paste it into a Word document and e-mail
to you as an attachment if you like.

The tendency of people to think that Word makes a good wrapper to
exchange a single picture is symptomatic of the factors that landed us
with Word 2007--the idea that Word can and should be able to do
everything!

So that's it? MVPs have provided feedback in the past, and MS did not heed
them, so the subject is closed and there's nothing to do but accept the
destruction of the Word interface?

I don't know anything about the relations of MVPs and Microsoft. But I
would guess that any feedback by MVPs during the testing period was on the
softspoken side. I would suggest that if MVPs as a group spoke out more
strongly now, really conveying the depth of unhappiness with Word 2007 and
how unacceptable it is, that there would at least be a chance that MS will
hear them and do something about it. It's the squeaky wheel that gets
greased. You have nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain, for
yourselves, and for all Word users.

Larry



something stronger is needed.
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Word MVPs have provided feedback to MS, individually and collectively,
throughout the development process. It's not as if this UI had burst upon
an
unsuspecting world: Jensen Harris started documenting it in his blog
(http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/) in September 2005. The only thing that
will
change Microsoft's direction is massive failure of corporate America to
adopt the new version. But, given the reluctance of many corporations to
upgrade early in the product life cycle, it may take a while for this
failure to become evident.

--
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.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Mark's points are so important, and are worth re-reading and thinking
about.
I especially like Number 5: It's as though the main purpose of Word is
fancy functions to manage fancy documents, rather than the basic task of
typing and editing text. MS, in its desire for innovation for the sake
of
innovation, has lost sight of what most people spend their time doing
with
Word, which is typing, editing, and formatting text.

Based on the unhappiness expressed by several respected MVPs, something
I've
never seen before in the eight years I've been frequenting the Word
newsgroups, I think there is a basis for some kind of collective
statement
or petition to Microsoft from the newsgroups, led by the MVPs, pointing
out
the serious problems with Word 2007 and asking for a major retooling,
including restoring basic features that have been taken away like the
menus
and toolbars. Terry said his own requests and suggestions had been
rebuffed. But what if a bunch of MVPs and other interested Word users
spoke
together? We might not win, but Microsoft could not completely ignore
us
either. They would have to face the fact that intelligent people deeply
interested in Word see serious problems here.

Word experts of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your
Microsoft Office Button.

Larry


wrote in message
oups.com...
I don't find that to be true at all. I coach a firm of 55 employees
in 4 offices, most of whom were with the company when it switched from
WP to Word a few weeks before I arrived, so their learning curve was
unpleasant. Naturally with that mindset they'd been adapting slowly.
The two most critical things that appealed to them and uplifted their
collective viewpoint were macros and keyboard shortcuts.

Once they were shown these things, they adored them, and were unnerved
(often greatly) when a new or foreign PC didn't have them. Everyone
seems to appreciate keyboard shortcuts and the ability to remap them.
(Most never use the Bold or Italic buttons anymore. It's just easier
not to move your hand from the keyboard.) I placed a menu-building
add-in on each system to simplify over 70 procedures, often complex
ones that no average user would bother to do manually. It runs each
of these macros in 2 or 3 clicks or keystrokes, and the staff is now
in love with it. Word 2007 will slow or stifle this.

I think 5 concepts now being widely offered as fact are simply wrong
at base: (1) the average user is too dumb & lazy to want to improve
efficiency or reduce fatigue; (2) power users are close-minded
curmudgeons who are resistant to any change on general principle; (3)
users as a whole are such utter sheep that everyone will eventually
submit to Microsoft's peverse rug-yank; (4) the ribbon is more
inherently more efficient than the menus; and (5) clicks or keystrokes
that invoke commands are a significant part of the document-creating
or -editing experience. (They're not; most average users' time spent
at the computer is used for typing or scrolling, not finding specific
commands on menus or buttons. That much should be obvious.)

Word 2007 may look cute to newbies or amusing for the idle or self-
employed, but anyone who works in a standard office setting facing
normal concerns about deadlines and overhead will be hopelessly
injured if they upgrade.

I'm with Larry. I think 2007 is an abomination that invites revolt.
Yes, I'm a power user. Folks here seem almost willing to imply that's
a bad thing.

Mark

Attach it to the email

--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com



"Larry" wrote in message
...
Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next
alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?


"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
I could paste it into a Word document and e-mail
to you as an attachment if you like.

The tendency of people to think that Word makes a good wrapper to
exchange a single picture is symptomatic of the factors that landed us
with Word 2007--the idea that Word can and should be able to do
everything!

Attach a screen shot to an e-mail??

Again, I made a screen shot. It would not paste into an e-mail. So I
pasted it into Word, and attached the Word document to an e-mail and sent
the e-mail to Cicely.

I hope I have passed muster.


"Paul Ballou" wrote in message
...
Attach it to the email

--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com



"Larry" wrote in message
...
Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next
alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?


"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
I could paste it into a Word document and e-mail
to you as an attachment if you like.

The tendency of people to think that Word makes a good wrapper to
exchange a single picture is symptomatic of the factors that landed us
with Word 2007--the idea that Word can and should be able to do
everything!

Feedback from MVPs is never soft-spoken. The MVPs who provided feedback were
mostly those who were using the beta. These include PPT MVP Echo Swinford,
who identified and documented more bugs than anyone else in the entire
Office beta (for those who don't know Echo, she's widely known around MS as
"the 'It sucks' lady"). But the number of Word MVPs is quite small in
proportion to the total number of Word users, and MS considers feedback from
a wide variety of sources, including large corporations with volume
licensing. In particular, many decisions were made based on CEIP data; those
who did not participate in CEIP could be argued to have only themselves to
blame, though, as mentioned here, CEIP data probably did not accurately
represent user customization.

MVPs are still providing outspoken feedback. We most recently did so at the
MVP Summit (March 12-15). And the product team *does* listen. But our
viewpoint is still a minority, no matter how vocal.

--
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.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
So that's it? MVPs have provided feedback in the past, and MS did not
heed
them, so the subject is closed and there's nothing to do but accept the
destruction of the Word interface?

I don't know anything about the relations of MVPs and Microsoft. But I
would guess that any feedback by MVPs during the testing period was on the
softspoken side. I would suggest that if MVPs as a group spoke out more
strongly now, really conveying the depth of unhappiness with Word 2007 and
how unacceptable it is, that there would at least be a chance that MS will
hear them and do something about it. It's the squeaky wheel that gets
greased. You have nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain, for
yourselves, and for all Word users.

Larry



something stronger is needed.
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Word MVPs have provided feedback to MS, individually and collectively,
throughout the development process. It's not as if this UI had burst
upon
an
unsuspecting world: Jensen Harris started documenting it in his blog
(http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/) in September 2005. The only thing that
will
change Microsoft's direction is massive failure of corporate America to
adopt the new version. But, given the reluctance of many corporations to
upgrade early in the product life cycle, it may take a while for this
failure to become evident.

--
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.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Mark's points are so important, and are worth re-reading and thinking
about.
I especially like Number 5: It's as though the main purpose of Word
is
fancy functions to manage fancy documents, rather than the basic task
of
typing and editing text. MS, in its desire for innovation for the
sake
of
innovation, has lost sight of what most people spend their time doing
with
Word, which is typing, editing, and formatting text.

Based on the unhappiness expressed by several respected MVPs,
something
I've
never seen before in the eight years I've been frequenting the Word
newsgroups, I think there is a basis for some kind of collective
statement
or petition to Microsoft from the newsgroups, led by the MVPs,
pointing
out
the serious problems with Word 2007 and asking for a major retooling,
including restoring basic features that have been taken away like the
menus
and toolbars. Terry said his own requests and suggestions had been
rebuffed. But what if a bunch of MVPs and other interested Word users
spoke
together? We might not win, but Microsoft could not completely ignore
us
either. They would have to face the fact that intelligent people
deeply
interested in Word see serious problems here.

Word experts of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your
Microsoft Office Button.

Larry


wrote in message
oups.com...
I don't find that to be true at all. I coach a firm of 55 employees
in 4 offices, most of whom were with the company when it switched
from
WP to Word a few weeks before I arrived, so their learning curve was
unpleasant. Naturally with that mindset they'd been adapting
slowly.
The two most critical things that appealed to them and uplifted
their
collective viewpoint were macros and keyboard shortcuts.

Once they were shown these things, they adored them, and were
unnerved
(often greatly) when a new or foreign PC didn't have them. Everyone
seems to appreciate keyboard shortcuts and the ability to remap
them.
(Most never use the Bold or Italic buttons anymore. It's just
easier
not to move your hand from the keyboard.) I placed a menu-building
add-in on each system to simplify over 70 procedures, often complex
ones that no average user would bother to do manually. It runs each
of these macros in 2 or 3 clicks or keystrokes, and the staff is now
in love with it. Word 2007 will slow or stifle this.

I think 5 concepts now being widely offered as fact are simply wrong
at base: (1) the average user is too dumb & lazy to want to improve
efficiency or reduce fatigue; (2) power users are close-minded
curmudgeons who are resistant to any change on general principle;
(3)
users as a whole are such utter sheep that everyone will eventually
submit to Microsoft's peverse rug-yank; (4) the ribbon is more
inherently more efficient than the menus; and (5) clicks or
keystrokes
that invoke commands are a significant part of the document-creating
or -editing experience. (They're not; most average users' time
spent
at the computer is used for typing or scrolling, not finding
specific
commands on menus or buttons. That much should be obvious.)

Word 2007 may look cute to newbies or amusing for the idle or self-
employed, but anyone who works in a standard office setting facing
normal concerns about deadlines and overhead will be hopelessly
injured if they upgrade.

I'm with Larry. I think 2007 is an abomination that invites revolt.
Yes, I'm a power user. Folks here seem almost willing to imply
that's
a bad thing.

Mark

No, you paste the screen shot into a graphics app and save it in a
(compressed) graphic format. If you have only Word to paste it into, you can
find instructions for extracting it as a graphic at
http://www.gmayor.com/extract_images_from_word.htm

--
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.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Attach a screen shot to an e-mail??

Again, I made a screen shot. It would not paste into an e-mail. So I
pasted it into Word, and attached the Word document to an e-mail and sent
the e-mail to Cicely.

I hope I have passed muster.


"Paul Ballou" wrote in message
...
Attach it to the email

--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com



"Larry" wrote in message
...
Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next
alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?


"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
I could paste it into a Word document and e-mail
to you as an attachment if you like.

The tendency of people to think that Word makes a good wrapper to
exchange a single picture is symptomatic of the factors that landed
us
with Word 2007--the idea that Word can and should be able to do
everything!

What is the advantage of that--is it that the graphics app is smaller?

However, what if I accompany the screen shot with text? I guess I could
type that into the graphics app.


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
No, you paste the screen shot into a graphics app and save it in a
(compressed) graphic format. If you have only Word to paste it into, you
can
find instructions for extracting it as a graphic at
http://www.gmayor.com/extract_images_from_word.htm

--
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.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Attach a screen shot to an e-mail??

Again, I made a screen shot. It would not paste into an e-mail. So I
pasted it into Word, and attached the Word document to an e-mail and
sent
the e-mail to Cicely.

I hope I have passed muster.


"Paul Ballou" wrote in message
...
Attach it to the email

--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com



"Larry" wrote in message
...
Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next
alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?


"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
I could paste it into a Word document and e-mail
to you as an attachment if you like.

The tendency of people to think that Word makes a good wrapper to
exchange a single picture is symptomatic of the factors that landed
us
with Word 2007--the idea that Word can and should be able to do
everything!

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:04:01 -0400, Larry wrote:

Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?

Hi, Larry

Screenshots are essentially picture files.
As such, they can easily be attached to emails.
But in practical terms, it all depends how you make the screenshots.

If you use the PrintScreen key, the screenshot is sent to the Windows
clipboard as a bitmap picture. In this case, you have to paste the
clipboard contents into some application to be able to use the picture in
any meaningful way. You pasted into Word but there are better/simpler ways.
Word is a "word" processor. What you actually need is a "picture"
processor. Any would do, the most basic being the Windows "Paint" program
(which is still available in XP). Pasting into "Paint" allows you to save
the picture as a BMP, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, or PNG file.

Now it is often more practical to make screenshots using a screen capture
application. In this case, you can usually choose where to send the
screenshot to. You can send it to the Windows clipboard, but more aptly you
can save it directly to a picture file. I can recommend "FastStone Capture"
(http://www.faststone.org/download.htm). It is totally free and as
user-friendly as can be. Here is a description from the help: "A powerful,
flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility. It allows you to capture
anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle /
freehand-selected regions and scrolling windows/web pages." "FastStone
Capture" also allows you to edit the screenshot picture, add frames or
text, change size or colour count, email or print the picture directly.
--
Cheers
Robert

For those who want a dedicated screen capture utility that is really
full-featured (and still very affordable), I recommend SnagIt
(www.techsmith.com).

--
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.

"Robert" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:04:01 -0400, Larry wrote:

Well, I couldn't paste it into an e-mail, so Word was the next
alternative.
What would you suggest that I have done?

Hi, Larry

Screenshots are essentially picture files.
As such, they can easily be attached to emails.
But in practical terms, it all depends how you make the screenshots.

If you use the PrintScreen key, the screenshot is sent to the Windows
clipboard as a bitmap picture. In this case, you have to paste the
clipboard contents into some application to be able to use the picture in
any meaningful way. You pasted into Word but there are better/simpler
ways.
Word is a "word" processor. What you actually need is a "picture"
processor. Any would do, the most basic being the Windows "Paint" program
(which is still available in XP). Pasting into "Paint" allows you to save
the picture as a BMP, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, or PNG file.

Now it is often more practical to make screenshots using a screen capture
application. In this case, you can usually choose where to send the
screenshot to. You can send it to the Windows clipboard, but more aptly
you
can save it directly to a picture file. I can recommend "FastStone
Capture"
(http://www.faststone.org/download.htm). It is totally free and as
user-friendly as can be. Here is a description from the help: "A powerful,
flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility. It allows you to capture
anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle
/
freehand-selected regions and scrolling windows/web pages." "FastStone
Capture" also allows you to edit the screenshot picture, add frames or
text, change size or colour count, email or print the picture directly.
--
Cheers
Robert

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:49:51 -0500, Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:

For those who want a dedicated screen capture utility that is really
full-featured (and still very affordable), I recommend SnagIt
(www.techsmith.com).

It all depends what are the user's actual needs.
There is no point in having a "really" full-featured application if only a
few of these features are ever used.
Most screen captures that I personally ever make can be done with
"FastStone Capture" for free. And I would assume this to be the case with
most ordinary end-users. Why should we fork out $40 for additional features
that we would never use? What's more, "SnagIt" has got few extra features
that would not be available in "FastStone Capture".

Also note that a lot of users own a dedicated graphic application such as
Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. These applications can make screen captures
too. And they are as "full-featured" as "SnagIt" can be. Whenever I need
the extra features (especially editing features), I use Paint Shop Pro. But
"FastStone Capture" answsers most ordinary needs. Especially when all the
user wants to do is send a (few) screen capture(s) of his customisation of
the Word UI...
--
Cheers
Robert