I hate Microsoft Office!

[Nero]

Okay, first of all, I had Microsoft Office 2003 but everytime I open up a document, my laptop decides that's not good enough and opens it in Microsoft Office 2007 which is just a trial. So that's confusing in and of itself.
But no matter because I really don't understand either one of them!

I use Microsoft Works. Microsoft Works is easy to write in so why the hell do all my school assignments have to come in Office 2007?
Okay so here I am following along, doing my assignment, and Word 2007 decides it's going to bold the header I just made. I don't want it bolded. Then it decides the footer is going to be a zillion spaces from the margin and I keep undoing but it just won't let me place it where I need to freaking place it! And what's worse, it won't let me choose both font face and size at the same time. I want TimesNewRoman in 12pt. But apparently, if I want 12pt, I have to do Arial because the second I switch to 12pt from 14pt in TimesNewRoman, it pops me back to Arial. WTF?

I've spent the last 3 days trying to learn Powerpoint 2007. But no matter how many tutorials I run through, I still don't know how to make a halfway presentable presentation.

*sigh* What ever happened to good old fashioned paper assignments? I'm just so hopelessly,technologically challenged.

Okay. Just had to get that out.

[vanna]

Hi nero

your not alone on word, its like it remembers thing's in the global template i.e the bolding, underlining and font size type and change on certain lines.

The one way i got around this at work was to make a whole new template, go through each line looking for changes and saving the page afterwards and link it to my desktop and open that instead. It's not a final fix as they creep back into your work over time but its worth doing if your getting many corrections.

Its always done that for as long as ive ever done PA work and i dont think they ever will fix it.

[Lisbeth]

Two words, Nero: Open Office.

[Sarah Louise]

I prefer WordPerfect, but that is beside the point.  I prefer Dos versions.

As for some of your formatting issues, go into Options and turn Off the autoformatting options.

Sarah L.

[Ellieka]

YES! I HATE Microsloth too!

Here's what I did about it:

1.) Ditched M$ Windblows and went with Ubuntu Linux

2.) Started using OpenOffice

Both are free and, now this is my opinion... not trying to start a debate, one hundred times better then any Microsuck product.

I can do everything and more on my Linux operating system that I did on Windoz 2K/XP incuding playing games like World of Warcraft, Empire Earth... Heck I can even run some M$ apps if I wanted too. I surf the web, email, watch DVDs...

Oh yeah I love it! Here's some screen shots of of my desktop with some neat special effects like cubed display. 

Screenshot 1


Screenshot 2


Screenshot 3 

[vanna]

As for some of your formatting issues, go into Options and turn Off the autoformatting options.

Sarah L.

You see thats why i need to just admit defeat and go blond

I didnt even know that, thank you sarah.

[myles]

My computer took a dump so I had my brother install a new hard drive and programs. It now has Office 2007 on it. I hate it. I can't find half the stuff in word or excel like I used to be able to , I struggled thru power point yesterday, taking several hours to do something that should have taken half an hour and 2007 Access is pure torture. I really wish I could have the older version back. I started school again and not only have I been having to learn new stuff this semester but also learn how to use the programs all over again. Frustrating as heck.
Myles

[Kimberly]

I'd suppose not overly viable, but typing whatever in notepad and then pasting it into word might work a touch less annoying although I am not sure. Wordpad may be an option for this matter as it may include your formatting. Given you mentioned works I'd suppose that would be the same notion as well if it works at all; Write your stuff, format as you want, copy & past into word (I presume the professor wants word documents?) an perhaps that will retain your formatting. Sadly I am unsure however.

[sd]

For those recomending open ofice, beware, MS Office does not always mange to open them.

[Nicky]

For those recomending open ofice, beware, MS Office does not always mange to open them.

If it worries you you can always save things as a MS word document within open office.

I like open office too. But really it seems pretty much the same as microsoft stuff to me. But I do hate auto formating in word.

[sd]

For those recomending open ofice, beware, MS Office does not always mange to open them.

If it worries you you can always save things as a MS word document within open office.

I like open office too. But really it seems pretty much the same as microsoft stuff to me. But I do hate auto formating in word.

What you save in Open Office, may not be able to be opened by MS Office is the very problem.
For a student this can mean a failed assignment.

[Ellieka]

Just save it in .doc format. I've never had a problem.

[Nicky]

Just save it in .doc format. I've never had a problem.

exactly. When you say 'save as' you can save the type as a MS word doc (among other things).

I'm actually surprised students arn't sending PDF's or .rtf files (rich text files) these days.

[tekla]

One word: Apple.

[Nicky]

One word: Apple.

Can't say that I am that fond of Macs, but then this is simply a familiarity thing.

[tekla]

Never was either, until I used one for a year, so much easier, far fewer real gliches, and the low number of viruses and spywear and the rest is just a bonus.

[MarySue]

I second Tekla's comments about Macs. I've used them for years, with no problem. They can co-exist with Windoz boxes in an office network. They're naturally immune to viruses. They can run for months at a time without having to be rebooted. And there's a unix CLI underneath when I want it.

However, that's the operating system. You still have to cope with a word processing application. I admit that I do use MS Office 2008 (mac version of 2007). I've tried Open Office, but it didn't seem any easier to use.

Here's one tip for dealing with autoformating/autocorrection: If you hit control-Z (undo) immediately after Word's idiot-savant "fixes" something you typed, it will put it back the way it was.

BTW, my pet autoformat peeve is the way Word, by default, turns anything that looks like a url or an email address into a hyperlink. How often do I get those right the first time? And do you know how many hoops I have to jump through to turn it into text that I can edit? What a pain!

On the other hand, it is handy when Word automatically changes "teh" into "the".

[tekla]

I'm a one person cult of word processing programs.  I remember WordStar, and AmiPro (BTW, the best WP program ever - from Lotus, 'natch).  I remember when Word was not even accepted, WordPerfect was THE format.  But Word won out, for no real reason other than everyone had it.  But the simple Apple WP is easy, does what I want, and its 'free' with the system.  I've never had a problem with it, and it converts documents to whatever format I want with almost zero trouble.  It rocks.  It lacks a lot of the B&W stuff Word has, but how much do you ever use that stuff anyway?  Never in my case.  As long as it can write lots of text, with footnotes and endnotes, (and do it as well as Bella Notre did, the first academic WP) then I'm happy.

[Dennis]

I'm a one person cult of word processing programs.  I remember WordStar, and AmiPro (BTW, the best WP program ever - from Lotus, 'natch).  I remember when Word was not even accepted, WordPerfect was THE format.  But Word won out, for no real reason other than everyone had it.  But the simple Apple WP is easy, does what I want, and its 'free' with the system.  I've never had a problem with it, and it converts documents to whatever format I want with almost zero trouble.  It rocks.  It lacks a lot of the B&W stuff Word has, but how much do you ever use that stuff anyway?  Never in my case.  As long as it can write lots of text, with footnotes and endnotes, (and do it as well as Bella Notre did, the first academic WP) then I'm happy.

The other reason Word won out was that WP didn't upgrade from 5 (DOS based) to 6 (with nifty and pretty windows things) forever. In the meantime, Word took over. Of the two, Wordperfect is a much better program, if just for the reveal codes function so you can clean up formatting crap that happens. I've never found an easy way to do that in Word. Fortunately, I don't have to share documents with anyone else, so I can continue to use Wordperfect.

Dennis

[MarySue]

I'm a one person cult of word processing programs.  I remember WordStar, and AmiPro (BTW, the best WP program ever - from Lotus, 'natch).  I remember when Word was not even accepted, WordPerfect was THE format.  But Word won out, for no real reason other than everyone had it.  But the simple Apple WP is easy, does what I want, and its 'free' with the system.  I've never had a problem with it, and it converts documents to whatever format I want with almost zero trouble.  It rocks.  It lacks a lot of the B&W stuff Word has, but how much do you ever use that stuff anyway?  Never in my case.  As long as it can write lots of text, with footnotes and endnotes, (and do it as well as Bella Notre did, the first academic WP) then I'm happy.

*Snicker*  Gotcha beat: When I started, troff, eqn and pic were the standards. There was no "WYSIWYG." I still miss them. I could do things with them that I still can't do with Word, or Illustrator, or InDesign. Yes, they exist on macs, but I haven't figured out how to get them to generate output that a printer will accept.

Apple's TextEdit is great for some stuff, and you can't beat the price. I hadn't realized that it can read & write Word files. Thanks for that tip!

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, TextEdit doesn't support named styles very well. I learned a long time ago, never format individual paragraphs. Instead I define a style for that paragraph's function, and tag all such paragraphs with that style, so I can globally change the style later on. Unless I missed something, TextEdit lets me define styles, but when I tag a 'graph with a style, TextEdit uses the current definition of the style, and doesn't associate the paragraph with that style. As a result, I can't use styles to defer or change formatting decisions, which makes them much less useful.

Also, apparently TextEdit can't open encrypted docx files.