Yes, it's a rant, people.
Wednesday, February 25th, 2004 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanI find it difficult to express just how much I detest Microsoft Word.
About seven years ago, some mental giant in what was then the Department of the Environment signed an exclusive use agreement with Microsoft ensuring that insofar as it was compatible with security needs, the Department would use Microsoft products only. The current incarnation of the Department has inherited that ill-considered decision.
Oh for the days of yore when cheerfully we would frolic through the digital uplands that were LOTUS 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. Two applications that did exactly what they said on the box. These days we are shackled to Excel and Word, two applications that not only fail to live up to their promises, but which appear if not to have minds of their own, certainly they have well-developed autonomic responses and instincts which fly in the face of any task you set out to complete using them.
One of my annual and less cherished tasks in thisHell Hole Office, is the updating and re-authoring of a dry little publication we like to call the Housing Revenue Account Manual. This catchily named little tome runs to twenty-three chapters and could, in extremis, be used to fell a charging Rhinoceros at ten paces.
As reading material goes it is drier than a pharaoh's sock.
Nonetheless, once a year, I work off immense amounts of karma on the bloody thing. This task is quite difficult enough, for the publication is a working document and highly technical to boot. It is complex and has to be accurate otherwise it is worse than useless.
Writing the updates and editing changes in and out is quite tiresome and demands a high degree of concentration.
So you will appreciate that I fail to see the humour inherent in chasing semi-sentient formatting changes around the screen and up and down the page. Who in God's name wrote this application? Why does it make assumptions on my behalf, more often than not incorrectly, on numbering and formatting, and then proceed to argue the point every time I go back into the document to repair the automatically generated carnage?
With a level of frustration bordering on tears, I have just spent two hours wrestling the formatting and numbering into submission. I turned the auto-numbering off.
Word turned it back on.
I turned it off again.
And then in revenge, Word proceeded to assign random numbers and remove indents and margins. When I correct those, it goes off and reformats another part of the document as some kind of cyber-reprisal.
I truly believe that whoever was primarily responsible for Word is related to Mack Sennet.
About seven years ago, some mental giant in what was then the Department of the Environment signed an exclusive use agreement with Microsoft ensuring that insofar as it was compatible with security needs, the Department would use Microsoft products only. The current incarnation of the Department has inherited that ill-considered decision.
Oh for the days of yore when cheerfully we would frolic through the digital uplands that were LOTUS 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. Two applications that did exactly what they said on the box. These days we are shackled to Excel and Word, two applications that not only fail to live up to their promises, but which appear if not to have minds of their own, certainly they have well-developed autonomic responses and instincts which fly in the face of any task you set out to complete using them.
One of my annual and less cherished tasks in this
As reading material goes it is drier than a pharaoh's sock.
Nonetheless, once a year, I work off immense amounts of karma on the bloody thing. This task is quite difficult enough, for the publication is a working document and highly technical to boot. It is complex and has to be accurate otherwise it is worse than useless.
Writing the updates and editing changes in and out is quite tiresome and demands a high degree of concentration.
So you will appreciate that I fail to see the humour inherent in chasing semi-sentient formatting changes around the screen and up and down the page. Who in God's name wrote this application? Why does it make assumptions on my behalf, more often than not incorrectly, on numbering and formatting, and then proceed to argue the point every time I go back into the document to repair the automatically generated carnage?
With a level of frustration bordering on tears, I have just spent two hours wrestling the formatting and numbering into submission. I turned the auto-numbering off.
Word turned it back on.
I turned it off again.
And then in revenge, Word proceeded to assign random numbers and remove indents and margins. When I correct those, it goes off and reformats another part of the document as some kind of cyber-reprisal.
I truly believe that whoever was primarily responsible for Word is related to Mack Sennet.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 08:36 am (UTC)I've just been working on a site for a client who thought they could do it themselves in Word. They sent me the results, which didn't make any sense to man or beast, not even in IE. I asked them for the Word files, from which at least I could get the relevant text to mark up by hand.
Many of the pages are articles that would run to a couple of pages if printed, so we're not talking huge tracts of stuff here. Word's HTMLised versions came in at around the 22k mark. My marked-up-by-hand ones come in round about 7.5k.
14k of extraneous markup? WTF?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 08:51 am (UTC)Now I like their Windows 2000 and NT - on their own they are fine and have worked well.
I cannot go near any of the tecnicalities of Word for fear of a stroke.
These days I (a) use OpenOffice and (b) use nothing clever.
Other then a simple single Autonumber for self contained sequencing I do all the numbering By Hand and do Tables Of Contents by Styles not by any of the magic auto-bolloxing kerfuffle.
Does this odious task take time.
I feel it takes less than the Clever Office way!!!
As to Word as a producer of HTML, yes well, there is not typeface in Christendom that would do any "HAH!!!" justice.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 09:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 09:08 am (UTC)"For fucks sake. Word really can get on your tits at some times, can't it?"
When I enquired further, he heaved a sigh and said "oh, it's just being naughty."
I used to love using Word:HTML when I was teaching web design - the perfect "how not to code" example without any effort.
Even Dreamweaver (which is no saint) isn't that bad.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 09:09 am (UTC)So these days, I use Adobe FrameMaker. Not much help to you, I know, but it's rock-solid stable and was designed for creating multi-chapter books.
Of course, these days I use it for most everything. I wouldn't write a letter using MSWord.
Best of luck...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 11:55 am (UTC)I knew the people where I worked until 1998 used FrameMaker, but I thought it was just cos they wuz *nix heads.
I assume Word is now so crap because M& in their corporate infect-o-addict ploy ways, have bound it to some much other stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 11:30 am (UTC)I hate how Word "thinks" in paragraphs. It constantly changes things I didn't ask it to change.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 02:02 pm (UTC)As far as working with Microsoft on the job, my prayers go out to you, sir.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 05:08 pm (UTC)I thank you.
But are you sure you don't like Apple just because it reminds you of the Fabs? ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 09:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 10:18 am (UTC)Ho hum.