Well, I don't think anyone is really happy with the result, including the
Mac BU. They ran out of time and people in this release: what we have is
all they had time to do before on-sale date. There's more to come.
What they tried to do was remain Mac-like, while bringing us as close as
possible to Word 2007's Fluent User Interface ("The Ribbon" to you and I...)
There are many "opinions" about the result, including yours and mine
I am a power user, a specialist long-document technical author. I make my
living in Word, and I use it for all my serious projects (1,000-pages and
up). So it took me a very long time to stop saying rude things about The
Ribbon
It's one of those things you have to use, in my case for a
couple of months, before you really appreciate it. After that, you start
noticing that everything is more difficult and more fiddly when using a
version of Word that doesn't have it.
In Word 2008, we did NOT get the Ribbon. We got "The Something Like It".
And I am afraid we have ended up with an unholy mixture that seems to have
kept some of the less enticing features of both. I am (now) firmly in the
camp that says "The Ribbon is seriously good idea, and I want it on the Mac
too."
My comment about the steering wheel stands: If you don't have the Elements
Bar, you can't drive Word. It is not possible to access all the functions
without the EG.
If you want an uncluttered writing layout, use Draft View. If you want an
uncluttered proofing layout, use Print Preview.
Really, I think you should spend more than two days learning to use Word
2008 before you decide what you will "never" use. I say this with the
benefit of embarrassing hind-sight
However, it is true that Word has "changed" with the Word 2007/8 release.
It is now designed for a different audience, with different requirements.
You may not be among that audience!
Since you've paid for it, I would give it a little longer, if I were you.
It is a HELL OF A LOT more powerful and stable than it was. I also suggest
that you sit back and look at the "direction" the design is heading in. If
you are interested, find a PC running Vista and have a play with Word 2007.
Then you can see where this design is heading. Yes, I know Vista is a mess:
forget Vista, you never see it when you are using Office 2007. But it does
add some power features that Windows XP doesn't have and that Office 2007
benefits from.
We do need to appreciate that on the Mac, we do not have the whole concept,
yet. This particularly affects the Elements Gallery: There will be a lot
more stuff on it in future versions.
However, the reason I suggest that you analyse the direction of the design
is so you will see that the old usage paradigm is dead (or dying...).
Word was originally designed for the following use case:
1) A professional decides what to write, and either dictates it, or
hand-writes it.
2) A Secretary types it up. She had to spend years learning to make
complex business documents in a word-processor. She has a similar level of
technical expertise to the professional, but as a word-processor.
3) The Secretary hands the file off to a Publishing Professional. The
Publishing Professional imports the file into a Page Layout application and
typesets it for professional printing. The Publishing Professional had to
spend many years learning graphics design.
4) The Publishing Professional hands the result to a Printer. The Printer
spent many years learning to make a four-colour offset press do its thing
reliably.
People are not doing that any more. As a corporate professional, you now
have full authority to deeply embarrass your corporation by producing,
publishing and distributing a ransom note to all the clients with the click
of a single button!
In the current working world, nobody has the time to "learn" how to do
word-processing. Or graphics design. Or printing. They are too busy
learning their core skills. They need to produce written communication with
things that "just work".
That's the market Word is heading for.
1) The busy professional types some stuff.
2) They choose an appearance. They add some components. It starts right,
stays right, and looks right.
3) They email it to all the clients.
And the result looks smart, modern and professional. The page numbers are
all correct, the TOC all works, the Index has no bad page numbers, the
equations are all correctly numbered, the spelling is all correct and the
colour gamut is adjusted for the output medium.
OK, we're about 70 per cent of the way there in Word 2007, and Word 2008 is
catching up going there too, as quick as they can code. The idea now is:
1) You do not construct a layout, you choose one.
2) You do not construct tables, you insert them.
3) You do not lay things out, you "pour" text into existing streams.
4) You do not choose appearance, you choose a theme.
The new way is designed to enable users to "assemble" documents by choosing
pre-built components. As a concept, this works well for the 80 per cent of
users that buy/use Microsoft Word ‹ better than the old way did. On the
Mac, lack of time means that many of the pre-built components are not yet
available. Expect many of them to be available for download as soon as they
get built.
Publishing professionals will now be engaged by corporations to create a
suit of design templates and document parts in the corporate style, which
the knowledge-workers will "choose". System administrators will install it
and lock it down so users can't choose anything else
If you want
something else, call your corporation's Publications Department. They will
run it up from your ideas in a day and send it to you. You will be able to
double-click to install it. Third-party vendors will be into this market
tomorrow or the next day
Microsoft has given up on trying to "Teach" users how to drive
word-processors and page layout applications. The users don't WANT to
learn, and the effort was eating into the profits. "Don't try to teach a
pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig!"
So, in Word 2007/2008, you are looking at the vanguard of the new way of
doing things. We're out of the InDesign market. We're out of the
FrameMaker market. And we're out of the old word-processing market too.
For the sake of making the point, let me thoroughly over-state the case:
"This thing is not designed to work the way the old one did. It can't and
it won't. If you take the Elements Gallery off it, it won't work at all!"
Of course, the reality is that you can still find a way to do nearly
everything you used to be able to do. The benefit is that many of the
things that used to be difficult or unreliable are now one-click easy and
very robust.
Now: "everyone" has "an opinion" on the new way of doing things. Some of
those opinions are not fit for a family publication like this
Mine, for
example! Largely fuelled by self-interest, I want the "old way" back;
because that's how I make my living
But I would like to keep the
ribbon. And I would like the ribbon on the Mac, too
I think you will come to appreciate the Elements Gallery. Maybe not this
month or next
It's not the Ribbon ‹ it's not as good. But it is close
enough
Cheers
Wow... this has to be some kind of bad joke on the MBU's team.
Like Jasper, I DONT WANT the Elements bar in Print Layout mode (fortunately it
does not show up in Draft mode.)
Yes, it is possible that I might want it in the future. Fine, that is feature,
which software should have. But not all users want to use all features. To
take up valuable screen real estate, especially in Print Layout mode, where I
am trying to see how my document will look when it is printed, is totally
unacceptable.
(I know the MBU is supposed to be a semi-autonomous unit at MS, but is this a
shadow of Vista-ness creaping on to my Mac? Please, I hope not...)
John, with all due respect, your comment.....
In much the same way as you wouldn't remove the steering wheel from a tourist
bus, just because you did not like the destination it was heading for. The
other passengers would become understandably concerned...
....doesnt really apply here. Removing an interface element that some (many?)
users may NEVER use, is hardly akin to remove the steering wheel from a
vehicle.
I sure hope someone, somewhere comes up with a cleaver way of hacking this bit
of stupidity out of the Office 2008 interface.
--
Don't wait for your answer, click here:
http://www.word.mvps.org/
Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:
[email protected]