Back to the Pleistocene!

[Zack]

A while ago I posted regarding some frustrations I was experiencing
after 'upgrading' to Office v.X from Word 5.1a. I was surprised how
unintuitive vX was, and amazed that many of the shortcuts and
procedures I was used to with 5.1a were missing or completely
rearranged in v.X. I received several helpful responses, including
the advice to take a look at Clive Huggins "Bend Word to your Will"
(which I did). However, one person wrote in that I was going to
'hate' v.X. I initially thought that this comment was hyperbole.
However, after playing around with v.X for the past two weeks, I have
concluded that it is the most unintuitive, ugly, frustrating, and
un-Mac like program I have ever encountered. I routinely work with
complex Mac programs (such as FCP4), but this is ridiculous. Whenever
I open Word vX, I feel like I'm working on a PC machine, despite the
fancy Aqua interface. I'm fed up with spending 30-60 minutes (or
more) every time I need to figure out a new feature. I'm fed up with
the lack of documentation and workable help . And I really really
really miss my old Word 5.1a.

The final straw was discovering that my Lexmark printer only works
under Classic, and I can't even print properly from Word v.X. (Okay,
I can't blame Microsoft for this; LEXMARK - WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO
SUPPORT THE MAC COMMUNITY AND COME UP WITH SOME DECENT DRIVERS??).
I've returned Office vX back to Microsoft (the one thing they do right
is their 30 day return policy) and I'm making a concerted effort to
clean up/work around several bugs which have turned up while running
Word 5.1a under Classic.

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason to think that the new
Office 2004 will be designed from the ground-up for the Mac, or will
it just be the same sort of port from the Windows version that Office
X was?

Zack

 

[Elliott Roper]

A while ago I posted regarding some frustrations I was experiencing
after 'upgrading' to Office v.X from Word 5.1a. I was surprised how
unintuitive vX was, and amazed that many of the shortcuts and
procedures I was used to with 5.1a were missing or completely
rearranged in v.X. I received several helpful responses, including
the advice to take a look at Clive Huggins "Bend Word to your Will"
(which I did). However, one person wrote in that I was going to
'hate' v.X. I initially thought that this comment was hyperbole.
However, after playing around with v.X for the past two weeks, I have
concluded that it is the most unintuitive, ugly, frustrating, and
un-Mac like program I have ever encountered. I routinely work with
complex Mac programs (such as FCP4), but this is ridiculous. Whenever
I open Word vX, I feel like I'm working on a PC machine, despite the
fancy Aqua interface. I'm fed up with spending 30-60 minutes (or
more) every time I need to figure out a new feature. I'm fed up with
the lack of documentation and workable help . And I really really
really miss my old Word 5.1a.

That was me. It wasn't hyperbole was it?
I'm famous around here for saying that Word 5.1 was a huge improvement
on its successors. I hung in there because I had to. I still hate it,
but I can get work out the door.

You summed up the frustration pretty accurately. The help, particularly
the search is *evil*. The bit where you ask it any vaguely interesting
question and it replies smugly with Microsoft's licensing (sic) policy.
I can understand why ex-fenestration got to be so popular in Prague.

The final straw was discovering that my Lexmark printer only works
under Classic, and I can't even print properly from Word v.X. (Okay,
I can't blame Microsoft for this; LEXMARK - WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO
SUPPORT THE MAC COMMUNITY AND COME UP WITH SOME DECENT DRIVERS??).
I've returned Office vX back to Microsoft (the one thing they do right
is their 30 day return policy) and I'm making a concerted effort to
clean up/work around several bugs which have turned up while running
Word 5.1a under Classic.

Google for CUPS print. It is kind of built into OS X recent sorta. The
full CUPS gives you a web based management for just about any printer
and just about any connection to it.

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason to think that the new
Office 2004 will be designed from the ground-up for the Mac, or will
it just be the same sort of port from the Windows version that Office
X was?

I wouldn't hold your breath. The key USP of Office is that you can
interwork with PCs. The temptation for bug for bug compatibility will
be too strong for them to resist.

 

[Michael Hardoe]

That was me. It wasn't hyperbole was it?
I'm famous around here for saying that Word 5.1 was a huge improvement
on its successors. I hung in there because I had to. I still hate it,
but I can get work out the door.

You summed up the frustration pretty accurately. The help, particularly
the search is *evil*. The bit where you ask it any vaguely interesting
question and it replies smugly with Microsoft's licensing (sic) policy.
I can understand why ex-fenestration got to be so popular in Prague.
Google for CUPS print. It is kind of built into OS X recent sorta. The
full CUPS gives you a web based management for just about any printer
and just about any connection to it.

I wouldn't hold your breath. The key USP of Office is that you can
interwork with PCs. The temptation for bug for bug compatibility will
be too strong for them to resist.

I agree with Elliott. Here's my add-on without Elliott's wit (I'm too angry
to be witty.) It took me 100 hours (= 2 working weeks of working time lost)
to get to a reasonably competent level of using Word X jumping from Word 5.1
and more than 100 on top of that to dig out the power user aspects so that I
am on a similar level as for 5.1.

Msft's Mac Business Unit seems to do a fairly good job within a lot of
constraints (Office needing to be developed on a beta version of OSX, lack
of unicod support etc etc). But let's face it, since Mac Word 6 it has been

90% a product ported from Windows, with some Mac bells and whistles. But the

whole Office product line has lost the plot - too many features added at the
urging of the marketers without looking enough at the users at various
levels, and providing learning packages to make it easier to use the
features. But overall it has got just TOO complicated with not enough
emphasis on fixing problems which have been around for YEARS.

Is there any chance of this product improving majorly? No. Why? Because Msft
Office is a near monopoly world wide and competitors are only noise on the
sidelines because the corporate world is hooked on it as a substitute for
typewriters. And the whole Mac market is only noise on the sidelines. So
there are a couple conclusions here - 1: "Word X is so totally un-Mac like
because as you say it's a Windows product" 2: "Get used to it"

Mike

 

[John McGhie]

OK Guys, I feel your pain I work almost entirely on a PC so I happen to
like Word X. I *love* the next version, which I am testing now.

The bottom line is: You are not going to get a "Mac OS 9-like" version of
Word. There's not enough Mac users out there to justify the development
cost.

What you will get is a totally Mac-OS-X-like version of Word in the next
release. But if you don't like it, sorry: complain to Apple

Seriously though: once you learn it, I happen to know you will find it much
faster and a lot more productive. There's two issues: Word is one complex
mother to learn, and it was not designed around the Apple interface. The
second one will be with us forever, but the first one you will find fades
with time, particularly if you stick around here.

Cheers