Dumb down Word

G

GrtZucchini

The Word program is undoubtedly a wonderful technical product, replete with
thousands of options and possible applications. I've used it for many years
and, to be frank, it's been a love/hate relationship. I would surmise that
90% of its users use about 5% of the program. There's nothing wrong with
that concept except for one little problem; it's complexities permeate the
program and too frequently interfere with its uses for simpler purposes.

Does anyone remember the program "Paperback Writer"? It had about 1% of the
capabilities that Word has but it served its purpose. It was easy to learn
and it allowed for simpletons like myself to write letters, publish little
newsletters, write family histories and short stories. Let's emphasize that
it was easy to learn. I'm not interested in "learning" Word, I want to
simply "use" it. I like its selection of fonts but have no need to learn
about templates and styles nor the myriad of other complicated functions that
control how it operates or it can perform. It would be a great achievement
if MS could produce an optional word processing program that would serve
adequately for those of us that don't need all the bells and whistles. Give
us that choice and let legal and executive secretaries, editors and
publishers and the like use it as it is.

----------------
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...e&dg=microsoft.public.word.application.errors
 
H

Herb Tyson [MVP]

Um... have you tried WordPad, which comes with Windows? I never saw
Paperback Writer, but if all you want is a computerized typewriter, there's
nothing stopping you from using WordPad (or, indeed, from using Word in
precisely the identical way). My impression over the years is that Word is
designed for folks who need varying degrees of capability, and was never
really intended as "word processing for dummies." In addition to WordPad,
there's also Microsoft Works, which is probably also overkill.
 

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