L
LorettaYeo
I HATE newsgroups. This is an inefficient way to give feedback on beta
tests. I am here because "Microsoft Contact US" says this is the only way to
do it. I don't want to have to keep coming back to this "cocktail party" to
get responses from Microsoft professionals.
BTW - I never received a "beta test kit." I just downloaded the software
online. How do I get a kit? What's in it?
Here is the log I've been keeping since I installed the beta:
Office 2007 Gripes
June 21, 2006
1. The idiot Ribbon won’t stay minimized. In Outlook, it re-opens in each
new message.
2. The default view in Word is now called, “Draft,†and it took a while to
find it, even longer to set it.
3. My Normal template is gone!!! (No; now there’s a new one with a 4-digit
extension…)
4. Can’t find the Organizer to reset the Normal template (by copying an
existing document). (OK, that just took 8 minutes.)
5. I’m wasting time looking for stuff that is no longer where it was,
instead of being productive.
6. Where are the options? I don’t want Word to start screwing with my
document because it has dumbed-down options turned on.
7. OK, the bloody thing didn’t even look at my settings, or if it did, it
ignored them and re-set the “I’m the computer, my opinion overrules yoursâ€
options, like auto formatting. What a debacle! Why bother having settings
if each update of MS Office obliterates them?
June 22, 2006
8. ANOTHER useless Outlook folder that I can’t delete – RSS Feeds, added to
Search Folders from previous version. You gotta give users the option of
getting rid of unnecessary clutter. ASK if you can add something.
Basically, if I’ve lived without it this long I probably don’t need it, so
don’t force it down my throat.
9. When I reply to an e-mail, the new form comes up but I can’t edit it by
clicking my mouse in the text field. I have to click in one of the heading
fields first. Fix it.
10. My Plain Text font settings disappeared, and now I have some new font
called Consolas 10.5 – NO ONE SAID TO CHANGE IT, DAMMIT!!! I had to re-set
my settings from Outlook 2003. Another instance of the upgrade ignoring my
settings.
11. Damn! I hate that the friggin’ Ribbon keeps opening when I use the
up/down arrows to scroll through messages. When I close it, it should STAY
CLOSED! Why not have a pushpin like in the old side panes where you could
make it stay open? If not selected, then it would automatically close after
the first click.
12. The new work areas are much too cluttered. All of the Ribbon items are
large icons with text; there’s no way to make them small or delete the text,
all you can do is minimize the whole Ribbon, and then it doesn’t stay closed.
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up
into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we
tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can
be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion,
inefficiency and demoralization.
13. The Contacts screen WASTES TOO MUCH SCREEN REAL ESTATE! Even my custom
view has a border and shadow around each “card.†This is the equivalent of
1.5 lines of data that are not available for each card.
14. Why did you change all the fonts? What was wrong with the bundled fonts
from earlier versions? How do I get the old fonts back – preferably in a
single step?
June 27, 2006
15. I like my print view to be set at two pages, but when I double-click on
a Ribbon tab to hide the umpty-frat Ribbon, the print view changes to one
page.
16. My e-Trust Anti-Spam toolbar in Outlook has reverted to the default
buttons, and when I try to customize the toolbar to remove the unneeded
buttons, Outlook doesn’t save this information on exit. Every time Outlook
opens, the default toolbar returns.
17. The menus don’t make sense, and the “Help†isn’t. I need to change the
case of text from ALL CAPS to Title Case, and I can’t find the menu item.
There is no formatting item, and no Change Case sub-item. It used to be
three clicks to do this; I’ve been at it for more than TEN MINUTES – sheesh,
I could have retyped it in that time, but I need to know where the hell the
function is, so I’m still looking. I FINALLY found it, after I encountered
and wrote up gripe #18 below – 23 minutes. Hint: a button icon that is not
identified, and in the “FONT†section of the Home Ribbon – what logic created
that relationship?????
18. Styles – my existing document (and by the way, my existing normal.dot)
has a set of styles that I have developed and used for years. The Style
drop-down doesn’t exist anymore. The Ribbon – Home – Styles tab shows a
whole bunch of new styles that I don’t want or need, but it DOES NOT show the
styles in my document. Useless. If I show the Styles Window, it takes up
too much space on my desktop, and it is cluttered with lots of “styles†that
are exceptions to the basic styles in my document. I would expect to see
ONLY Normal, Heading 1 Heading 2, TOC 1, Header, Footer, and my own styles
(Appendix, Chorus, Interlude). How do I hide the stuff that Word created?
Aha! They’re types of formatting shown as styles, and as usual, anything
new added to Office is set as the default (like “When selecting,
automatically select entire word,†which makes it impossible to do efficient
editing). Once I found this new dialog box, I had to figure out what these
definitions mean, and then experiment by checking and un-checking boxes. If
they’re NOT styles, why in heaven’s name would anyone want the software to
identify them as styles. They’re discreet variations in formatting,
specifically NOT set as styles. Counter-intuitive, guys. I know whole rooms
full of people who are intimidated by the advanced capabilities of Word, and
you’re not giving them any confidence by flooding them with information they
don’t need.
19. It would help if your “online help,†which is supposedly the latest and
greatest, would have references to the words you use in dialog boxes, so for
example, when I type “Use smart cursoring,†I could get the explanation of
what smart cursoring is, and what happens when I do or don’t use it. These
used to be little yellow notes that appeared after clicking the “?†button on
the dialog window. Now the button just gives you the default online help
window. Lost user interface. I tried “format change case,†which is the
series of mouse clicks that used to work in Word 2003 (see #17 above). The
online help gave me about 20 templates for CD cases. Wrong. I tried
“Disable Linked Styles†which is a new check box in the Styles Window, and
online help gave references to all kinds of styles and all kinds of links,
but nothing to explain what the check box means. I still don’t know what it
means.
20. Auto Format – I want to format text I’ve pasted into my document, for
left and right quotes, apostrophes, etc. I DON’T want AutoFormat as You
Type. Curiously, the options dialog box is now at the Office Button, Word
Options, Proofing, Auto Correct Options, AutoFormat, but there is no
AutoFormat Now anywhere that I’ve found yet.
June 30, 2006
21. When I edit an incoming message, Outlook really gets upset. It asks me
TWICE if I want to save it, then tells me it can’t be saved. After we argue,
it finally saves it into my Inbox, where it hadn’t been since my original
rule moved it. I’m usually just stripping the crap that YahooGroups adds to
the bottom of the message, or if some correspondents forward the entire
original message in their reply, I don’t need to keep extra copies. In
Outlook 2003 and earlier, I just enabled editing, then moved the message to
my archive folder in one step. What happened?
22. Twice now Word 2007 has had trouble saving this document in the new
format. It reports the problem, then saves it as rescue.asd. When I open
the saved document, it’s back in Word 2003 format.
July 2, 2006
23. OK, where is the page formatting to choose top/center/justify? I hate
wasting time looking for tools that were right at my fingertips before.
Here’s what “Help†(yeah right) told me:
“On the Page Layout tab, click the Page Setup Dialog Box Launcher, and then
click the Layout tab. In the Vertical alignment box, click the option that
you want.†OK, so instead of useful drop-down menus that stat out of my way
until I need them, I have to fumble along paging through this Ribbon? I’m
about ready to go back to WordPerfect!
24. Word just failed to save the new format of this document, again –
Resue1.asd. Man, this is really an unstable format. But of course, it’s
based on HTML which has no relationship at all with document management.
--
Loretta Yeo
----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-e65cfcf7691c&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc
tests. I am here because "Microsoft Contact US" says this is the only way to
do it. I don't want to have to keep coming back to this "cocktail party" to
get responses from Microsoft professionals.
BTW - I never received a "beta test kit." I just downloaded the software
online. How do I get a kit? What's in it?
Here is the log I've been keeping since I installed the beta:
Office 2007 Gripes
June 21, 2006
1. The idiot Ribbon won’t stay minimized. In Outlook, it re-opens in each
new message.
2. The default view in Word is now called, “Draft,†and it took a while to
find it, even longer to set it.
3. My Normal template is gone!!! (No; now there’s a new one with a 4-digit
extension…)
4. Can’t find the Organizer to reset the Normal template (by copying an
existing document). (OK, that just took 8 minutes.)
5. I’m wasting time looking for stuff that is no longer where it was,
instead of being productive.
6. Where are the options? I don’t want Word to start screwing with my
document because it has dumbed-down options turned on.
7. OK, the bloody thing didn’t even look at my settings, or if it did, it
ignored them and re-set the “I’m the computer, my opinion overrules yoursâ€
options, like auto formatting. What a debacle! Why bother having settings
if each update of MS Office obliterates them?
June 22, 2006
8. ANOTHER useless Outlook folder that I can’t delete – RSS Feeds, added to
Search Folders from previous version. You gotta give users the option of
getting rid of unnecessary clutter. ASK if you can add something.
Basically, if I’ve lived without it this long I probably don’t need it, so
don’t force it down my throat.
9. When I reply to an e-mail, the new form comes up but I can’t edit it by
clicking my mouse in the text field. I have to click in one of the heading
fields first. Fix it.
10. My Plain Text font settings disappeared, and now I have some new font
called Consolas 10.5 – NO ONE SAID TO CHANGE IT, DAMMIT!!! I had to re-set
my settings from Outlook 2003. Another instance of the upgrade ignoring my
settings.
11. Damn! I hate that the friggin’ Ribbon keeps opening when I use the
up/down arrows to scroll through messages. When I close it, it should STAY
CLOSED! Why not have a pushpin like in the old side panes where you could
make it stay open? If not selected, then it would automatically close after
the first click.
12. The new work areas are much too cluttered. All of the Ribbon items are
large icons with text; there’s no way to make them small or delete the text,
all you can do is minimize the whole Ribbon, and then it doesn’t stay closed.
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up
into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we
tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can
be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion,
inefficiency and demoralization.
13. The Contacts screen WASTES TOO MUCH SCREEN REAL ESTATE! Even my custom
view has a border and shadow around each “card.†This is the equivalent of
1.5 lines of data that are not available for each card.
14. Why did you change all the fonts? What was wrong with the bundled fonts
from earlier versions? How do I get the old fonts back – preferably in a
single step?
June 27, 2006
15. I like my print view to be set at two pages, but when I double-click on
a Ribbon tab to hide the umpty-frat Ribbon, the print view changes to one
page.
16. My e-Trust Anti-Spam toolbar in Outlook has reverted to the default
buttons, and when I try to customize the toolbar to remove the unneeded
buttons, Outlook doesn’t save this information on exit. Every time Outlook
opens, the default toolbar returns.
17. The menus don’t make sense, and the “Help†isn’t. I need to change the
case of text from ALL CAPS to Title Case, and I can’t find the menu item.
There is no formatting item, and no Change Case sub-item. It used to be
three clicks to do this; I’ve been at it for more than TEN MINUTES – sheesh,
I could have retyped it in that time, but I need to know where the hell the
function is, so I’m still looking. I FINALLY found it, after I encountered
and wrote up gripe #18 below – 23 minutes. Hint: a button icon that is not
identified, and in the “FONT†section of the Home Ribbon – what logic created
that relationship?????
18. Styles – my existing document (and by the way, my existing normal.dot)
has a set of styles that I have developed and used for years. The Style
drop-down doesn’t exist anymore. The Ribbon – Home – Styles tab shows a
whole bunch of new styles that I don’t want or need, but it DOES NOT show the
styles in my document. Useless. If I show the Styles Window, it takes up
too much space on my desktop, and it is cluttered with lots of “styles†that
are exceptions to the basic styles in my document. I would expect to see
ONLY Normal, Heading 1 Heading 2, TOC 1, Header, Footer, and my own styles
(Appendix, Chorus, Interlude). How do I hide the stuff that Word created?
Aha! They’re types of formatting shown as styles, and as usual, anything
new added to Office is set as the default (like “When selecting,
automatically select entire word,†which makes it impossible to do efficient
editing). Once I found this new dialog box, I had to figure out what these
definitions mean, and then experiment by checking and un-checking boxes. If
they’re NOT styles, why in heaven’s name would anyone want the software to
identify them as styles. They’re discreet variations in formatting,
specifically NOT set as styles. Counter-intuitive, guys. I know whole rooms
full of people who are intimidated by the advanced capabilities of Word, and
you’re not giving them any confidence by flooding them with information they
don’t need.
19. It would help if your “online help,†which is supposedly the latest and
greatest, would have references to the words you use in dialog boxes, so for
example, when I type “Use smart cursoring,†I could get the explanation of
what smart cursoring is, and what happens when I do or don’t use it. These
used to be little yellow notes that appeared after clicking the “?†button on
the dialog window. Now the button just gives you the default online help
window. Lost user interface. I tried “format change case,†which is the
series of mouse clicks that used to work in Word 2003 (see #17 above). The
online help gave me about 20 templates for CD cases. Wrong. I tried
“Disable Linked Styles†which is a new check box in the Styles Window, and
online help gave references to all kinds of styles and all kinds of links,
but nothing to explain what the check box means. I still don’t know what it
means.
20. Auto Format – I want to format text I’ve pasted into my document, for
left and right quotes, apostrophes, etc. I DON’T want AutoFormat as You
Type. Curiously, the options dialog box is now at the Office Button, Word
Options, Proofing, Auto Correct Options, AutoFormat, but there is no
AutoFormat Now anywhere that I’ve found yet.
June 30, 2006
21. When I edit an incoming message, Outlook really gets upset. It asks me
TWICE if I want to save it, then tells me it can’t be saved. After we argue,
it finally saves it into my Inbox, where it hadn’t been since my original
rule moved it. I’m usually just stripping the crap that YahooGroups adds to
the bottom of the message, or if some correspondents forward the entire
original message in their reply, I don’t need to keep extra copies. In
Outlook 2003 and earlier, I just enabled editing, then moved the message to
my archive folder in one step. What happened?
22. Twice now Word 2007 has had trouble saving this document in the new
format. It reports the problem, then saves it as rescue.asd. When I open
the saved document, it’s back in Word 2003 format.
July 2, 2006
23. OK, where is the page formatting to choose top/center/justify? I hate
wasting time looking for tools that were right at my fingertips before.
Here’s what “Help†(yeah right) told me:
“On the Page Layout tab, click the Page Setup Dialog Box Launcher, and then
click the Layout tab. In the Vertical alignment box, click the option that
you want.†OK, so instead of useful drop-down menus that stat out of my way
until I need them, I have to fumble along paging through this Ribbon? I’m
about ready to go back to WordPerfect!
24. Word just failed to save the new format of this document, again –
Resue1.asd. Man, this is really an unstable format. But of course, it’s
based on HTML which has no relationship at all with document management.
--
Loretta Yeo
----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-e65cfcf7691c&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc
