Not a typo, I speak only windoze.
Why MSFT gives menus different names on the Mac will never ber understood by
me.
Well, it's about time you learned why, Howard. You've been frequenting this
newsgroup, off and on, for years. So here goes:
One of the strongest reasons why many Mac users like using a Mac is because
of its Human Interface Guidelines, which determine how things look, how
things behave, menu and keyboard shortcut locations and rules, and expect
ALL applications on the Mac to adhere to them. It's what makes people feel
comfortable in a new application, and make Macs easy to use and a pleasant
experience. Microsoft has often come in for a _lot_ of bad feeling -
especially in the notorious Word Mac 6 whose aim was to make Mac Word as
exact a replica of Windows Word as possible (though even here menus were
more Mac-oriented) - for departing from these guidelines at times. Since the
creation of the Mac Business Unit (Office 98 was its first product), Mac
Office has aimed at being a good Mac citizen. That improved a lot with
Office X , the first version for Mac OS X which itself incorporated a new
set of HUGs, and again with Office 2004.
On the Mac, ALL apps have a "Preferences" menu item. It's called
Preferences, not Options. Period. Since OS X, it's found in the application
menu (e.g. "Word" menu in Word) at the far left, just next to the Apple
menu, which the screen always displays. ALL apps. So that's where it is in
in Word: Word menu/Preferences. NOT Tools | Options. Word _does_ have a
Tools menu for all the Word-specific stuff, but no Options menu items.
(We've recently had people suggest here that one reason lots of people can't
find where to turn off all the automatic auto-correct stuff is because
that's found in Tools/AutoCorrect instead of Word/Preferences where they'd
expect to find all such preferences.)
There must be at least 1000 - maybe 10,000 - times as many people using Word
Mac only on the Mac than use Word on both a Mac and Windows. These people
expect to find Mac User Interface Guidelines in place and will get very
angry at MS, and confused, if they're not. Only a few of the dual-platform
people might prefer everything to be identical. (And if they feel that way
really strongly they can use Word Win in Virtual PC. Or get another PC.)
So that's why MSFT " gives menus different names on the Mac ". It's what its
users expect. (Also, it's better.) Since you don't use Word Mac, you can be
forgiven for not remembering the names. But a bit of understanding of the
people who frequent this newsgroup and come here for help would be advised.
You have something of a tendency for offering "solutions" that make no
attempt to ascertain if they're relevant for Word Mac , and then casting
aspersions when you're later corrected. That's not exactly ideal help here.
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <
http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>
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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
