Word 2000 to Word 2010

[Spoonerism]

Hello all

I am a very regular user of Word 2000, which has been well upgraded with the
help of Jay and others over the years. Recently my help file became
unreadable and I suspect one of Microsoft's 'upgrades' automatically sent.

I was thinking upgrading to Word 2010 and would like the opinion of the
community on here (Suzanne and the rest). Is 2010 bug free? Or is it one of
the lemons microsoft puts out from time to time? (I remember DOS 4.1 without
affection). Or is 2007 best or even 2003? Most people who ask questions here
seem to be struggling with 2007.

Perhaps I'd better off with my well trusted 2000 after all. What do you all
think.?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you could get 2003 (which I'm still using for production), I would say
that it has all the functionality you're likely to need (unless you want
pretty graphics and fancy multicolored text) along with a sensible UI (that
doesn't require relearning) and plenty of customizability. By contrast, 2007
puts everything in a different place and offers very little user
customizability. If you're going to go that far, you'd be much better
advised to get 2010, which does restore *some* user control over the UI
(though not as much as I'd like; I'd still like to see the ability to
use/create custom button images, if only in the QAT).

I can't comment too much on 2010 since I don't have it yet, but from demos
I've seen, it seems to be to 2007 what 2003 was to 2002; that is, 2002 also
introduced new concepts (the task pane, balloons for Track Changes) but some
of them hadn't been thoroughly thought out (for example, short of a Registry
edit, you couldn't specify the formatting for deletions when using Track
Changes); 2003 corrected these oversights and added some further
refinements.

Bottom line, though, if you value the ability to create custom toolbars
(including floating ones) and to edit shortcut menus--and in general to use
a menu-driven UI--then an upgrade beyond 2003 is inadvisable. And if you're
still satisfied with what 2000 does for you and it is not giving you any
problems, you might as well stick with it. The file format it generates is
still quite readable in any current version, and if it ain't broke, don't
fix it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Jay Freedman]

Strictly personal opinion here...

1. Except for a small handful of programs that have been subjected to
mathematical proof of correctness, no program of any complexity can be
labeled "bug free" with any confidence. There are certainly bugs in
Word 2010, some of which we know about. Most people won't ever run
into them, so the question is whether you do things that might have
problems and, if so, whether you can work around them. So far I think
2010 has fewer bugs than 2007, but more than 2003.

2. If you're very comfortable with Word 2000 and have developed a sort
of "muscle memory" for where things are in the menu system, you may
have a hard time getting used to the ribbon in 2007 and 2010. It only
took me a few weeks to get reasonably comfortable with it, but some
people viscerally hate it and fight it all the way. If you like it,
definitely get 2010 instead of 2007, if only for the added
customizability (not everything I'd wish for, but much better).
Otherwise, go for Word 2003, which is the last of the menu/toolbar
line. It's good and it's reasonably stable.

3. The main reason to get off Word 2000, much as you may like it, is
that it's way past the end of its support life cycle. Even if some
awful virus was found to target it, you'll never get any updates for
it.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Spoonerism]

Thanks so much Suzanne and Jay.

Just the sort of detail I wanted in the reply and from the very pair of
people I was hoping would respond. Jay, you sent me a 2000 update disc (SR1)
ages ago and I am eternally grateful. I suppose I should have said *why* I
thought I might upgrade.

First, I strongly suspect that my Office 2000 has been deliberately crippled
by Microsoft. The reason I say this is that when I invoke help I get the
usual list of topics but clicking on any of them does nothing now. The only
unsual thing that happens to my computer is that there are frequent
automatic 'updates' from Microsoft (I use XP and thankfully avoided Vista!),
which as usual do not say what they are doing and to what program. I put 2
and 2 together. I wonder if I am right.

The second reason is that a major client has started sending me material in
docx form. I think this from came in in 2007, and it makes me look a bit of
a fossil to keep asking them to resend in doc form (and pptx, ppt too).

I never need 'support' from $sft so no issue there.

Now you've read each other's opinions I wonder if you have any further
comments.

On another topic, didn't I read that Microsoft are closing these newsgroups?
But they are still working, thank goodness. (I always though the Usenet
community was not run or owned by Microsoft)

Also, sad to see that people are still asking for 'automatic' grammar and
punctuation correctors (Impossible -- I have enough trouble from the
spellcheck and its zany ideas) but at least not the clamouring for
'templates', by which they meant how to write a sensible letter!

 

[Spoonerism]

As well, I'll address this particular issue. If my Word 2000 ever got ruined
by a virus, I have all the discs here (including SR1 from you Jay!) and
would simply reinstall.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm not sure why Help would have become crippled because I thought that in
Word 2000 Help was still all local. To the extent that you might be trying
to access help online (where "online" actually means "on the Web" and not
"on your computer"--I find that using it to mean both is very confusing),
then I can imagine there might be a problem, as MS is constantly moving
stuff if not removing it altogether. There have been complaints recently
from users of more recent versions that the online help has gone walkabout;
there are even more complaints about clip art being AWOL.

As for the .docx problem, you do know, don't you, that you can download the
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007
File Formats from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...0-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en?
This will enable you to open .docx documents in Word 2000, and it will also,
as a bonus, give you the six C-fonts that come with Office 2007.

As for the NGs, they're still stumbling along, albeit with drastically
reduced traffic. MS pulled the plug on its msnews server (and the linked
Communities forums) on June 1. The NGs are still hosted on many news
servers, including Eternal September (which I'm using) and the (Australian?)
news server you're using, as well as on Google Groups, but it's anybody's
guess how long that will last. The official MS groups, such as they are
(only three groups for all of Word), are now Web forums (Microsoft Answers)
at http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/officeword.

It is possible to access the forums via NNTP by getting a "bridge" that is
available at https://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums?wa=wsignin1.0.
There are two separate MS-provided NNTP bridges, one just for the Answers
forums and another for the MSDN, TechNet, and Expression forums. There is
also a "community" bridge, written by an MVP, at
http://communitybridge.codeplex.com/ that will connect to all of the forums.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Jay Freedman]

That's not the point. A virus that sneaks in with an infected document
could trash all your documents, erase your entire hard drive, or plant
a "back door" that allows even worse malware to install itself
silently. It can also turn your computer into a "spambot" that uses
your Internet connection to send millions of emails as well as trying
to infect other computers. All of this could happen without causing
any symptoms that point specifically to Word as the culprit.

P.S.: Suzanne did an admirable job of responding to your other
followup post, and I don't have anything to add to that.

 

[Worn Out Retread]

I'm not sure why Help would have become crippled because I thought that in
Word 2000 Help was still all local. To the extent that you might be trying
to access help online (where "online" actually means "on the Web" and not
"on your computer"--I find that using it to mean both is very confusing),
then I can imagine there might be a problem, as MS is constantly moving
stuff if not removing it altogether. There have been complaints recently
from users of more recent versions that the online help has gone
walkabout; there are even more complaints about clip art being AWOL.

Word help became crippled on my computer years ago when I received a
Security Update for Outlook. It absolutely killed all the hyperlinks in the
help files so badly that even re-installation of Office couldn't fix. Odd
thing was that the online part of the help files was still there.

 

[Spoonerism]

Word help became crippled on my computer years ago when I received a
Security Update for Outlook. It absolutely killed all the hyperlinks in
the help files so badly that even re-installation of Office couldn't fix.
Odd thing was that the online part of the help files was still there.

That's it. That's what happened to me! I use the whole Office suite
including Outlook. Not rhe online one. The local one. The topics are all
listed but clicking on them does nothing.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Very odd, very sad, and probably irremediable. I'm sorry to hear this.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[bj]

Sounds like more of the ongoing efforts to get us to do *everything* online
& have less-and-less material locally. Touching dependence on network
availability! at both ends!

I'm not a *complete* conspiracy nut but sometimes I have to rethink my ideas
about it.
bj

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This whole emphasis on "cloud computing" mystifies me (except when I'm
traveling and find it convenient to use an online mailbox). I'm a Facebook
fan of a couple of MS sites, and they frequently post links to videos. I
don't usually have a problem with YouTube videos (or the ABC Episode Viewer
or Fox on Demand), but the MS ones are such high quality that they keep
stopping and restarting because apparently my connection is not fast enough
to stream them. Ironic when the video is one promoting online apps!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Spoonerism]

I can't believe that *any* software problem is beyond remedy. Something
specific must have been done to remove the links to the help artciles and it
must be possible to put them back.

For years, I never used to need the 'help' so it may have happned years ago
and just recently come to light. That would fit with the other victim's
experience and there must be a fix.

Summing up my 'help' problem, if I choose a word under search (say
'margins') I will get the usual list of places in the help file where the
word appears, but on clicking on any of them it just does nothing, whereas
befoee i was taken to the required point in the file..

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Even Word 2000 (HTML) Help was never as good as Word 97 (compiled) Help. The
way Help has been "improved" in recent versions is to take most of it out of
the program and provide it only online (on the Web). This allows for
updating and editing of existing articles, addition of new ones, and
provision of extensive tutorials (including videos), but it does not (IMO)
take the place of good basic machine-resident Help files. One interesting
thing the UA (User Assistance) team has done, though, is to leverage
existing third-party content; the result is that often, which you search for
help in Word 2007, you'll be linked to an article at word.mvps.org.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Worn Out Retread]

Sounds like more of the ongoing efforts to get us to do *everything*
online & have less-and-less material locally. Touching dependence on
network availability! at both ends!

I'm not a *complete* conspiracy nut but sometimes I have to rethink my
ideas about it.
bj

Who ever is behind this movement is ignoring the fact that not all users of
Office users have internet access. Where I worked last, there was a large
intranet but no access to the internet except for a few people who actually
needed access to do their jobs. The internet was considered to be too
insecure for the employer's activities. All software updates were done
through a central server. Nothing was left in the hands of the individual
user.

While on the subject of help files; these multiple version help files are a
real pain where the sun doesn't shine. You can look up something to find
that it doesn't apply to the version that you are running or applies to some
program that you don't even have.

 

[Worn Out Retread]

This whole emphasis on "cloud computing" mystifies me (except when I'm
traveling and find it convenient to use an online mailbox). I'm a Facebook
fan of a couple of MS sites, and they frequently post links to videos. I
don't usually have a problem with YouTube videos (or the ABC Episode
Viewer or Fox on Demand), but the MS ones are such high quality that they
keep stopping and restarting because apparently my connection is not fast
enough to stream them. Ironic when the video is one promoting online apps!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

You are encountering a basic flaw in the "cloud computing" idea. The
internet just isn't fast enough reliably even for those who are fortunate
enough to have the fastest connection possible. Another area that I just
don't get is, why would anyone put personal or critical business information
on someone else's server? Who knows who has access to this information that
you don't know about?

Cloud computing can stay in the clouds as far as I am concerned.

 

[Worn Out Retread]

I can't believe that *any* software problem is beyond remedy. Something
specific must have been done to remove the links to the help artciles and
it must be possible to put them back.

For years, I never used to need the 'help' so it may have happned years
ago and just recently come to light. That would fit with the other
victim's experience and there must be a fix.

Summing up my 'help' problem, if I choose a word under search (say
'margins') I will get the usual list of places in the help file where the
word appears, but on clicking on any of them it just does nothing, whereas
befoee i was taken to the required point in the file..

This is really stretching my memory but I believe that the Outlook problem
was a security hole in the way that hyperlinks were processed in Outlook and
the "fix" did more than affect Outlook because of the way that Outlook
interconnected with other Office programs.

If you want to fix this the only way that I know of is to re-install your
operating system and leave Outlook out of the re-install of Office or at
least refuse any updates to Outlook if you follow this route.

 

[Worn Out Retread]

Even Word 2000 (HTML) Help was never as good as Word 97 (compiled) Help.
The way Help has been "improved" in recent versions is to take most of it
out of the program and provide it only online (on the Web). This allows
for updating and editing of existing articles, addition of new ones, and
provision of extensive tutorials (including videos), but it does not (IMO)
take the place of good basic machine-resident Help files. One interesting
thing the UA (User Assistance) team has done, though, is to leverage
existing third-party content; the result is that often, which you search
for help in Word 2007, you'll be linked to an article at word.mvps.org.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

The online help is a lazy way of providing "support" which is at best of
dubious value. If a program can be updated online to your local machine so
can the help files that are much less complicated.

Give me the old fashioned paper manual any day. There I could use Post It
notes and highlighters to mark important stuff and I could read the
instructions while munching on my lunch while sitting under a tree in a
park.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You've succinctly stated all my concerns. My husband was raving the other
day about Norton Backup, which a friend of his has used to store his
thousands of photos offsite. That boggled my mind. Considering how long it
takes to email one 2MB photo file, I can't imagine the time required to
upload thousands of them. Well, yes, my husband said, it takes quite a long
time to upload all of them to begin with, and then you just add new ones as
you get them. But still... Oh, well, you schedule it to be done at night
while you're not using the computer. Hmm, well, at night when I'm not using
the computer, it is turned off. Makes more sense to me to periodically copy
the photos to DVDs and store them in your bank safe-deposit box.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Actually, the most recent versions of Word do get Help updates included in
SPs (that was one of the most insistent demands MVPs made of the UA folks).
But I agree about paper manuals. I still have manuals to Word 2.0, Word 6.0,
and Word 97, and they can be very useful because many of Word's features
have not essentially changed since Word 2.0. The only problem is that, once
you get very deep into some of the more "advanced" features, the manual will
tell you to consult the online Help (that is, the Help that shipped with the
program).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org