Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Let Me Tell You How I Feel About Microsoft Word

Since I am a man known for careful thoughtfulness and closely reasoned opinions, people often ask me how I feel about major industrial-strength productivity tools such as Microsoft Word. I am uncharacteristically reticent on the topic, though, because it is not a gentleman's place to discuss such matters in public. One looks askance, eyebrows raised, at those chattering popinjays who would broadcast their thoughts on leading word-processing applications at the drop of a handkerchief.

But today, moved by events, I am prepared to break my silence.

If I were to happen upon Microsoft Word, bleeding and stripped of its raiment after being waylaid by footpads on the the mountain road from Jerusalem to Jericho and ignored by priests and Levites alike, I would quite happily sneak over, give a quick furtive glance to right and left to make sure no one was looking, and plant a swift hobnail boot between its ribs.

That should give you some idea of how I feel about the 200-page-technical-document-eating Microsoft Word.

18 comments:

Vache Folle said...

Amen. It is maddeningly easy to delete an entire document while tring to type a capital D.

I hate the grammar feature as well. What's wrong with the passive voice or the word "which"?

XTCfan said...

Turn the grammar feature off, as well as most of the other "helpful" default settings under Tools --> Options. Then, while working on any document, SAVE SAVE SAVE. Hitting Ctrl-S while working in Word has become almost a reflex for me.

Neddie said...

Turned off Grammar within 0.0004 seconds of its first "helpful" critique of my writing.

Dude, I could have hit SAVE 8000 times a minute and what happened yesterday would still have happened. The bitch went down after 6 hours' work (hitting SAVE about 8000 times a minute), and when it came back up it was as corrupt as a Colombian Alcalde. Word crashed every time I tried to open the document after that. Didn't matter what I did to it -- duplicated it, renamed it, transferred it to The Bad Platform -- doc comes up, three-two-one-WHOOSH. Down she goes.

This happened to me twice after that, but I was versioning every ten minutes after my first experience and didn't lose much.

Six hours' work pissed away.

Plus a very frowny-faced Product Manager, to whom I had to explain all this. Uhhh, sorry, hon, but your deadline's gonna have to slip a day....

(Obviously I have to reinstall the app, I know that...)

XTCfan said...

Nancy, go to Tools --> Language, then choose "English (Canada)" as your language choice. That should help a bit.

Ned, have you tried opening the document with a plain-text reader, to see if you can extract the content? Or is it a moot point by now? (I know the predicament you're in; it's happened to me too often.)

Let me guess -- were you working right next to an embedded table when it crashed/corrupted...?

Bobby Lightfoot said...

I think the solution lies elsewhere.
See, you salaried people need to go hourly. When you're hourly there's no such thing as six wasted hours. Six stupid hours, yes. Six boring hours, well, of course.
Six wasted hours? Well, they're someone elses. You? You got paid.
or maybe go with one of the other many available word processing applications.
ha ha ha.

Anonymous said...

Sorry. I don't speak retardese. Can you get someone to translate into meaningful English before you post, please? You should offer your posting style to hospital operating theatres as a highly-effective alternative to unconsciousness-inducing medications.

Are you normally this dumb or are you just having a blonde moment? You could type every thing you know on the subject on back of a microscopic postage stamp and still have room leftover for a shopping list. Oh well, at least you only charge what your free advice is worth. Oh well, as the late Douglas Adams said: "You live and learn. At any rate, you live."

What possessed you to think that you were capable of being entertaining or interesting to read? Why don't you close your mouth before someone sticks an apple in it? Maybe you wouldn't read like such a pathetic loser if that pimple on your ass hadn't turned out to be a brain tumor; if your weren't so fat that you look like The Michelin Man man on steroids, or if you didn't have a face like a boiled Octopus. No, come to think of it, you would.

In closing, I offer these heartfelt words: Go suck on a frozen pineapple, asshole

Neddie said...

Bill Gates, ladies and gentlemen! Let's have a big hand!

(Does anyone get the sense that this dillhole copied and pasted a Generic Rant from somewhere? Note how absolutely none of it addresses anything I've actually said, in this post or any other. Completely generic.)

S'long, troll.

Bobby Lightfoot said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Bobby Lightfoot said...

I removed my funny post because I misspelled "apopleptic" but I didn't copy it, so, um...

Hi.

Neddie said...

I received your funny post because I receive ALL posts, whether Removed or not, and "apopleptic" was spelled correctly.

Go suck on a frozen pineapple, asshole.

The Viscount LaCarte said...

I'm having a hard time believing ANYONE would be so moved to defend MS/WORD.

Still, if you really want to see an abomination in software check out MS WORKS. "Excrement" is too kind a word to describe it.

VL

Anonymous said...

I will pay you many rubles if you'll add a second kick for me, preferably in amidst its gen-italics.

Neddie said...

What was?

XTCfan said...

What's wrong with frozen pineapples?

Look! A popleptic!!

The Viscount LaCarte said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
The Viscount LaCarte said...

I spelled "Apoplectic" correcty, but misspelled "Apopleptic." This made me so angry that I almost had a seizure and in a fit of rage I removed my post.


Ok, well - check this out:

http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=apoplectic

PC Taco pile...

Anonymous said...

You are both entertaining and interesting to read. (That's redundant, isn't it?)

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

I know it's kinda late in coming for this post, but if MS Word isn't doing it for ya, you might want to give OpenOffice a try.

Go to www.OpenOffice.org ...