I’m going to try out iWorks even though I already paid for Office. Am also seriously considering writing my entire next novel on Google docs.
Amazingly, Word 5.5 for DOS works just fine via a DOS box in Windows XP and running under Parallels on a Mac.
As one of the developers for Mac 2008, I could answer all of your questions in depth. Questions about why we had to change the file format, questions about why the elements gallery ribbon had to be anchored, questions about why bells and whistles were added.
But instead, I think I’ll just smile with my big douchebag grin and tell you all to go fuck yourselves. Ha ha ha ha.
ITT: Standard MS design philosophy, and why they’re so hated.
If the elements gallery “had to be anchored” because you couldn’t figure out how not to, you need better programmers. If it “had to be anchored” because you decided it was so awesome that nobody could live without it, you need better usability.
Pages sucks too. You can’t even get a list of major headings in the navigation pane, only page thumb nails. I need to navigate within long documents with like-looking pages. Navigating around in long documents and moving chunks of text are the biggest challenges in any word processing program.
It seems like both software companies decided to focus on people creating feature-heaving 2-page documents instead of the specific challenges of people writing long documents and just want those to be easy to navigate, easy to move text around in, etc.
There are many reasons why I still use Office 98.
Scrivener is kind of cool.
cricetus, for what you are trying to do, maybe Nisus Writer would be the solution? I seem to remember that it works well with long documents.
I think you can do a trial of it without purchasing.
Thanks! I’ll check it out if none of the current stuff I’m trying works. Fortunately, I am starting a new project, so it’s a good time to change horses.
My two big problems with Mac Office 2008:
First, it’s buggy. Word is the only program I have on my mac that ever hangs up my machine or crashes.
Second, and this might be a subset of the first, but it is incompatible with Spaces and Exposé. If I have a word document open in space #1, and I try to open another one in space #2, the first one either disappears or the second one opens in the wrong space, or they open in the right space but the toolbars all flip to the wrong space, or Word crashes. When I’ve got several documents open, and I hit the key for Exposé to “show all windows,” and I click the word doc I want, it refuses to come to the front. Then I have to play a stupid game of click-every-other-window-I-have-open before it brings my desired document to the front.
Drives me crazy, it does.
Artemis, I want to have your children.
Whatever you do, don’t ever use the worst word processing program on the planet, Hangul. And, yes, I have to deal with that crud on a daily basis.
Personally, I like it when I do not work.
For all those ‘wwaaah waahh office ui suxors’ posts, you might want to know why everything was changed. I’ve watched the development of the new Office via Microsoft’s blogs and videos, and I can tell you that they’re not just random changes. I’d encourage you to do the same if you’re that passionate about it.
Microsoft took reams and reams of data collected from monitoring user behaviour (ever seen the Customer Experience prompt?) and then rebuilt the UI to support the most frequently used tasks & tools across the board. Hence the creation of the ribbon.
Also, as per the mature product not needing new features, I don’t remember the exact amounts but essentially 90% of Office 2007’s features were already there in previous versions, the key difference is now they’re more accessible and more noticeable.
I understand that personally not everyone will like the new UI, but understand that your own dislike of it is an opinion not based on fact nor mass market usage. To cater for the masses and most common tasks, they were bound to piss someone off who doesn’t fit the mold. Generally speaking I like the new UI, but I find it frustrating when building forms and trying to insert input fields. But I’m not going to vilify MS as incompetant because of it.
If the design problems are due to market research, they’ve discovered a problem with market research. It’s inane to argue that something people don’t like is actually well-designed, that the users just don’t know any better.
Wow people are still bitching about the new (and improved) Office suite? Damn late adopters! But yeah, you’ll get over it. Everyone bitched about the new Office until they actually used it and realized it’s buttons and options are in a much more organized, logical layout. There’s tons of little features that make it improved too, including a new file format and the live formatting preview.
So have an open mind, force yourself to use it and once you find all your old buttons you’ll probably agree that it is indeed a better design than endless drop-down menus and tabs.
Okay, can you tell us what’s the justification for
and why we shouldn’t find this person and kick them as hard as we can?
Thisarticle mentions some reasons why the new docx format was developed:
I haven’t used Office 2007 much and don’t know if I will , but everything I have read suggests it is a well-thought out redesign even if everything seems strange at first.
No matter how long I use Word 2008 will I want the elements toolbar for the work I do, nor will I ever think it was a necessary design decision to not let me hide it. Even if I do use it occasionally, it’s in the way the rest of the time, which is most of the time. This is my experience as a user. And honestly, I can think of very few things in any environment that must be always on the screen even though a lot of users won’t use it. MS doesn’t know better than me what I’m doing, so they don’t know better than me what I need.
I am a novelist. 99.99% of the work I do is simply word processing with basic formatting. I don’t need (and can’t use) a single thing on the elements tool bar for this. So the elements toolbar is in the way, taking up screen real estate, and sitting between the word processing area and the tool bars that I do use. Knowing what I am actually doing, feel free to tell me why I absolutely need that to be there and why MS couldn’t let me hide it. Tell me why that’s necessary design.
It took awhile to get used to, but I love Office 2007 now. I use Word and Excel extensively, and they’re vastly improved.