# Office XP Means X-Paperclip

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-xp-means-x-paperclip/61873>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 13, 2001, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-xp-means-x-paperclip/61873 "2001-04-13T19:28:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-xp-means-x-paperclip/61873/1 "2001-04-13T19:28:59Z")

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In May Microsoft is releasing Office XP and spending thousands of dollars for an advertising campaign to let us know that Clippit, the annoying paperclip animation from Microsoft Word, is pretty much gone in their new software. It’s not completley gone, they just give you the option to shut him totally off so that he doesn’t pop up at wrong times. “Are you writing a letter? Need help?”

[http://www.officeclippy.com/indexyes.html](http://www.officeclippy.com/indexyes.html)

Here’s the site they have, which is pretty funny. They have a little Flash video with Gilbert Gottfried as the voice of Clippit (what good casting!). I was surprised that Microsoft had a sense of humor, and they got the people from Modern Humorist to do the site.

I explained Clippit as “annoying” earlier, but I never really found him that annoying. But then, I’ve realized I’m different from the norm. Plus, I never use Microsoft Word, I use WordPad and I’m not a blue-collar office worker who needs to use Word. So I guess a lot of people find Clipitt really annoying. I guess I should welcome myself into the real world.

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**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-xp-means-x-paperclip/61873/2 "2001-04-13T20:39:06Z")

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Hallelujah! One of the first things I do after installing any Microsoft product is change the file extension of all the .act files to something unrecognizable. I find those “actors” infuriating and actually quite unhelpful.

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**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-xp-means-x-paperclip/61873/3 "2001-04-13T21:51:22Z")

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I always felt that this guy showed that MS thought the average user to be no smarter than a paperclip.

Of course, they might be right…