Comments on: MS Office Phooey http://www.confidentialresource.com/2007/08/30/ms-office-phooey/ Sources & Methods for the Investigator Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:11:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: tahrey http://www.confidentialresource.com/2007/08/30/ms-office-phooey/#comment-7036 tahrey Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:12:59 +0000 http://www.confidentialresource.com/2007/08/30/ms-office-phooey/#comment-7036 Glad I'm not the only one that feels this way... The somewhat eager but clueless IT department where I work has installed Office 2007 onto a seemingly random selection of machines that had only just managed to get a successful 2003 (and in some cases 2000) install properly working and it's caused no end of trouble so far. First of all being, of course, clueless new users saving their work in the new file format that half of the other machines - these being the ones most often used and so not readily available for, ahem, 'upgrade' - cannot open the documents. Yay for integration and interoperability, etc. Might not have been so bad if there had been a clear instruction to 'save as office 97/2k or rtf for now', but no. There's talk of them providing either a system-wide upgrade or viewers from MS, but instead of holding our breath, we're downloading our own. Second is trying to use the damn thing, which I've had to the once or twice when no other machines were available (over-subscription on the main ones, needing a non-networked colour printer, etc), particularly word. Publisher 2007 isn't so bad, for some reason they haven't introduced the Ribbon to it, but there's a few other annoyances been thrown in just for good measure... however on the whole it still works as it used to. Word 2007 is a nightmare. Maybe it was because it was on some crippled hunk of junk running at (!) 800x600, so the ribbon and it's HUGE icons couldn't cope with the limited space, i don't know. What I do know is i've about 16 years of solid computing experience, maybe 13 with PCs and Microsoft OS/apps, and a good 12 with Office since v4. I never really had much usability problems with it even from day one, as everything was freely available in more or less one go (run the mouse across the menus or use toolbar tooltips) even on a VGA screen. With the ribbon, I had severe trouble finding anything I needed, even though I knew exactly what it was and where, usually, to find it and what category it was under. Couldn't even save at first, setting various paragraph options was hair-tearing, and as for doing custom margins.... I gave up and accepted the closest of it's preset choices, after finding the option. Worse still, on investigating Help, there's no real way of customising the thing (any 'extra' buttons have to go on a floating toolbar thing that sits above or below the ribbon), and most infuriatingly, no way of turning it off. Somewhat like having a company car, and one day you come down to find that instead of the model you're used to with (say) a standard 5-speed transmission and all the switches and knobs in the usual places, it's been given an 8-speed semi auto, the control method for such and the throttle/brake have been realigned along the scheme for the model T, and the steering wheel is on the other side. Plus all of the old cars have been scrapped overnight and there's no alternative available. Well, actually there is. I've downloaded Open Office "portable" onto my work-provided 1gb USB drive. There'll be a slight learning curve in getting to know that as well, but it looks to use a reasonably similar interface to Office 4 thru 2003 (and Works 3/4, Serif Pageplus, Atari ST Calamus, etc before it) and this particular jolt is one of frustrated choice, rather than pig-headed force. Glad I’m not the only one that feels this way… The somewhat eager but clueless IT department where I work has installed Office 2007 onto a seemingly random selection of machines that had only just managed to get a successful 2003 (and in some cases 2000) install properly working and it’s caused no end of trouble so far. First of all being, of course, clueless new users saving their work in the new file format that half of the other machines - these being the ones most often used and so not readily available for, ahem, ‘upgrade’ - cannot open the documents. Yay for integration and interoperability, etc. Might not have been so bad if there had been a clear instruction to ’save as office 97/2k or rtf for now’, but no. There’s talk of them providing either a system-wide upgrade or viewers from MS, but instead of holding our breath, we’re downloading our own.
Second is trying to use the damn thing, which I’ve had to the once or twice when no other machines were available (over-subscription on the main ones, needing a non-networked colour printer, etc), particularly word. Publisher 2007 isn’t so bad, for some reason they haven’t introduced the Ribbon to it, but there’s a few other annoyances been thrown in just for good measure… however on the whole it still works as it used to. Word 2007 is a nightmare. Maybe it was because it was on some crippled hunk of junk running at (!) 800×600, so the ribbon and it’s HUGE icons couldn’t cope with the limited space, i don’t know. What I do know is i’ve about 16 years of solid computing experience, maybe 13 with PCs and Microsoft OS/apps, and a good 12 with Office since v4. I never really had much usability problems with it even from day one, as everything was freely available in more or less one go (run the mouse across the menus or use toolbar tooltips) even on a VGA screen. With the ribbon, I had severe trouble finding anything I needed, even though I knew exactly what it was and where, usually, to find it and what category it was under. Couldn’t even save at first, setting various paragraph options was hair-tearing, and as for doing custom margins…. I gave up and accepted the closest of it’s preset choices, after finding the option.
Worse still, on investigating Help, there’s no real way of customising the thing (any ‘extra’ buttons have to go on a floating toolbar thing that sits above or below the ribbon), and most infuriatingly, no way of turning it off. Somewhat like having a company car, and one day you come down to find that instead of the model you’re used to with (say) a standard 5-speed transmission and all the switches and knobs in the usual places, it’s been given an 8-speed semi auto, the control method for such and the throttle/brake have been realigned along the scheme for the model T, and the steering wheel is on the other side. Plus all of the old cars have been scrapped overnight and there’s no alternative available.

Well, actually there is. I’ve downloaded Open Office “portable” onto my work-provided 1gb USB drive. There’ll be a slight learning curve in getting to know that as well, but it looks to use a reasonably similar interface to Office 4 thru 2003 (and Works 3/4, Serif Pageplus, Atari ST Calamus, etc before it) and this particular jolt is one of frustrated choice, rather than pig-headed force.

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