My Word

Apparently I have not used Word all that much on this computer, despite all the years it has been installed.  I just found myself having to turn of smart quotes, which I’d have expected to do almost preemptively, knowing how much trouble they cause.  I also started a sentence with:
1996.

Big mistake.  That meant I was creating a number list, doncha know, and that the style of the paragraph should change on its own from the default.  Changing it back?  That would of course delete the “1996.” because wasn’t that what I wanted?  Begone, ye demones of automatic formatting!

I know I used word a lot more at the office than at home, but I could have sworn I’d used it more than that.  Perhaps the settings or template got wiped clean or relocated along the line.  At least for me it’s more of an amused frustration than confused frustration, but I’ve been on the support guru side of Word enough to recognize the kinds of behaviors that drive people crazy and aren’t necessarily brainless to resolve.

1. Is it the pre-2007 version of Word? I am teaching the 2007 version to the kids this year, and the new “ribbon” (I guess toolbars is now a bad word in Microsoftese) does even more of the unwanted formatting, changing, etc.  It is also almost impossible to add icons to the ribbon.  Ah, the wonderful world of corporate America telling us how to behave.....

   Posted by  on  09/23  at  08:37 AM  from 

2. Yep--all of that “helpful” automatic formatting is a giant pain in the rear and I have always especially hated the auto-list function.  Even when I know how to fix something, I don’t want to have to stop working to go tweak the program setup.  The default settings should be an plain-Jane as possible and then let the user add in the bells, whistles and whatnot.

   Posted by Steven Taylor  on  09/23  at  01:58 PM  from 
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