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Agree re Word - it is almost nothing like a word-processor, and after all these years and revisions can still get into such a knot with complex formats that your document becomes unmanageable.
I still buy and use Wordperfect - been my favourite since the days of DOS version 4.2. They still struggle to achieve compatability with Word documents though, because of MS secret sauce that sometimes even the Word devs don't seem to know about! (I've got a doc prepared with an older version of Word here that the latest version cannot open because it uses some feature that Word doesn't support any more - WP opens it though!)
I note Corel trying to move to a subscription model too now, be a great shame if that happens...
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Mike Winiberg wrote: re Word - it is almost nothing like a word-processor, and after all these years and revisions can still get into such a knot with complex formats that your document becomes unmanageable.
If you master styles with Word, and you master the god-awful refloating of images to terrible locations on the page when things change, you can put together a 300 page B&W book with appendices and a multi-level index that looks as good as anything on the shelves.
The index creation was much easier, and flexible than what was available in Serif Pageplus, which was supposed to be a step up, but was far from being so. If you take it a step further, you can create some VBA that will strip the document and output it in plain HTML that is actually clean HTML. In other words, once mastered, it is a monster of a program. (But those floating images were a mess to deal with.)
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Can you hear yourself? 8)
I agree, as a technical, knowledgeable user, it is possible to force Word (and I only chose Word because its the default word processor for many despite the fact that it is almost entirely unsuited to that task) to produce good quality output.
But how does the average user, screaming at their screen because all their bulleted lists from some arbitrary point onwards suddenly have a different indent level, or their tables don't line up with their text, make it do this?
I'm in a debate elsewhere inspired by this article: Software disenchantment @ tonsky.me[^] about how complexity and pursuit of the latest shiny thing has blinded both devs and users to the simple fact that much high-tech stuff is either unreliable, inefficient or simply bad at doing the things it was intended to do despite years of hardware and software 'progress'. This is because the users' requirements are not even part of the equation of much modern development, and the users are complicit in this!
We devs are also complicit - always wanting to use the latest 'framework' because it will solve all these problems, even though getting it installed and working takes days because the dependencies are not properly documented, some of the libraries are not up-to-date, our core language modules or browsers do not have some essential but omitted from the docs package installed etc etc. And even once it's working it needs the latest version of IoS or Android, thus making it unusable for billions of existing phone owners etc.
Mind you, it can go the other way: GDS (UK government digital service) have achieved a tremendous technical feat in amalgamating and making stylistically consistent many Government websites - however, they have in many cases entirely lost sight of why those sites exist and how they are used, leaving behind beautiful, easy to read websites where it is not obvious how to get to where you need to be when you are trying to achieve a particular task (eg paying your taxes), or containing basic noob mistakes in forms that were considered passe 20 years ago (eg not allowing spaces in credit card numbers but rejecting the number rather than silently ignoring the spaces, but only when you've reached the end of the form and submitted it). Yet you can bet the sites pass all the tests, because the sites are written to the tests, not to how real users actually use the pages.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but your reply illustrates the problem exactly!
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Mike Winiberg wrote: I only chose Word because its the default word processor for many despite the fact that it is almost entirely unsuited to that task
Since a beginner user can open it up and 'process words' with it, as far as basic editing, without issues, it isn't exactly 'entirely unsuited' to that task. The problem comes into being when they want something formatted differently than an old-fashioned Times New Roman Simple Manuscript, so to speak. At that point they will have to learn styles, and in other packages they would have to learn other approaches.
Mike Winiberg wrote: But how does the average user, screaming at their screen because all their bulleted lists from some arbitrary point onwards suddenly have a different indent level, or their tables don't line up with their text, make it do this?
I am not negating the problems like this that crop up, but I've never had a bulleted list do what you say (although interrupting a numbered list with paragraph text, and getting bullet numbers correct afterwards is something I've sworn over). At that point the user is forced to learn the 'Word Way'. And they will be able to overcome the problem once they do so. I agree, it sucks, but a master in any profession has to master his tools. If you have a better tool, use it.
Mike Winiberg wrote: Can you hear yourself?
I believe so. All I am trying to do is point out the side of Word that is overlooked by those who bash it without having taken the time to finish the mastery process. I won't defend the difficulty of some of the problems you will face mastering Word, but at the end of the process you will find that Word is capable of some very powerful feats, and in some cases it is far easier in Word than other packages. Editing indexes is one example. From a brief overview of this page, Word is far easier and more versatile than recent Word Perfect versions (when I tried WP for the task long ago, it was worthless in this regard). I played with Open Office at one time and could not come close to Word's capabilities and ease of use editing entries. Word actually made the editing process almost fun (after figuring it out by reading a page similar to the one I just pointed to).
If you don't need the full power of Word, as several in this thread have indicated, then use something simpler. But bashing Word for its perceived lacks without being aware of its powerful capabilities is unfruitful. Yes, finding those 'power tools' in Word can be difficult, but that is more because there are so many power tools in Word that organizing them clearly has to be a complete pain in the a** for any UI designer.
[End of pointless post, as I am certain you will disagree with my 'entirely unsuited' viewpoint. I would not disagree that some things in Word could be vastly improved, like the way images re-float themselves.]
[No matter what package you use, Have Fun creating and overcoming the challenges you will face!]
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I think you have (partly) missed my point: I agree with you entirely, but you and I are knowledgeable, skilled users. Mr Blogs simply trying to stick a picture in the middle of an otherwise plain letter, and who would have done it by physically pasting it onto a typed out letter where he had manually left a gap, is not and never will be. I believe that software should make doing things like that easier for unsophisticated users. It should not be necessary to spend weeks learning the vagaries of Word (or indeed any such package) to be able to make anything other than the most basic use of it.
It takes a lot of training to become a skilled touch-typist, but anyone can nevertheless learn to produce quite sophisticated output with a typewriter without ever learning typing skills. The same is not true of most software packages - they require you to learn many skills before you can do anything at all with them: operating the computer, using a mouse, using a keyboard, starting the application - all before you can even get one letter on the screen. Then you have to know how to operate the printer, how to get the app to send stuff to it. These are things that many people find it hard to do, so mastering the vagaries of Word et al so they can type a letter really is beyond them. My point is that it shouldn't be like this.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have any (or even some) of the answers to this, but I can't help feeling that somewhere along the line we have lost our way...
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OriginalGriff wrote: What can I say? It's not the best looking, it's not the smoothest - but it works.
Does it?
One of my neighbors had me over last year because there's a few things he wanted my help with his computer for a few things. Among one of them, one of his MS-hating buddies (you know the type) got him to use LibreOffice, and he had a simple document with a table with two columns, and he wanted to sort of by one the columns. Should be straightforward enough, found some forums where someone had asked the exact same thing, tried to do the same...and it promptly crashed. Restarted it, reloaded his document, retried...same thing.
Found that his copy wasn't at the latest version, so I upgraded it, retried...same crash again.
I ended up copying his table to the clipboard, went to word.office.com, pasted everything in, found the equivalent command to sort by a column, which worked, copied his table back to the clipboard, replaced the one in his original document.
Bottom line...I had to use a new-ish web version of Word to do something the long-established LibreOffice crashed trying to do.
My neighbor then understood why I don't necessarily always recommend "free alternatives".
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Strange. It's not something I do normally - I sort data before it gets to the presentation layer normally - but I just tried it and it worked.
Opened a new Writer document. Added a 2 column by 6 row table.
Filled it:
A 6
B 5
C 4
D 3
E 2
F 1 Highlight the whole table (i.e. all rows and columns) then select "Sort..." from teh Table menu.
Up pops a dialog. Deselect column 1 as key, add column 2 as key, Press OK:
F 1
E 2
D 3
C 4
B 5
A 6 Works for me, with V6.0.6.2 (x64)
Mind you, the upgrades annoy me: they lose the toolbar files list, including all pinned items. And since I pin my most frquest DOCX and XLSX files to it that's a PITA. Reported, but ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I don't remember the exact procedure I used, and do keep in mind I mentioned this was last year...they could very well have fixed that problem already.
OriginalGriff wrote: I sort data before it gets to the presentation layer normally
These are somewhat unsophisticated folks, and this is just stuff they had typed in and (I think) they just kept adding to the table willy-nilly over time, until they realized it would have made sense to keep things sorted.
Anyway, my point was, despite existing for years, I was surprised LibreOffice could still experience an outright hard crash (as in, exit the program altogether, with no proper exception handler to at least try to handle it somewhat gracefully). I would like to recommend alternatives to the pay-for Office for friends/relatives, but that one just left a bad taste in my mouth.
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If your Office/365 subscription expires, the apps go into read-only mode. Microsoft took into account people being concerned about potentially not having access to their data.
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Same for me. I've been using OpenOffice and then LibreOffice for years, at the begining just because it was free. Recently I had to install Office in my work to fill a .doc template, and LibreOffice messed it up. I found absolutely terrible what they have done to that program. I had to restart it many times because sometimes I moved an image an suddenly the content of the pages dissapeared or became strange characters. Unexpected behaviors, commands overlapping. Or try to resize an image inside a text box when the margins of the objects disappear. Commands that I could never found, other ones hidden in unexpected places... What a mess! This application was not so bad last time I used it. While LibreOffice became better and better with time, I see that Word followed the opposite direction.
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My choice is unlike the prevailing business model for most companies (MS-included): -subscription and +freedom.
Still on Office 2010 here.
modified 25-Sep-18 19:25pm.
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Office 2003. (You asked.)
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Ha ha! Me too!  +5
/ravi
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Me too!
Dislike the Ribbon-UI introduced in Office 2007.
Don't care much for any of the new features (except spark-lines in Excel, *sigh*).
2003 can read / write later versions' XML-based fileTypes docx / xlsx / etc. albeit only after installing the Compatibility-pack-update.
But the main benefit, the icing on the cake:
Starting ye olde Excel 2003 takes as little time as starting the calculator or notepad 
While even on a very powerful, up-to-date PC with NVMe-SSD, many cores and all bells and whistles starting one of the later MS Office programs takes forever, thanks to all the bloat (and animated splash-screens and stuff).
Current LibreOffice isn't much better either in that respect.
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I just cancelled my 365 subscription, I REALLY do not like buying the software every year. I have so little use for anything but email that Google tools meet my needs.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: Google tools meet my needs
as with most people and their personal software requirements.
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And they have more than enough detail on me that a few minor documents are not going to make a difference.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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But don't you have to pay for Google tools too?
My real need is for an Outlook replacement for the Mac, email and calendar working off of Microsoft Exchange Online. Using Office 2011 today but it has quirks in the current macOS High Sierra and Mojave.
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riclf wrote: But don't you have to pay for Google tools too
Only with the ownership of my data, I only use mail, sheets and doc as my requirements are very minimal and AFAIK there is no monetary cost to using them.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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There has been no changes to office that I care for for fifteen years. I'd definitely buy.
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365 as it has monthly payment subscription plans and it is mobile, files can be saved locally or in Valhalla.
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Sure it is; it's Valhalla, for Viking's sake! 
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Notepad++ saved to text file; always readable.
You asked.
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.
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I use Notepad++, but paid for and use UltraEdit for any file work. Some features just work better.
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