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Subject:Re: MS Word question From:Kim Nylander <nylanderk -at- IPIX -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 1 Feb 1999 09:07:46 -0500
On 1/29/1999 6:20 PM, Todd Sieling muttered:
>Bob, I'm glad you asked this question. Before everyone leaps to answer, can
>I suggest that respondents include the computing environment in which each
>learned the ropes of writing and/or desktop publishing? (Specifically, Mac
>or PC, or others that apply). I think this could add an interesting shade to
>the familiar collage and collision of opinions regarding these two apps.
Very good point.
The primary frustration I have with Word deals with its ability (or
rather inability) to handle graphics in a longer document, 50-100 pages.
I have all of the screen shots, approximately 70 placed files, disappear
and replaced with large red "X" marks. I had to replace all of the
graphic files. Of course, happened exactly when I was printing the final
draft.
Word does not handle text flow very well, or very consistently. The
company I used to work for insisted that Word was the company standard,
and that every document would be done in Word. I ended up spending more
time maintaining the doucment layout than I did writing the manual.
Word inevitably crashes just after saving a document, when it kicks off
an "Autosave" -- causing the computer to come to a screeching halt, IPF,
then GPF.
My largest complaint about Word is that it is tryign to be something that
it is not. I use Word 5.1 on my Mac at home, and it's a lean mean word
processors. It doesn't crash. It processes words, and the *occassional*
graphic beautifully. For everything else, I would use a real desktop
publishing program and avoid the frustrtion of trying to use any version
of Word.
As to my computing environments: Pentium II/300 with Windows 98, Office
97, and Corel Ventura Publisher, and a Power Mac 9600/300 with OS 8.5.1,
Office 98.
Personally, I avoid Word unless I'm working on a simple, short document.
Regards,
Kim Nylander
(a frustrated Word user)
Technical Writer
Interactive Pictures
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
(423) 482-3000
