NationStates Jolt Archive

I got it yesterday and just got around to installing it today. I hate it. I really fucking hate it. If you don't have it yet be glad. And afraid. Be very afraid. It has no Menu Bar, no File tab, no Edit tab, no View tab, etc. And it's got some really fucked up defaults as far font and font size go. Calibri at 11. It's also got giant buttons in the ribbon and a colorful background to distract the writer.

And why the fuck did they have to change the file format? Was there something wrong with the 97-03 format? Was it defective in some way? I didn't think so.

I hate it whenever they try to make stuff "user-friendly"! User-friendliness is for whimps and just gets in the way of the job.

Most of this is easy enough to fix but it's disapointing and irritating all the same. This new, inefficient version will likely drive me to an open source alternative. Great fucking job, Microsoft, great fucking job.

Go learn LaTeX ;)

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf

TeX is nice, sure, but it's a pain to learn. And if you don't keep using it, you'll start to forget how to use it.

While I am normally not one to jump on the bandwagon, as a writer I love Word '07. I actually like the Calibri font, though I use it at size 10 and not 11.

I like the interface. I didn't at first, it took a while to grow on me but now I can't stand the old interface, but I still use the old formats, since my files are in the earlier formats.

TeX is nice, sure, but it's a pain to learn. And if you don't keep using it, you'll start to forget how to use it.

True. But if you dislike fancy userinterfaces and really just wish to get the job done, and wish to be able to still read the produced files 10 years from now - LaTeX has nice papers.
I fled to it after trying to use MS equation editor a few times though. Not because I dislike GUIs.

It's standard for publication in a number of math journals. I've taken several stabs at getting good with it, but I never seem to retain anything from previous attempts.

Why would you ever even consider buying software of this consideration? Free-ware is the only way to go. I, personally use OpenOffice .

The old Word file format was proprietary - the new one conforms more to an open standard.

True. But if you dislike fancy userinterfaces and really just wish to get the job done, and wish to be able to still read the produced files 10 years from now - LaTeX has nice papers.
I fled to it after trying to use MS equation editor a few times though. Not because I dislike GUIs.
Yeah, equations need LaTeX... and a lot of other things as well! I would recommend it any time!
The old Word file format was proprietary - the new one conforms more to an open standard.
Yeah... *rofl* their own standard! Just like all their file formats before...

TeX is nice, sure, but it's a pain to learn. And if you don't keep using it, you'll start to forget how to use it.
Not really... the beginning is hard but if you use it a bit, it gets easier.

It's the PC/Mac hypocrisy. When Mac is user friendly, it's user friendly! When PC is user friendly, it's getting in our way.

It's like with all this new Windows crap. No menus, no nothing. Explorer, Media Player...how user-friendly. :rolleyes:

I don't know, I like it. Besides, saving to 97-03 format isn't hard.

It's a nice look.

Open Office>Word.

Open Office>Word.

Notepad2 > Open Office

Plaintext FTW :p

TeX is nice, sure, but it's a pain to learn. And if you don't keep using it, you'll start to forget how to use it.Well, there are some special editors you could use that have at least most default commands in menus. And there's even some wysiwyg editors (although not all of them are fully TeX compliant).
I can't really say I found it a pain to learn though. A good guide helps, and I suppose it depends on what you want to do with it (although I didn't have too much trouble having TeX generate an animation of a moving dot; 1 frame per page. I can't even imagine how to do that in word. Why you'd want to is another matter :p )

Notepad2 > Open Office

Plaintext FTW :p

What's next, DOS and its Edit?

What's next, DOS and its Edit?No, picking up an old floppy disc and setting the bits with a small magnet ;)

What's next, DOS and its Edit?

There's always Edlin.

But don't knock Edit, I wrote my first C program using that: An Asteroids clone compiled with DJGPP. Aah, talk about "misspent youth"...

I got it yesterday and just got around to installing it today. I hate it. I really fucking hate it. If you don't have it yet be glad. And afraid. Be very afraid. It has no Menu Bar, no File tab, no Edit tab, no View tab, etc. And it's got some really fucked up defaults as far font and font size go. Calibri at 11. It's also got giant buttons in the ribbon and a colorful background to distract the writer.

And why the fuck did they have to change the file format? Was there something wrong with the 97-03 format? Was it defective in some way? I didn't think so.

I hate it whenever they try to make stuff "user-friendly"! User-friendliness is for whimps and just gets in the way of the job.

Most of this is easy enough to fix but it's disapointing and irritating all the same. This new, inefficient version will likely drive me to an open source alternative. Great fucking job, Microsoft, great fucking job.

iirc the reason for changing the file format was to make it based on XML so it can be used more easily in other applications.

other than that i'm personally steering away from it

Yes thank you SO much for hiding history in that little favorites tab, and speaking of the stupid explorer opening Tabs. I hate them as well.

I'd seriously rather have my Taskbar cluttered then deal with that stupid stuff.

I hate the memory hogging XP as well.


I guess that's why out of the computers we own, I'm still using the 9 year old 98.

I guess Microsoft is going to apply the standard they developed on IE 7 to everything - make everything 100x more convoluted and hide all of the standard options in a tiny, nondescript button off to the side.

Yes thank you SO much for hiding history in that little favorites tab, and speaking of the stupid explorer opening Tabs. I hate them as well.

I'd seriously rather have my Taskbar cluttered then deal with that stupid stuff.

I hate the memory hogging XP as well.


I guess that's why out of the computers we own, I'm still using the 9 year old 98.

What's wrong with tabs? I can have ten IE sessions running in one window instead of ten different windows which is more annoying.

my kid and I are still arguing this.....she likes it because it's "pretty" and because "all this really cool stuff is easy to find now!" and I hate it because I can't find anything that I used to know where it was......seriously I spent over 10 years learning how to do all the neat stuff I need to do in Word only for them to move everything around?! whatever.

Not that I have been using it for a while anyway, since I switched 90% to Linux last year, but if I need to use it, I wanna be able to.

Not that I have been using it for a while anyway, since I switched 90% to Linux last year, but if I need to use it, I wanna be able to.
emerge openoffice
or:
apt-get install openoffice
or: download and install OpenOffice under windows

emerge openoffice
or:
apt-get install openoffice
or: download and install OpenOffice under windows

I have been using open office since like 2003 or something......I had Star Office before that.

I never really liked Word, I just had to know how to use it for work, which I don't do that job anymore, so this Office '07 thing really wouldn't bother me, except I hate microsuck more everyday.

I have been using open office since like 2003 or something......I had Star Office before that.
Good smunkers!

I never really liked Word, I just had to know how to use it for work, which I don't do that job anymore, so this Office '07 thing really wouldn't bother me, except I hate microsuck more everyday.
they did realize that it was really easy to switch between the systems and wanted to make switsching harder :/ economically it might make sense, but I so doubt it

I hate it whenever they try to
make stuff "user-friendly"! User-friendliness is for whimps and just gets in the way of the job.

I agree. Number 1 reason I hate Macs.

People, you can bitch and bemoan the "changes" that Microsoft made to the interface, but let's be realistic, it was a hell of a leap to go from a command line interface to a graphical user interface when Windows 3.1 first came out.

If I didn't know better, the resistance to change hasn't subsided with each passing month and year we transcend further into the computer-based world that now surrounds us.

Yes Microsoft didn't do everything right; it didn't meet the demand of each individual customer, but they have to think about what will have a broader appeal.

And if you think the new Word interface takes up too much room, you could just make your resolution compliment the new interface. It's not so much when you run your resolution at 1280x1024.

Like I said earlier, I hated it too until I used it for a while. It looked ugly, clunky and otherwise not entirely user friendly but that was because I didn't know where anything was. The same can be said about any new application or even OS. When you don't know where anything is, getting started can be VERY frustrating but it's no reason to immediately declare a something user-unfriendly.

Reality says that many of us younger adults who have many years of work ahead of us have to adapt quickly or risk being left behind in the work place as it advances and new software comes out that makes our jobs easier; makes it easier to meet deadlines etc.

This, however doesn't mean I like IE, in fact, I hate IE because I can't customise it, but because I've been writing with word since 1997, I find the application easy to use once you've taken a look around.

Or what if... conventional keyboards go the way of the floppy drive and you can only use ergonomic keyboards, will you resist? Yes because it's hard to learn to type on a new layout. I resisted because I liked the old school keyboards, but then when it came apparent to me that more and more work places were using ergonomic keyboards, I figured that when I replaced my home one that I should just get with the programme. It took a couple of days to get used to it but now I won't go back.

Change is one of the absolutes in life after death and taxes.

Resisting is fine for some things but it can't work for everything, especially that which is out of your control, such as the interface of an application.

EDIT - I've got a session of Word '07 open right now and I'm going to try and convince you lot it's not so bad.

Microsoft is trying to move itself into the Web 2.0, fancypants software trend and fails miserably by making everything pretty but effectively unusable.

Or what if... conventional keyboards go the way of the floppy drive and you can only use ergonomic keyboards, will you resist? Yes because it's hard to learn to type on a new layout. I resisted because I liked the old school keyboards, but then when it came apparent to me that more and more work places were using ergonomic keyboards, I figured that when I replaced my home one that I should just get with the programme. It took a couple of days to get used to it but now I won't go back.
Looking at ergonomic keyboards makes me feel less ergonomic.

But don't knock Edit, I wrote my first C program using that: An Asteroids clone compiled with DJGPP. Aah, talk about "misspent youth"...

Why on earth did you not use emacs or RHIDE ?

Or what if... conventional keyboards go the way of the floppy drive and you can only use ergonomic keyboards, will you resist? Yes because it's hard to learn to type on a new layout. I resisted because I liked the old school keyboards, but then when it came apparent to me that more and more work places were using ergonomic keyboards, I figured that when I replaced my home one that I should just get with the programme. It took a couple of days to get used to it but now I won't go back.

I await the day when dvorak keyboards become more widely used and qwerty keyboards are no more.

And if you think the new Word interface takes up too much room, you could just make your resolution compliment the new interface. It's not so much when you run your resolution at 1280x1024.

That is so "back-assward" that it's funny :D
Why should the user change their settings to adjust to something they didn't want in the first place? What if their eyesight's bad, so running at low resolutions is better for them?

Besides, I run at 1600x1200 and hate it when things have big, intrusive user-interfaces that get in the way and prevent you from seeing as many windows at once. That's one of the primary reasons I use Trillian instead of MSN Messenger; it's small and neat, rather than bloated and taking up half the screen. And Windows Media Player with that giant visualisation pane you can't get rid of, gah ><
You don't use software to gaze at its beautiful interface; you use it to get something done.

Why on earth did you not use emacs or RHIDE ?
Using DOS/Win95 at the time (mostly DOS, IIRC). I had no internet connection back then, so no downloading Linux... Not that I'd heard of it at the time anyway, so far as I remember. I got the compiler from a cover disk. And I've never heard of RHIDE...

I await the day when dvorak keyboards become more widely used and qwerty keyboards are no more.

I know people who already use those keyboards in their line of work.

That is so "back-assward" that it's funny :D
Why should the user change their settings to adjust to something they didn't want in the first place? What if their eyesight's bad, so running at low resolutions is better for them?

Besides, I run at 1600x1200 and hate it when things have big, intrusive user-interfaces that get in the way and prevent you from seeing as many windows at once. That's one of the primary reasons I use Trillian instead of MSN Messenger; it's small and neat, rather than bloated and taking up half the screen. And Windows Media Player with that giant visualisation pane you can't get rid of, gah ><
You don't use software to gaze at its beautiful interface; you use it to get something done.

My video card is crappy. I cannot increase my resolution. I will when I get a new computer. For now, I find the resolution decent enough for my needs though I''d like it smaller.

And you use Trillian? How last year. I prefer Miranda.

I use classic (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm) Media Player (the one that is just the video player and nothing more) and there is at the same site an alternative version (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm) to real player, which is not too bad either. And music, I use Foobar 2000.

I like the new interface of Word because I don't have to plough through menus every time I want to modify something.

Yes thank you SO much for hiding history in that little favorites tab, and speaking of the stupid explorer opening Tabs. I hate them as well.

I'd seriously rather have my Taskbar cluttered then deal with that stupid stuff.

I hate the memory hogging XP as well.


I guess that's why out of the computers we own, I'm still using the 9 year old 98.

Hehe I find it really funny when I see or hear people hating a bit of software. Hate, I mean come on really? You let it effect your mood that much that you hate it?

As to change, blargh, it happens those that don't move with times are doomed to be called old fogies!:D

The whole "New Shiny Version" thing is a complete scam.
Take office 2000 and 2003 (or indeed, XP and Vista). AFAK the only difference is the skins and the amazing "read" function. Having not tried 2007 I have no idea what the differences are but the functional ones I'm betting will be pretty small.
There is absolutely no reason any sane person would want to upgrade from 2000 to 2003 if they had to pay for it, and I'm fairly sure the same thing applies to 2007. Fortunately, my school has licences to provide the whole works to any and every one of their students and staff. :rolleyes: but due to the immense specs needed for Vista, we probably won't upgrade to Vista and 2007 for another two or three years.

I know people who already use those keyboards in their line of work.

I use Dvorak on an MS Natural 4000 :)

And you use Trillian? How last year. I prefer Miranda.

I use classic (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm) Media Player (the one that is just the video player and nothing more) and there is at the same site an alternative version (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm) to real player, which is not too bad either. And music, I use Foobar 2000.
I tried Miranda once, I think... It probably did something to annoy me, and got Removed.
Yeah, I use mplayer classic for most things, but it doesn't handle CDs very well in my experience; since cdplayer and cdplayer2 seem to have vanished from XPx64 (damn Crossfire not working on Win2K), and as I hate it when things mess with my WinAmp playlist, Media Player it is...
Foobar 2000 got deleted because it didn't have WinAmp's 'Jump To' function, or it worked differently, or something. WinAmp 5 is a bit too chunky for my liking, but I've got used to it now.

Finickity, I can be, and stuck in my ways. And if I like it, and it does what I want, I'm not going to change it just because some overpaid tit in a suit wants to increment the version number and charge for it, or some zealot in a Debian T-Shirt doesn't think it's suitably bleeding-edge or "Free" >_< (Not that I'm accusing you of either, I just like to rant ;) )

I use Dvorak on an MS Natural 4000 :)


I tried Miranda once, I think... It probably did something to annoy me, and got Removed.
Yeah, I use mplayer classic for most things, but it doesn't handle CDs very well in my experience; since cdplayer and cdplayer2 seem to have vanished from XPx64 (damn Crossfire not working on Win2K), and as I hate it when things mess with my WinAmp playlist, Media Player it is...
Foobar 2000 got deleted because it didn't have WinAmp's 'Jump To' function, or it worked differently, or something. WinAmp 5 is a bit too chunky for my liking, but I've got used to it now.

Finickity, I can be, and stuck in my ways. And if I like it, and it does what I want, I'm not going to change it just because some overpaid tit in a suit wants to increment the version number and charge for it, or some zealot in a Debian T-Shirt doesn't think it's suitably bleeding-edge or "Free" >_< (Not that I'm accusing you of either, I just like to rant ;) )

I used miranda for a while, but I couldn't get the hang of it, so I fell back on live messenger. I might try trillian.

I know people who already use those keyboards in their line of work.

I think most people who use them are people who are typing a lot. Dvorak is meant to be easier on the hands.

Everything went to hell after DOS.


More seriously I tend to think of every "upgrade" or patch in a piece of microsoft software as just adding more bloat for no appreciable gain. Win98 was perfectly serviceable, so they came out with XP, which changed a lot of crap that you ended up having to change to the old style to make it usable. XP's default start menu, who uses that POS? It's horrific, plus the big bars and huge colored buttons, what the hell is wrong with grey?

IE7, a horrid Firefox clone. You can't even customize the bars to remove worthless shit. Why the hell do you need a button for your favorite center on the bar? Isn't that what the fucking menu is for? Oh and putting the forward and back buttons as far as possible from the home button is another bit of brilliance. No stop button, oh well, no refresh button? Who needs it right?

I upgrade under protest only. I refuse to consider Vista.

Oh the qwerty keyboard was designed slow people down! People used to wear out the typewriters typing too fast, so qwerty was born! Ironic we are using a keyboard designed to slow you down on our fast computers.

I still use Word 2000. In my opinion, it was the most stable, feature-rich and non-intrusive version.

People, you can bitch and bemoan the "changes" that Microsoft made to the interface, but let's be realistic, it was a hell of a leap to go from a command line interface to a graphical user interface when Windows 3.1 first came out.
Windows 3.1 was a step back from DOS. i only used it in the way win command filename so I got exposed ot it as few as possible.

If I didn't know better, the resistance to change hasn't subsided with each passing month and year we transcend further into the computer-based world that now surrounds us.

Yes Microsoft didn't do everything right; it didn't meet the demand of each individual customer, but they have to think about what will have a broader appeal.
And exactly that is choice and configurability, tyvm!

And if you think the new Word interface takes up too much room, you could just make your resolution compliment the new interface. It's not so much when you run your resolution at 1280x1024.Please! Stop gloating about the fact that you have a good vision and others are stuck on 800x600 on a 19" monitor in order to be able to read text!

Like I said earlier, I hated it too until I used it for a while. It looked ugly, clunky and otherwise not entirely user friendly but that was because I didn't know where anything was. The same can be said about any new application or even OS. When you don't know where anything is, getting started can be VERY frustrating but it's no reason to immediately declare a something user-unfriendly.
I want user-unfriendly software as TeX which does not get into my way during things I do. I want to be able to do things and every new version of MS-software makes it more difficult to do things. Best counter-example: joe. It increased its functionality but in a way, which made it easy for me to adjust it, because it reamined within the same paradigma. Which Office didn't.

Reality says that many of us younger adults who have many years of work ahead of us have to adapt quickly or risk being left behind in the work place as it advances and new software comes out that makes our jobs easier; makes it easier to meet deadlines etc.Nah... the keyboard-shortcuts still work and I guess MS will go Chapter 11 in the not too distant future.
I do not see a problem to adapt to better software but I see one with adapting to inferior software.

This, however doesn't mean I like IE, in fact, I hate IE because I can't customise it, but because I've been writing with word since 1997, I find the application easy to use once you've taken a look around. No one likes IE! :p

Or what if... conventional keyboards go the way of the floppy drive and you can only use ergonomic keyboards, will you resist? Yes because it's hard to learn to type on a new layout. I resisted because I liked the old school keyboards, but then when it came apparent to me that more and more work places were using ergonomic keyboards, I figured that when I replaced my home one that I should just get with the programme. It took a couple of days to get used to it but now I won't go back. Yes, because ergonomic keyboards take up more space and wouldn't fit on my desk. And are not ergonomic. Now if we had DVORAK :)

Change is one of the absolutes in life after death and taxes.

Resisting is fine for some things but it can't work for everything, especially that which is out of your control, such as the interface of an application.
Well, if it was Open Source, you COULD edit the GUI :)

EDIT - I've got a session of Word '07 open right now and I'm going to try and convince you lot it's not so bad.
Open an editor like joe and use LaTeX! it's better!

There's always Edlin.

But don't knock Edit, I wrote my first C program using that: An Asteroids clone compiled with DJGPP. Aah, talk about "misspent youth"...
copy con > edlin :D

Though MS edit rocks, too bad it doesn't work that well under XP. :(

Everything went to hell after DOS.


More seriously I tend to think of every "upgrade" or patch in a piece of microsoft software as just adding more bloat for no appreciable gain. Win98 was perfectly serviceable, so they came out with XP, which changed a lot of crap that you ended up having to change to the old style to make it usable. XP's default start menu, who uses that POS? It's horrific, plus the big bars and huge colored buttons, what the hell is wrong with grey?

IE7, a horrid Firefox clone. You can't even customize the bars to remove worthless shit. Why the hell do you need a button for your favorite center on the bar? Isn't that what the fucking menu is for? Oh and putting the forward and back buttons as far as possible from the home button is another bit of brilliance. No stop button, oh well, no refresh button? Who needs it right?

I upgrade under protest only. I refuse to consider Vista.

IE7 does have a stop and refresh button, it sits to the right of the URL.

IE7 does have a stop and refresh button, it sits to the right of the URL.

Oh, figured that was a useless "Go" button and an X to kill the redundant searchbar.


Why are they scattered all over hell? What's wrong with having them in a nice neat bar?

TeX is nice, sure, but it's a pain to learn. And if you don't keep using it, you'll start to forget how to use it.

Not to mention the curse of LaTex. Just one more point to the right...No, maybe two points up...Formatting never ends. I quit writing for publication in LaTex as soon as I discovered there were templates that worked for Word.

The writing is the important part, making it camera-ready shouldn't be the bulk of the effort.

Oh, figured that was a useless "Go" button and an X to kill the redundant searchbar.


Why are they scattered all over hell? What's wrong with having them in a nice neat bar?

Actually, I'm so used to IE7 I find IE6 frustrating to use. I've put a IE7 skin on my FireFox too. :p

Not to mention the curse of LaTex. Just one more point to the right...No, maybe two points up...Formatting never ends.

That probably is because you are not supposed to spend attention to formatting in LaTeX ;) After all, the idea it is based on is:

The writing is the important part, making it camera-ready shouldn't be the bulk of the effort.

:-P

Open an editor like joe and use LaTeX! it's better!
Will it be open my documents? All my documents are saved in the .doc format, dating back to when I got Word '97.

I tried open source but I like Word '07. It took getting used to but I like it... plus it doesn't hurt that I started using it in beta so I got to see it go from being kind of crappy to being kind of real decent. I liked it more after going to a Vista Launch Event when I got to see some of the features in action.

And for those interested, I made a post about Word in my blog and it's just about the first tab. The link is in my sig,

You can configure word to make it easier to use. You can put the file tab and stuff back in.

It has no Menu Bar, no File tab, no Edit tab, no View tab, etc
Are you effing serious? Please tell me this is a horrible nightmare.

I have lost all faith in the human race. WHY, MICROSOFT, WHY? :(

OpenOffice FTW!

OpenOffice FTW!

no, NO. Never again...

That probably is because you are not supposed to spend attention to formatting in LaTeX ;) After all, the idea it is based on is:



:-P

If you've ever had write for your thesis adviser, you'll appreciate that it has to be done _his_ way, not necessarily the _LatTeX_ way.

And I thought TeX and LaTeX were advantageous because of the document portability they offered, not simplicity. If it were simple, there would never be .dvi files.

Notepad2 > Open Office

Plaintext FTW :p
Notepad, pffff.

Get with the times! All the cool kids are using TextPad (http://www.textpad.com/).

But yeah, OpenOffice kicks metaphorical arse.

iirc the reason for changing the file format was to make it based on XML so it can be used more easily in other applications.

other than that i'm personally steering away from it

Its also more resilient, meaning that if a portion of the file is corrupted, XML is saved in such a way that there is redundancy in the document, so Office can automatically detect the corruption and correct the problem. Whereas the old .doc format was binary, and we all know what happens when a binary file is corrupted..

Whereas the old .doc format was binary, and we all know what happens when a binary file is corrupted..
BALEETED!!!

What's wrong with tabs? I can have ten IE sessions running in one window instead of ten different windows which is more annoying.

agreed, its a much cleaner feel, and you have 1 program running, and using memory as opposed to ten.

I like the new interface of Word because I don't have to plough through menus every time I want to modify something.

Agreed, the ribbon is so nice, everything you need is right there. While it might look clunky it is a much more efficient and user friendly design.

If you've ever had write for your thesis adviser, you'll appreciate that it has to be done _his_ way, not necessarily the _LatTeX_ way.

Naturally. That is why he gave me the LateX package with the layout he desired.

And I thought TeX and LaTeX were advantageous because of the document portability they offered, not simplicity. If it were simple, there would never be .dvi files.

The idea behind TeX is that most of its users are not professional typesetters - meaning that while they may think they are quite able of designing a perfect layout and combination of styles and fonts they in practice generally are not.
TeX therefor wishes the user to focus on content and structure and to stay away from the document designing.

The whole "New Shiny Version" thing is a complete scam.
Take office 2000 and 2003 (or indeed, XP and Vista). AFAK the only difference is the skins and the amazing "read" function. Having not tried 2007 I have no idea what the differences are but the functional ones I'm betting will be pretty small.
There is absolutely no reason any sane person would want to upgrade from 2000 to 2003 if they had to pay for it, and I'm fairly sure the same thing applies to 2007. Fortunately, my school has licences to provide the whole works to any and every one of their students and staff. :rolleyes: but due to the immense specs needed for Vista, we probably won't upgrade to Vista and 2007 for another two or three years.
Here it is (http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/9772/word2007fq9.jpg) at 1680x1050, my max resolution. Notice the stupid background, the bloated ribbon, the round button in the corner that is suposed to replace the File tab, the complete lack of an Edit tab, glassy buttons, large fonts, etc.

It's! Not! FUNCTIONAL! Word 97-2003 was pretty much the same layout and it was damn successful and easy to use! Everyone was used to it, it was efficient, it was practical, the program could be used for business or casual work, the list goes on. They could have continued the trend by simply adding more fucking features while preserving the fucking layout but they made a choice to scrap something successful and proven for something only the severly mentally handicapped could love because they like to stare stupidly at all of the pretty colors.

I don't mind tabbed browsing in IE, I already used it in Firefox. But IE still resembles its older self. The new word could hardly be a more radical departure and more disconnected from the previous versions.

It looks very Mac-esque.

It looks very Mac-esque.

I think that is kinda the point. Apple has proven that a similar layout is extremely efficient.

Personally, I use Office 2007 at home, and after a rather difficult adjustment period, I have come to realize that the ribbon is a much better layout, than its predecessors.

Engineers do not use Macs! I am an engineer. Therefore I hate Macs.

Will it be open my documents? All my documents are saved in the .doc format, dating back to when I got Word '97.


I think LyX can read rtf-documents and convert them to LaTeX.

I got it yesterday and just got around to installing it today. I hate it. I really fucking hate it. If you don't have it yet be glad. And afraid. Be very afraid. It has no Menu Bar, no File tab, no Edit tab, no View tab, etc. And it's got some really fucked up defaults as far font and font size go. Calibri at 11. It's also got giant buttons in the ribbon and a colorful background to distract the writer.

And why the fuck did they have to change the file format? Was there something wrong with the 97-03 format? Was it defective in some way? I didn't think so.

I hate it whenever they try to make stuff "user-friendly"! User-friendliness is for whimps and just gets in the way of the job.

Most of this is easy enough to fix but it's disapointing and irritating all the same. This new, inefficient version will likely drive me to an open source alternative. Great fucking job, Microsoft, great fucking job.
Calibri is part of MS's response to having crappy fonts. Though, this was mostly due to crappy font rendering (which was fixed too). But it is hard to market improved font rendering, as it confuses the people that they are trying to market to (morons). So MS came up with some new fonts and a slick marketing campaign that has actually made users ask Apple and various Linux distros for improved font rendering when Microsoft was just add what they had all along (anti-aliased fonts). So, no Calibri is not going anywhere. They created a helluva lot of hype about it, and they are not gonna let that go to waste.

Also, they need to introduce a new file format so you have to update. Remember, they make no money if you keep using their last version.
Go learn LaTeX ;)
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf

*bookmarks*
And if you think the new Word interface takes up too much room, you could just make your resolution compliment the new interface. It's not so much when you run your resolution at 1280x1024.
1280x1024 is big? I'm stuck with it for now, and I must say I have no screen space. (I'm used to 1560x1024 FYI).
Or what if... conventional keyboards go the way of the floppy drive and you can only use ergonomic keyboards, will you resist? Yes because it's hard to learn to type on a new layout. I resisted because I liked the old school keyboards, but then when it came apparent to me that more and more work places were using ergonomic keyboards, I figured that when I replaced my home one that I should just get with the programme. It took a couple of days to get used to it but now I won't go back.
If I had to use a ergonomic keyboard at work, I'd bring my own and tell anybody who has a problem with it to pound sand up their ass.

I don't mind tabbed browsing in IE, I already used it in Firefox. But IE still resembles its older self. The new word could hardly be a more radical departure and more disconnected from the previous versions.

What IE are you using? The new IE7 is absurdly put together and is far less usable than Word 2007 looks to be.

Microsoft deciding what to change when updating to IE7 -
"I have an idea, let's put the entire menu bar in a single button."
"Brilliant!"

I think that is kinda the point. Apple has proven that a similar layout is extremely efficient.

And Mac's target audience is elitists indie types.
Stupid fucking Microsoft tying to become Mac.

Engineers do not use Macs! I am an engineer. Therefore I hate Macs.

Depends what they engineer.

Personally, I love Word 2007. The tab-based menus are very intuitive once you get used to them, and more importantly they serve the function of rearranging my menus in a task-based fashion. It makes it very easy for me to shift from "writing" mode in one document to "review" mode in another--say, when I'm grading papers electronically or when I'm collaborating on a paper with someone else.

On the older versions, I had to either constantly go back and forth from one drop-down menu to another or memorize tons of not-very-intuitive keyboard shortcuts--more commonly, both.

I was using it today. Yes, it'll take some getting used to. Yes, it'll probably mean retraining. Yes, people will complain about it being vastly different.

But it's a better GUI. By far. It is much more intuitive. New users who've had little experience with old versions of Word will be able to figure out what it all does relatively easy.

Engineers do not use Macs! I am an engineer. Therefore I hate Macs.

Heh isn't that like saying I'm a white guy therfore Ihate rap music? It makes as much sense logicaly as bum!

Here it is (http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/9772/word2007fq9.jpg) at 1680x1050

doesn't look too bad to me.

if i got used to using Adobe's stunningly non-intuitive and non-user-friendly products i bet i can work that out