4 ms·
Unfortunately Office is no longer "the thing everyone knows." It has become a hideously dysfunctional mess, primarily because of UI-design defects. Style manag
by NonNefarious 4y ago
Unfortunately Office is no longer "the thing everyone knows." It has become a hideously dysfunctional mess, primarily because of UI-design defects.
Style management stands as a particular example. Now you must wade through dozens of unwanted canned styles to find the ones you've set up... if I remember correctly.
For the style mess and other UI regressions that I haven't taken the time to catalog, I switched to LibreOffice. Granted, I don't exchange Office documents with coworkers much. We use (also crappy) Confluence for most documentation; and if I just want to send a document to someone, I export to PDF.
I used to love Word. I used WordBasic to automate not only technical-documentation production, but also to parse and rewrite thousands of SQL routines on a DEC VAX system and save my company weeks of engineering time.
I hate Word now because Microsoft ruined its UI. Oh, and I detest the continual hounding to log into your "Microsoft account." Nobody wants your goddamned account, Microsoft. We all have PLENTY of accounts by now.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoPersonally, I’ve found the new UI in Word to be a massive improvement. The ribbon is way easier for me to navigate and find functionality. Then again, I’m using the macOS version. It still has a menubar for less common functionality.
- kcplate 4y agoI use Office on a Mac as well, i have zero issues with the UI and UX on the recent versions.
- NonNefarious 4y agoI think it depends on what kind of user you are. If you're doing ad-hoc formatting all the time, maybe the ribbon is OK. But if you are used to managing styles and religiously applying them and using templates, I found that the new UI sucks (on both Windows and Mac). The "ribbon" was widely mocked when it came out; I'm curious as to what you find easier about it.
- heretogetout 4y agoI wasn't a big Word user prior to the ribbon so I can't compare before and after, however I've found applying styles about as easy as it can be (select text, click the style in the ribbon). Were they in a more convenient location before?
- kayodelycaon 4y agoIf Word had styles prior to the ribbon, I didn’t know about it. I imagine very few people knew they existed.
- NonNefarious 4y agoThere was always a style drop-down in the toolbar. My experience goes back to Word for Windows (named thusly to differentiate it from the DOS version). Check it out: https://www.idgcdn.com.au/article/images/750x750/dimg/m_img_11401.jpg https://www.idgcdn.com.au/article/images/750x750/dimg/m_img_... It's the management and use of styles that I find has regressed drastically. When I press the Style drop-down, I want to see only MY styles. I don't want to scroll through a shitload of canned styles that Microsoft has laden the application with, featuring every variety of color and thickness of underline. The last time I tried Word (not that long ago), there was no way to get rid of this huge pile of crap. Word peaked at version 6, I think. Is there anything important missing from this toolbar? https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/applications/microsoft-word/microsoft-word^1993^word-for-windows-6.0-tip-of-the-day.png https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/applications/microsoft-...
- heretogetout 4y agoI've been fortunate enough that the canned styles have worked for my requirements but I can definitely see how they won't work for every case.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoThe review ribbon has been very convenient. I use it constantly as an author. Flipping between landscape and portrait and changing margins isn’t buried in an obscure dialog box. (I do this often to make signs.)