Re: Office 2004 questions for Microsoft

From: Nate Goldshlag (nateg_at_remove_me_first_pobox.com)
Date: 02/01/04 

Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 09:36:44 -0500

In article <BC3FD10C.43F9%john@mcghie.name>, John McGhie [MVP Office
Systems -- Word] <john@mcghie.name> wrote:

> Hi Nate:
>
> > Does anybody from the Microsoft Mac Business Unit respond here?
>
> Yes, but only if you treat them nicely.
>
> > 1. Has Microsoft fixed their shoddy handling of graphics?
> > Specifically, you cannot drag a pdf with text into Word X and have it
> > print without horrible fuzzy printing. This has existed how long now -
> > 2 years?
>
> No. It was an Apple bug, and I believe Apple has fixed it.

Hello John,

Sorry but I just do not believe this. If I have a pdf I can print it
fine from Preview, Adobe Reader, and other applications. But insert it
into Word and it prints fuzzy. This is a longstanding and well known
bug. You can say it is Apple's bug all you want but I do not buy it.

>
> > 2. Has Microsoft fixed things so that Word does not take up 10% of my
> > CPU at times when it is just open, with no document open? I have a 1
> > GHz G4 Powerbook. This does not always occur, but does often.
>
> No. It was an Apple bug, and I believe Apple has fixed it. Word will
> consume slightly more CPU in the next version because it does more. In Word
> X, a lot of the smarts in the PC version code were disabled to gain more
> speed. Some of them are being put back in.
>
> Word never used 10 per cent of the CPU or anything like it, but a bug in the
> OS X system tuning parameters meant that Word "appeared" to be consuming 10
> per cent of the CPU. On older versions of the OS, Word 2004 now "appears"
> to be using 12 to 15 per cent of the CPU. However, if you start another
> application that really is using some CPU, the indication for Word drops
> back to its realistic value, which is about 0.8 per cent.

I never said it was all the time. But sometimes it is 10% with no
document open. And quite often it is way more than it should be under
other circumstances, compared to other applications. Again you are
telling me that the unix top command is lying. Maybe you think so but
I do not.

> >
> > 3. Now that the OS can convert Encapsulated PostScript to pdf, can Word
> > 2004 insert an EPS object without a preview and have it viewable on
> > screen?
>
> That's the plan. I am not sure that it's working yet.

I hope it does work.

>
> > If the answer all of these is yes I may consider upgrading.
>
> Nate, I don't want to burst any bubbles or confront any deeply-held
> political views here, but you may wish to carefully consider whether anybody
> here actually cares whether you upgrade or not. I think I know the answer.
>
> I don't think Bill is having any trouble paying the electric bill right now
> so he doesn't need your money that bad. And the rest of us don't have much
> interest in the subject.
>
> I can only speak for me: I have already upgraded. I am a beta tester for
> Word 2004. The build I have is still full of bugs and crashes and slowdowns
> and stuff that doesn't work at all, because it is in its testing phase. I
> have moved it onto my official production partition and am using it now for
> everything. I would far rather put up with the teething problems in Word
> 2004 beta than go back to Word X.
>
> But that's just me.

I never claimed anybody cares about whether or not I personally
upgrade. My point is that Word X has had some serious problems for
over 2 years that were never fixed. You can call whatever problems
there are with 2004 teething problems but you can be fairly sure that
once 2004 comes out Microsoft will not fix some real problems and users
will be stuck with what they've got. That is their history.

If Microsoft wants us to upgrade from X, and it may indeed be a
worthwhile upgrade as you say, they had better fix the problems that I
detailed and make the new features worth the hefty upgrade price.

And yes, I am someone who believes that Word 5.1 was the best Word that
Microsoft ever put out.

Nate

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