Re: Word v.X doesn't print tables properly in Panther

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Elliott Roper (nospam_at_yrl.co.uk)
Date: 03/24/04 

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 23:41:04 +0000

In article <jemcgimpsey-0D39B8.02381224032004@msnews.microsoft.com>, JE
McGimpsey <jemcgimpsey@mvps.org> wrote:

> Elliott -
>
> Sometimes I think you're spouting just to spout.
I have to use Word every day for work. I spend time on this list for
three reasons.
I can learn enough to help me get work out the door, mostly from you
MVP guys.
You and others here may have more influence than I in getting it
improved, and sometimes I might say something right that helps that
process.
I don't mind paying for that by helping the odd rare person even less
experienced than I am.

> I certainly *strongly*
> agree that
>
> - updaters should let you know that they've already been applied (or are
> otherwise unnecessary), and that
>
> -the version numbers should be in the "about" dialog,
>
> but you write as if the update process was much more convoluted that it
> really is.
<snipped long but accurate description of how to apply all the updaters
in the correct order and how to confirm how many steps there actually
are>
> I know I sometimes have trouble keeping three things in my head at once,
> but, really, if I cogitate really hard, I think can figure out the
> proper order...

The update process is still entirely unsatisfactory. Apple and others
supply combo updaters so you can go from original disks to latest
version in one move. Microsoft has done so in the past as well. The
current mess with Mac Office is as bad as I have ever seen it.

Every other major commercial piece of software I use supplies updaters
between major versions that will automatically raise any update
sub-level to the current level. I would never think of shipping
software any other way. OS X makes that easy with its pkg mechanism.

Yes, I know that sometimes Apple break their own rules, when a new kext
or a new webcore is needed along with Safari or whatever, but in
general, Office's update procedures appear baroque alongside them.
Complex as Office is, it is only a bunch of applications, not an inner
part of the operating system.

When you look at the number of correspondents here who are urged to
re-install Office as a way out their troubles, when they have to be
directed to the uninstaller in the cynically labelled "value pack", and
who then have to go through a three stage update process it is the same
as pointing out to them that Office is not yet of merchantable quality.

I am not just *spouting*. I want to see it fixed properly. I'd estimate
that a re-install would take me off productive work for half a day.
Office is marketed as a "productivity" application.

I'll lash out at the quality of Mactopia some other time. I don't want
to dilute this carefully reasoned rant. 

-- 
I thought I would be the last on earth to mangle my e-mail address.
fsnospam$elliott$$