[P1] Reading word documents

[Harry D. Corsover]

On Jan 26, 2004, at 7:22 PM, Bill Sheehan wrote:

> Both will read a simple Word document.  ThinkFree Office does it 
> better.  OpenOffice is almost perfect, but only runs under X, not 
> Aqua.  If you want 100% fidelity, you need Microsoft Word.   I finally 
> weakened and bought MS Office X, and it's quite well done.

I use MS Word v.X, and often wind up cursing at Microsoft. I guess we 
have different ideas of "well done." To me, the Microsoft way is almost 
always more complicated than it needs to be. I often wonder out loud if 
they actually do any user testing with people who are not already 
indoctrinated into the Microsoft Way, and who simply want to get some 
tasks done.

The programs are very powerful and very complex. As a result, sometimes 
simple tasks are no longer simple. For instance, I've not been able to 
create a label for the USPS Priority Mail labels. My guess is that they 
didn't put effort into making this possible (I always get bogus error 
messages about paper size or margins being incorrect for the paper size 
chosen) since on Windows, it's easy to use the USPS web interface to 
create and print these labels.

 From what I've heard from some very knowledgeable folks, if you want to 
use programs like Word without the kind of frustrations I encounter 
regularly, you must buy and study third-party books on using the 
program. Personally, I have neither the time nor inclination to do so. 
I'd rather use a pen and make out the occasional Priority Mail label.

<end of rant, at least for now>

Regards,

Harry Corsover

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