Office too much for me!

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I’m now semi-retired from the computer business (after 30 years). At one time, I spent most of the day in WordPerfect DOS but over the years I used word processing less and spent more and more time programming.

I never used Office that much but when I did, Word is what I mostly used. Excel some, PowerPoint some, never Outlook, but mostly Word. And as time marched on, it became more and more like taking the anti-grav car to the corner market – 50 switches and dials for a 2 minute ride. I have no idea what 3/4 of the stuff is even for any more – Word is more like PageMaker (which I used a lot at one time as well) than it is a word processor.

What ever happened to the scaled down version of Office that Microsoft talked about as a replacement to Works? Is there any hope that us mere mortals will ever see a simple word processor and spread sheet that will work with Office documents? Something that isn’t so crammed with bells and whistles that it looks like a circus clown car ready to explode?

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Office Home & Student is about the same price as Works was, so I’m guessing it’s intended to replace it. There are alternatives to Office, as I’m sure you know, but I think they’ll still have the bells and whistles you speak of.

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can you buy that version

or is it rented monthly now like the other ms aps ?

Office Home & Student is about the same price as Works was, so I’m guessing it’s intended to replace it. There are alternatives to Office, as I’m sure you know, but I think they’ll still have the bells and whistles you speak of.

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can you buy that version

or is it rented monthly now like the other ms aps ?

RE; Office Home and Student 2013
Yes, you can buy it at walmart or online etc. I bought it last year for 2 win 7 computers. I bought the license and downloaded/installed from MS online.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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If you need something really pared down there’s always Wordpad that comes with Windows.

For something in between Wordpad and Word, take a look at AbiWord.

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abiword works on 98se and 2000 according to their website

what about xp 7 8.1
what is a medium sized WP that actually works 100% reliably on those opsys?

If you need something really pared down there’s always Wordpad that comes with Windows.

For something in between Wordpad and Word, take a look at AbiWord.

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i guess if you are really in the stone age of pcs abiword is good choice

their site indicates it stopped at win2000

AbiWord: System Requirements

This document describes the system requirements we believe necessary in order for someone on run AbiWord reasonably on his/her computer. This is a rough guide, and you may run just fine on a lower-class system than what we describe, or run poorly on a higher-end system. As always, your mileage may vary. With that said, we hope for this to be useful:

Microsoft Windows:

Windows 2000.
Windows 95, 98 and ME are no longer supported in 2.6. Use 2.4.6 instead

If you need something really pared down there’s always Wordpad that comes with Windows.

For something in between Wordpad and Word, take a look at AbiWord.

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i guess if you are really in the stone age of pcs abiword is good choice

their site indicates it stopped at win2000

AbiWord: System Requirements

This document describes the system requirements we believe necessary in order for someone on run AbiWord reasonably on his/her computer. This is a rough guide, and you may run just fine on a lower-class system than what we describe, or run poorly on a higher-end system. As always, your mileage may vary. With that said, we hope for this to be useful:

Microsoft Windows:

Windows 2000.
Windows 95, 98 and ME are no longer supported in 2.6. Use 2.4.6 instead

I just downloaded then installed AbiWord 2.8.6 from http://www.abiword.com/ on my Win10 Pro TP 64-bit Notebook, seems to have no problems. There is a later version but this is quoted from that page:
“Please note Windows users: Due to lack of Windows developers on the project, the latest version for Windows is 2.8.6. Download the installer.” It’s a small download, only 8,140KB [7.9MB] and didn’t take long.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I’m currently using Home and Student and other than it not including a couple apps it seems to be the same versions of Word and Excel.

One thing about Works was that hard drive space and memory were scarce and expensive so it made sense to have a smaller footprint product. But that’s not so much an issue now. Although with tablet alternatives becoming so common it seems like a simpler version should find a market.

I do use WordPad for some things but I’ve got to have the ability to use DOCX format and it won’t work with that.

I’ve looked at some office alternative and they seem to be equally determined to give me 25 features I don’t need for every 1 I do. AbiWord is new to me so I’ll have a look.

What would be really great is if MS created a version of Office with an interface setting for Simple, Normal, Advanced, and Insanely Complex. Even the Options in Office take 30 min to look over and a 100 pg manual to explain.

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I’m currently using Home and Student and other than it not including a couple apps it seems to be the same versions of Word and Excel.

One thing about Works was that hard drive space and memory were scarce and expensive so it made sense to have a smaller footprint product. But that’s not so much an issue now. Although with tablet alternatives becoming so common it seems like a simpler version should find a market.

I do use WordPad for some things but I’ve got to have the ability to use DOCX format and it won’t work with that.

I’ve looked at some office alternative and they seem to be equally determined to give me 25 features I don’t need for every 1 I do. AbiWord is new to me so I’ll have a look.

What would be really great is if MS created a version of Office with an interface setting for Simple, Normal, Advanced, and Insanely Complex. Even the Options in Office take 30 min to look over and a 100 pg manual to explain.

Part of the problem is that everyone needs a different subset of the functionality so we end up with everything.

I’d say, in some ways the ribbon makes it easier. Pretty much all you would need is on the Home tab, so you could ignore the others.

Another option might be the online version of the applications that come with Office 365. I know some people have objections to using these apps, but they do provide a cut-down version of each Application.

Regards
Gordon

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I agree, it’s just infuriating that it keeps switching to other tabs I never use, and have to change back. There should be some way to make Home the default.

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I like the MS ribbon approach although was awkward at first.

K

I agree, it’s just infuriating that it keeps switching to other tabs I never use, and have to change back. There should be some way to make Home the default.

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UBitMenu for Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 (http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/) is free for personal use. It adds a “Menu” tab to the ribbon that contains almost all of the Word 2003 menus and menu items (‘convert text to table’ and ‘convert table to text’ are noticeably missing, so I found them and added them to the Quick Access Toolbar). I still use it after using Word 2010 for a couple of years when the old 2003 keystroke for an action does not work in 2010 and I cannot find the action in the ribbon in a couple of minutes.

When you click the Menu tab, a ribbon similar to Word 2003’s toolbar shows up, with the 2003 Menus above it; click a menu item (Format) and almost all of the 2003 menu items are there (Format>Tabs…).

The following screenshot shows Word 2010 after clicking the up-chevron just to the left of 2010’s help-question-mark to hide the ribbon:

39497-RibbonHidden

The following screenshot shows Word 2010 after clicking the Menu tab:

39498-UbitMenu-only

The following screenshot shows Word 2010 after clicking the Format menu item on Ubitmenu’s Menu:

39499-UbitMenu-Format

Perhaps this makes Word 2010 more usable for you?

Most of 2003’s keyboard shortcuts still work ([Alt]+[O], [T] to change tab settings), but some did change; Ubitmenu gives you most of 2003’s interface, but does not cover the most of the new stuff in 2007+, and does not cover what was deleted in 2007+. So far, the ‘tabletext’ actions and ‘adjust gridlines’ (not the table gridlines) are the only 2003 actions I’ve added to my QAT.

[NO association with Ubit, just a happy customer.]

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The ribbon content is relevant to what you are doing. Stick with it…it kinda grows on you.

K

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The only decent version of Works was 4.x IMHO. But it did suffer from incompatibility.

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The only decent version of Works was 4.x IMHO. But it did suffer from incompatibility.

I’ve been using Works 4.5 for client billings for years because of the easy integration of the database with the built-in word-processor and I was dismayed (to say the least) when that was replaced by Word and nothing more than mail-merge. However, I swear that I later saw a version of Works in which the internal word-processor and its capabilities had been restored. However, I don’t know which version that might have been.

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I upgraded several years ago, from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Then Office 2007 seems to be easily upset, possible by HD cleaning that has removed some little thing that Office wanted to hang on to. So when I’d try to open an office document, I’d get a message that Office needed to reinstall something. Ten minutes later I could finally open the desired document. That happened just once too often and I vowed to get rid of Office for good. My good!

So I Downloaded and installed “Open Office” and installed it, and I’ve been happy as a pig in poop ever since.

I removed MS Office 2007 with Revo Uninstaller FREE, and I was not surprised, but horrified at how many thousands of Registry Entries, for Office 2007, it had to find and remove.

Office not only causes HD bloat, but Registry Bloat as well. I’m finally glad to be rid of it.

So, Try ‘Open Office‘. If you really don’t like it, you can always UN-Install it. No harm, No foul. It’s FREE anyway!

Cheers Mates,
The Doctor 😎

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A few years ago, I was using Revo to uninstall MS Office on a computer I picked up. I must have accidently clicked “next” before the program’s own uninstaller was done, because Revo then showed over 22,000 registry entries to be deleted. That was more than twice as many “leftover” registry entries as I had ever seen before, which was 9,000+ for “HP Market Research”, which came with a printer (doesn’t that sound like something you wouldn’t want?).

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I’ve not used Revo but certainly does sound like HP NOT clearing up after themselves “big time”. Registry bloat is essentially a newer version of win.ini bloat. There, I’m showing my age.

K

A few years ago, I was using Revo to uninstall MS Office on a computer I picked up. I must have accidently clicked “next” before the program’s own uninstaller was done, because Revo then showed over 22,000 registry entries to be deleted. That was more than twice as many “leftover” registry entries as I had ever seen before, which was 9,000+ for “HP Market Research”, which came with a printer (doesn’t that sound like something you wouldn’t want?).

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I went the Open Office route a few years ago and ran into the exact same issue. Some background… I was producing a four page, two column monthly newsletter using WorkPerfect DOS in 1989 and laying out illustrated books in PageMaker in 1991. And those products had fewer features and less complicated menus than modern Word Processors do.

How many people who use Word routinely use Themes or Styles. Everyone who knows what Citations or a Table or Authorities is, please raise their hand. These aren’t word processing features – these are publishing features.

Why include features that only 10% of the users need in a default install? Because they can and disk space is cheap and people think they are getting a bargain if they get a car with 15 cup holders and a DVD player in the back when they drive alone 95% of the time.

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How many people who use Word routinely use Themes or Styles. Everyone who knows what Citations or a Table or Authorities is, please raise their hand. These aren’t word processing features – these are publishing features.

100% of Word users use Styles. Even you. It’s unavoidable. Many, though, never bother to learn to use them properly, creating maintenance & potential corruption issues further down the line, not to mention the grief they cause when content needs to be copied into other documents – especially ones that do use Styles properly…

I use Word’s Citation and Bibliography tools quite a bit. These don’t necessarily have anything to do with publishing, but with such mundane things as writing university assignments, business reports and the like.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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100% of Word users use Styles.

100% less 1, as I have never used it.

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100% less 1, as I have never used it.

There is a default style. You use it whether you realize it or not.

Joe

--Joe

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There is a default style. You use it whether you realize it or not.

Joe

Web browsers have default styles too.

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100% of Word users use Styles. Even you. It’s unavoidable. Many, though, never bother to learn to use them properly, creating maintenance & potential corruption issues further down the line, not to mention the grief they cause when content needs to be copied into other documents – especially ones that do use Styles properly…

I use Word’s Citation and Bibliography tools quite a bit. These don’t necessarily have anything to do with publishing, but with such mundane things as writing university assignments, business reports and the like.

I think the reason to use styles in Word is similar to using Codd’s rules to normalize a database. Spend some time upfront to ease things down the road.

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Haven’t looked at this thread for a while now (in fact, I haven’t been seeing the emails saying that posts had been made until this morning (April 3rd))…..styles are VERY useful if you turn on the “style” show area (see the attached “Word_Style_Area” document for a screenshot of the area under <File/Options/Advanced/Display for how to turn these on). See the second attached file for an example of styles being showed in an active Word document. Note that the style area is only showed in Draft & Outline views.

I admit that styles in Word are maybe NOT that obvious if you haven't used them before HOWEVER once you have experimented with them a little, they are VERY useful. Styles have been in Word for a VERY long time.

One other requirement for me (to me a major need for Office) is Outlook itself. I suspect that if Outlook was available as a stand-alone program…then I could use LibreOffice for my other needs. I would think that MS is fully aware of this point.

I think the reason to use styles in Word is similar to using Codd's rules to normalize a database. Spend some time upfront to ease things down the road.

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i am guessing microslop keeps loading up its programs with more useless features to help sell it as a newer version that people would jsut buy because it is new not because it is better

it would be nice to have a separate word processor for basic documents
and separate publication type programs for fancy documents books etc.

I went the Open Office route a few years ago and ran into the exact same issue. Some background… I was producing a four page, two column monthly newsletter using WorkPerfect DOS in 1989 and laying out illustrated books in PageMaker in 1991. And those products had fewer features and less complicated menus than modern Word Processors do.

How many people who use Word routinely use Themes or Styles. Everyone who knows what Citations or a Table or Authorities is, please raise their hand. These aren’t word processing features – these are publishing features.

Why include features that only 10% of the users need in a default install? Because they can and disk space is cheap and people think they are getting a bargain if they get a car with 15 cup holders and a DVD player in the back when they drive alone 95% of the time.

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I too have Office 2007. It’s o-k-a-y….it works fine but like all MS stuff, it is bloatware. I might try Open Office, but that can wait till my next Windows reinstall…

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Libre Office also is a good choice. I have that and Open Office installed, what one cannot do, the other picks up.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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I looked at Libre as well and, again, it’s more than I want. I’m looking for less. I’m looking for simple. I don’t have the patience trying to wade through 100 different “features” to find the 5 that are really useful.

Every new version of Office has brought more features (that most people don’t use) and more complexity (that makes it harder for people to use). I’m not a technophobe – far from it having started with computers in 1972. I just detest this constant need to add more and change things. Software engineers LOVE to change things.

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I looked at Libre as well and, again, it’s more than I want. I’m looking for less. I’m looking for simple. I don’t have the patience trying to wade through 100 different “features” to find the 5 that are really useful.

Every new version of Office has brought more features (that most people don’t use) and more complexity (that makes it harder for people to use). I’m not a technophobe – far from it having started with computers in 1972. I just detest this constant need to add more and change things. Software engineers LOVE to change things.

One good thing in Office is that you can customize the interface to show only the features you want. It’s a one time effort and after that there is no need to search for anything.

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One good thing in Office is that you can customize the interface to show only the features you want. It’s a one time effort and after that there is no need to search for anything.

True. Never really took the necessary half a day to wade through everything and figure out what all the options are and what I really wanted but it might be worth the bother. Just remove it all and put back just what I want.

I did grab a little add-on a few years back that restores the old pull-down menus which are often simpler to use since they tend to put the most often used features at the top level.

For the past 20yrs, I’ve mainly done database development and have spent more time than I would care to on user interfaces. One thing I’ve learned is that simple is usually better. I usually create more than one menu and different users can be assigned different menus that just have the stuff they need.

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For the past 20yrs, I’ve mainly done database development and have spent more time than I would care to on user interfaces. One thing I’ve learned is that simple is usually better. I usually create more than one menu and different users can be assigned different menus that just have the stuff they need.

I can’t say that I have done mainly database development in the last 20 years, but it has been one of the things I have done (besides teaching database design) and I also and studied UI development, besides developing UI for many desktop and web apps, so I guess I can say we share some common ground.

UI development, for an suite such as Office, with so many such diverse users is a big challenge. There are no simple answers and customizability is a big plus for advanced users, but not so advanced users have different requirements. I believe Microsoft does a lot of UI experimentation with diverse target groups, even if sometimes we may think the results do not really show that very much :).

I confess I am an Office user and I like it a lot. Outlook, OneNote, Excel and Word are the apps I now use the most, especially the first two. There was a time I also used Access a lot, but SQL Server replaced it as the DBMS of choice for most apps that require a database backend. Office does have some great features, and I really like the features that allow cooperative work (in OneNote or Word), which is a very strong reason for using Office in the company I work for.

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UI development, for an suite such as Office, with so many such diverse users is a big challenge. There are no simple answers and customizability is a big plus for advanced users, but not so advanced users have different requirements. I believe Microsoft does a lot of UI experimentation with diverse target groups, even if sometimes we may think the results do not really show that very much :).

Microsoft (like IBM) have always had the philosophy that their products should work for any user straight “out of the box”. I give them 10 out of 10 for that, but the result is a sort of “one size fits all” product that needs to be tweaked before it suits you. The same is true of Windows itself, when you think about it.

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I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet, so in case this doesn’t get a later response:

Never really took the necessary half a day to wade through everything and figure out what all the options are and what I really wanted but it might be worth the bother. Just remove it all and put back just what I want.

You shouldn’t need the half day or removal exercise, assuming you know the features you use a lot. Each Office upgrade for me involves about half an hour of setup–find the stuff I use frequently, and add it to the Quick Access Toolbar.

simple is usually better. I usually create more than one menu and different users can be assigned different menus that just have the stuff they need.

I agree with your sentiment, and that approach also works in Office products. You can create special menus and/or special toolbars, but maybe the simplest is to create a special tab on the ribbon–eg a Fred tab, where you add in your less-used commands, those not worth a place on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Best Free Office Suite
If these options don’t suit you, and you don’t need macros, pivot tables, guaranteed compatibility when exchanging more complex layouts with external people, or online collaboration, have a read of Gizmo’s article Best Free Office Suite–it’s probably the best round-up of the free alternatives.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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One good thing in Office is that you can customize the interface to show only the features you want. It’s a one time effort and after that there is no need to search for anything.

The problem with that is the hours and hours and bookshelves of books to figure out how to customize the ribbons in all the programs and pray real hard that you don’t hide, delete or not install something in one program that will negatively impact a needed feature in another program. Microsoft Works was a perfect suite.

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I just purchased Ability Office v6. Was able to get it for 19.99. You can download a trial from http://www.ability.com. “Please let us know you are downloading version 6.0 – there’s a very good chance we’ll send you a promotional offer!” I got mine for 19.99, but through another source. I have had Office 2003 since way back because that is all I needed. Now that I am retired I just need something basic for documents and spreadsheets. It is compatible with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

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The trouble is for software publishers is, give 5 users a word processor and they each want 5 different features!

Why not try WordPad as strollin suggested? What features does it lack that you need? Knowing exactly what you need might help us guide you.

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Sorry, didn’t see your post where you say you did try WordPad.

Another suggestion — Word 2003. Create your own toolbar with your favourite features and turn off all the built in ones. It isn’t hard to do.

I guess it comes down to what you do with the program. You mentioned producing newsletters. You would have been better off with a DTP package. Word is trying to be all things to all men and that is what makes for the bloat. And its not really being ideal for a lot of its purposes.

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I’m kind of late to the game on this, but you might want to consider Google Docs or MS Office Online. Both are web based, so you’ll need an internet connection, but both are compatible with MS Office formats.

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A year ago when I bought my new laptop and sprung for 8.1 and decided to go whole hog and bought Office 13. I had Office 2002 before. I agree that word is insanely complicated when you want to do simple documents, it is difficult (impossibly?) to find some functions that were readily available before. I don’t see a problem having all the functions, just don’t cover up the everyday ones.

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I like Libre Office, and find that it works very well indeed. Here are two suggestions that others have not made yet:

For Word Processing, Atlantis Word Processor is excellent:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/

For a suite, you could check out SoftMaker Office. I am not a heavy user, but have found it able to read and write to any files produced by the MS Office Suite. You can instal the modules that you want. There are Standard and Pro versions, plus new, free apps (Word Processing, Spreadsheet and Presentation) for Android devices. And a set for Linux.
http://www.softmaker.com/english/

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Atlantis Word Processor is excellent:

Is this a free program. I can find noway to buy online but it talks about registration

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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One good thing in Office is that you can customize the interface to show only the features you want. It’s a one time effort and after that there is no need to search for anything.

I agree with most of what everyone’s said here. I go back to Multimate actually, before Wordperfect, and have used most versions of Office – currently on 2013. What I do is what Ruirib does – customize the interface with the things I use most and pretty much ignore the ribbons unless I need them for something specific and that really only happen in Excel. I actually preferred the old DOS days with one word processing program and Lotus 1-2-3 as my spreadsheet, dBase as my database builder. I could do everything then that I needed and I still use the entire “suite” in pretty much the same way, ignoring the bells and whistles I don’t need. Were it not for Terabyte hard drives “suites” wouldn’t exist. My first pc (pc3270) had a 5 MB hard drive but worked perfectly well. :^)

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That is the one thing that is still mind-boggling to me: My first hard drive was 10 megs. My first Pentium was 1.2 gigs, Now, I couldn’t even load some of the software that everyone relies so heavily upon today on a machine like that. My laptop has more power and storage than the machine that put the first man on the moon! One has to wonder whether the gains and progress match up to the changes and costs.

Chuck Billow

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Yep, my first hard drive was 10Mb also (divided into 4 2.5Mb drives as the TRS80 couldn’t handle more than 2.5 Mb for a drive size. I bought a 320Mb HD in 1991 which $1500 at the time. Personally, I’ll stick with today’s computer sizes and prices. I can handle Word/Excel if it is somewhat bloated (most people use relatively little of these programs anyway) although having used Office for many years to generate large documentation steps…I can handle most things in Word etc.

K

That is the one thing that is still mind-boggling to me: My first hard drive was 10 megs. My first Pentium was 1.2 gigs, Now, I couldn’t even load some of the software that everyone relies so heavily upon today on a machine like that. My laptop has more power and storage than the machine that put the first man on the moon! One has to wonder whether the gains and progress match up to the changes and costs.

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gsmith, here’s a possible answer: Edit Plus Pro. Presently, I use it, from the taskbar, to quick-display my scheduled scans; however, I have used it in the past to edit html files, text files, “flat” DOCs, etc. It will not do spreadsheets. Maybe do “flat” database files.
It is simple or complex, depends upon what you want it to do for you.

https://www.editplus.com/download.html — freebie is trial version, that’s why I went Pro.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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+1 for Libre Office. It will read and write MS Office formats so unless you are writing VBA code you are just fine. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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RetiredGeek, I believe OP mentioned both Libre and Open office suites being too much to meddle with. That’s why I suggested Edit Plus Pro.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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Roland,

You are correct. I just thought that with any program the OP only needs to find the “5” features he finds useful and just ignore the rest, you don’t have to know every thing to use one of these programs. Actually, I don’t think anyone knows (remembers) all the features in modern office type programs (even the people who programed it as it is usually a team) we all use a subset that fits out needs and then look up things when we need to do something new. The problem with simple programs is that eventually most people will run up against something that the program just can’t do then you are stuck with no where to turn but to learn another program. So I prefer to use a program that always has options available if I ever need them and not worry about them if I don’t. YMMV :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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MS does have focus groups that evaluate feed back and provide input on features – I have a friend who was on one for Office 2010 (IFRC). She said that one of the common issues that her group had to contend with is that they were almost universally advanced users and even “superusers” of the product. This made it nearly impossible to do one thing they were asked to do which was to evaluate the interface for “ease of use”. They all recognized that they weren’t going to be that objective when it came to the needs of average users.

Word has 9 tabs, each of which brings up a ribbon that’s the width of the window and maybe 1″ high. Each ribbon has subsections, most of which can be opened as windows with more sections and tabs and buttons which bring up different subsections. When you throw that much at a novice user, it takes about 10 seconds before their eyes glaze over and they end up with “analysis paralysis” – too much information to digest. At that point you’ve lost them. Whatever they were looking for is probably going to be forgotten and they will just muddle along as best they can in their ignorance.

By now, MS should have a fair idea as to what a basic user needs. Why not let the UI default to the basics and have an option to add stuff manually or by functional group. Any user beyond the basic should have no problem going into options and clicking a button to change the UI from basic to advanced. And speaking of options, there are sections of the IRS code that are easier to understand than some of the options.

I’m willing to bet that if WordPad would work with DOC’s, that a sizable chunk of the people who currently use Word could and would switch. Perhaps that’s why it’s limited to working with RTF’s.

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I think Write.exe can work with DOCs, but probably not DOCXs. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, ’cause I’m remembering W95-98SE.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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I think Write.exe can work with DOCs, but probably not DOCXs. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, ’cause I’m remembering W95-98SE.

The Windows7 version does, but not in V*sta. (I don’t think so anyway, though I’m happy to be corrected.) The XP version can open Word 6.0 and earlier files, though it struggles with any graphics.

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I think Write.exe can work with DOCs, but probably not DOCXs. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, ’cause I’m remembering W95-98SE.

On Win7 the write.exe file opens WordPad, ‘calls’ the version of WordPad [wordpad.exe] that comes with the Operating System and works the same in Win8/8.1 and Win10TP. The file name of write.exe is a hold-over from Windows 3.x and maybe earlier.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Write is wwwaaayyy out of date. Not even sure it would run any more.

There are a number of alternatives out there but I really don’t feel much like installing, testing, uninstalling, etc one after another. Particularly given the registry mess that would make. But it might be worth experimenting on an old computer I don’t use any more. I’ve looked at Libre and Kingsoft but haven’t actually tried them. Might be time.

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Holy cow. I just realized that WordPad works with DOCX. How in heck had I missed that. I don’t love WordPad but this opens up a whole new avenue of exploration.

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Holy cow. I just realized that WordPad works with DOCX. How in heck had I missed that. I don’t love WordPad but this opens up a whole new avenue of exploration.

If you have used earlier vns of Office and were happy, then its worth knowing that Office 2000 (and presumably 2003) can handle DOCX files (load & save) with the ‘compatibility pack’ free from MS. I am sticking with 2000, as i like its ability to customise the toolbars for each user (easily), and am more comfortable with drop-down menus than with a mess of buttons with very little apparent logic to the layout.

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If you have used earlier vns of Office and were happy, then its worth knowing that Office 2000 (and presumably 2003) can handle DOCX files (load & save) with the ‘compatibility pack’ free from MS. I am sticking with 2000, as i like its ability to customise the toolbars for each user (easily), and am more comfortable with drop-down menus than with a mess of buttons with very little apparent logic to the layout.

Just needs SP3.

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This thread, like a good TCM movie, is heading for a moooooving ending 🙂

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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Now I have to start looking for Excel lite so my work is not done. I should also mention that I’m not adverse to paying a reasonable price for software, but the cost of MS Office is high compared to how much I use it and I suspect most people fit that description.

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Check out Office 365 Personal at Compare Office products. Reasonably priced plus in addition to the Office desktop applications on 1 PC or Mac & on 1 tablet & on 1 phone you get 1 TB of cloud storage soon to be unlimited.

Joe

--Joe

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Perhaps Google docs might be a possibility

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Office 365 is just as bloated as Office is.

As for Google docs, I have an innate aversion to anything that is dependent on the internet to run. We may get there some day but for now I’ll stick to something I can run anywhere I am.

And, again, I’m not looking for something cheap as much as something simple to use with a minimum of bloat. Even some of the free stuff like Open Office and Kingsoft Office are so packed with features that it takes 5 minutes just to find something people use everyday.

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As for Google docs, I have an innate aversion to anything that is dependent on the internet to run. We may get there some day but for now I’ll stick to something I can run anywhere I am.

There are offline version of the Google Apps. I’m pretty much completely switched from Office to Google Docs. They’re not as feature-packed as Office, but they have everything I need. I like that they’re in the “cloud” — not only do I never have to worry about backup, but I can access my docs from any internet connected computer in the world. Need to update something in Paris? Stop in an Internet cafe (grab a coffee) and log into my Google account, et voilà, I have all my docs right there. The icing on the cake is the collaboration features — there is nothing in the Office world that matches Google Docs for collaboration.

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The only internet thing you are dependent on for Office 365 to run is that approximately once a month make sure you are connected to validate your subscription so the desktop applications do not go into reduced functionality mode. You are not forced to use the cloud storage. The desktop programs you are used to are still installed on the PC. You are free to save files wherever you please. If the various Office programs are too complex for you I doubt you’ll find anything that will be OK with you. All the other options shoot for 80% – 90% functional parity with Office.

Joe

--Joe

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The only internet thing you are dependent on for Office 365 to run is that…

I was aware of that. I was speaking of Google docs regarding the internet. Probably should have started a new paragraph to make that more clear.

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I still vote for Edit Plus Pro for all his day to day text or doc needs 🙂

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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I have Office 2010 on my newest Win 7 computer. I only use Word, Excel, & PowerPoint. That’s it, I don’t need all the other stuff like Access, One note, etc. I tried to uninstall just the parts I don’t use, but no dice, it was all or nothing. I also have Office 2003 on my old XP laptop and I like it a lot better – it allowed me to just install Word, Excel, & PowerPoint. I am pretty good with Office 2003 because that’s what I used at my job before I retired. Now, what I really like is Lotus Smartsuite ’97 since that is the first program I used at home. It came with an IBM computer I bought in 1997, and I still use it and prefer it over Office for my own personal use (like my budget). It works just fine along side of the Office 2003 on my XP laptop too. I realize this is not helping you but there are alternatives if you don’t absolutely have to have the latest and not necessarily the greatest Office suite. I mainly only use my Office 2010 to read Word, Excel, & PowerPoint files. I also use the new Win 7 Wordpad whenever I can, and redirected rtf files to open in Wordpad. Good luck!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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@CEScott,

If you have the traditional MSI install of Office 2010 (as opposed to click-to-run) you can selectively install or uninstall components. If I recall correctly, go to Control Panel | Programs | Uninstall a Program. Select Office. I think there is a change option. You should be able to select the availability of any Office component.

Joe

--Joe

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Now, what I really like is Lotus Smartsuite ’97 since that is the first program I used at home

I have Lotus SmartSuite 9.8 but have opted for the latest which is free. IBM bought Lotus some time back and provides IBM Lotus Symphony free for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/preconfig.jsp?id=2009-11-02+07%3A06%3A55.339367R&S_TACT=104CBW71&S_CMP=
It obviously doesn’t have everything SmartSuite did.

Lotus Symphony is a set of applications for creating, editing, and sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Thanks Joe – all I know is that I have Office Professional Plus 2010 and I did what you said and I did get the change option, but when I got into it the options were complicated. Nothing simple here, ie it didn’t look like you could just uninstall Access or whatever. I didn’t want to risk messing things up so I got out. I’ll have to do some more research into the help and see what it says.

Berton – Lotus SmartSuite ’97 was very easy to learn and I love those Smart Icons that you can add or remove from the bar, so everything you commonly do is right there, no searching through menus, etc. Very neat. I still prefer it for what I do at home. It was made to work on Win 95, but works on XP to my surprise. Thanks.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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When installing Office, a Custom installation will allow you to install just the components you want. Even after installing, you can add/delete components via Start > Windows Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office 2010 > Change.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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CEScott, I just installed SmartSuite 9.8 Millennium Edition ©2002 on Win10 Pro TP build 9926, basics gave no problem. There was an issue letting the autorun process start the install, something about not being able to access the Registry, but manually running setup.exe from File Manager worked.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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@CEScott,

When you get to the point where the various Office programs are listed, next to each is a small arrow. Click on it and you should get a menu of options. One will be “Run from this computer”. That is what your current setup is. You need to change it to one of the “Not available on this PC” (that is almost certainly not the wording but should be something similar. You can repeat for each application you want to change.

Joe

--Joe

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Berton, wow, that’s great! Now I know that I will be able to continue using SmartSuite on the newer OS’s. It will probably run on my Win 7 machine. Thanks.

Joe, thanks for that info. I’ll give it another try and see what happens. Any idea what happens to the MS updates and security patches for that part or parts removed? Also, can I make those parts active again if I want to sometime in the future? I’m assuming I can.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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As far as I know, everything about the programs is removed. You certainly can make those parts active again later if desire.

Joe

--Joe

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I would highly recommend Kingsoft Office (http://www.kingsoftstore.com/software/kingsoft-office-freeware) which seems to have now changed its name to WPS Office.
It is a full office suite but is very much smaller than MS Office. It can open docx etc files.

Charlie

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A couple updates…

Semi-retired has been a joke for the past 3 weeks – fully employed is more like it – so I haven’t been able too spend much time trying what’s been suggested. But I did play with Word Pad a bit editing a section of a user manual I’m working on. I get the ominous warning that “WordPad does not support all of the features…” but the world didn’t seem to end and everything looked as it should, even a couple images. I also found it can be changed to default to DOCX as it’s format. Progress…

One thing lacking from WordPad that could present a problem is some kind of basic spell checker. This is so fundamental to word processing that it’s really a glaring omission.

As to the suggestion of using EditPlus, it doesn’t work with DOCX which is something I need. I actually do use NotePad++ already and keep a lot of coding notes as TXT files, but that’s still not a full time replacement.

I did have a look at WPS (aka Kingsoft) Office and the fact that there is an iPad version got my interest. The interface is definitely cleaner looking so I need to look at this as an option and may install a copy on a Win7 computer I don’t use much any more.

I generally like the concept of Google Docs and even Office 365 and really need to have a closer look. I’m interested to see if they scale down well.

Regarding the options on installation, while it is true that you can choose what to install or not install that doesn’t extend to the UI which is where I find the main issue. And anyone who has gone down the advanced install route probably knows that this is yet another case of “way too many choices”. MS almost needs to do a make over of the installer and put in Basic, Advanced, and SuperGeek options.

Thanks for the suggestions. Let’s meet for coffee soon. First round is on me.

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A couple updates…

One thing lacking from WordPad that could present a problem is some kind of basic spell checker. This is so fundamental to word processing that it’s really a glaring omission.

I’ve noticed that one major word processing suite is ignored. Wordperfect is still around. It will save to Word formats, you can install only what you want, and there is a spell checker. And added bonus is that the program and files don’t take up much space. If you decide to buy, be sure to see if you qualify for the upgrade pricing.

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I’ve noticed that one major word processing suite is ignored. Wordperfect is still around. It will save to Word formats, you can install only what you want, and there is a spell checker. And added bonus is that the program and files don’t take up much space. If you decide to buy, be sure to see if you qualify for the upgrade pricing.

You are right on. I have used WordPerfect since WPDOS5.1 and bought WP Office X6 on Ebay to replace X3 which had a few problems on Win 8.1 although none of them were serious. The basic philosophy of WP and the Reveal Codes screen are truly great.

If you like WPDOS there is an excellent way to run it on Win 7 and up detailed on this site: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/ You can edit your files with the text-based interface and print them out on your Windows printer. You can even (with a little massaging) use long filenames.

I would like to see a decent database program for Windows without all the overhead and complications of Access. We don’t always need a relational database.

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A couple updates…

Semi-retired has been a joke for the past 3 weeks – fully employed is more like it – so I haven’t been able too spend much time trying what’s been suggested. But I did play with Word Pad a bit editing a section of a user manual I’m working on. I get the ominous warning that “WordPad does not support all of the features…” but the world didn’t seem to end and everything looked as it should, even a couple images. I also found it can be changed to default to DOCX as it’s format. Progress…

One thing lacking from WordPad that could present a problem is some kind of basic spell checker. This is so fundamental to word processing that it’s really a glaring omission.

gsmith-plm – Try adding TinySpell to your PC. It will give you the spell check that is lacking in any program. That way WordPad may work for you.
http://download.cnet.com/TinySpell/3000-2079_4-10507622.html

-Dimsdale

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The problem with wanting “less” in a word processor or spreadsheet program is which “5 features” one person likes versus the next. I suspect that the OP will not find exactly what he is looking for.

I use Office 2013 on my desktop and Libre Office on my laptop. Yes, I know that Libre Office is “too much” for the OP, but it is quite easy to use if the OP only wants “basic” letter writing etc and you can’t beat the price.

Generating Powerpoint presentations on the desktop PC and then reading them on the laptop when out teaching was handled better by LibreOffice than OpenOffice. OO didn’t understand colors used in the Powerpoint presentation…LO did.

Hope this helps some.

K

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Just saw this over at MajorGeeks. http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ssuite_lemon_juice.html
It may be just what you are looking for. Not many reviews that I could find. Too tired right now to test it, but may be a guinea pig tomorrow.
**No actual animals will be used in testing this software!**
I gave it a try, the photo app kept crashing, the word app and spreadsheet app worked ok. I would be more comfortable with wordpad for basic writing, however the free spreadsheet app looked nice. Did not need it so uninstalled with Revo Uninstaller.

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Try this:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/register.htm

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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As with others that have posted here, I started using WordPerfect when it was a DOS program and it was a company called WordPerfect. Now of course there are many word processor programs that are good but not able to spend advertising dollars to combat Word from MicroSlob. Basically we have WordPerfect from Corel and WordImperfect from MS.

As was mentioned earlier, at install time in WordPerfect, we choose which parts are to be installed. The various modules can be installed and will not effect speed or clutter or size till used.

MS’s posture is to load up Word with a bunch of “features” that few want, but will cause WordPerfect to have to meet the competition. It muddies the water when trying to evaluate word processors to see which best meets the needs of an organization. Organizations which will evaluate the needs of the organization will find that most word processors will meet the needs. Comparing word processors against Word does not evaluate which will be best for an organization.

When I retired 15 years ago, I was working for a very large organization that has 20,000 or more computers spread all over the world. That company had used WordPerfect since the days of DOS on every computer world wide starting before Word was invented. The only reason Word was invented was to put WordPerfect and one or two others out of business. At that company where I worked, MS proposed that they should cease using WordPerfect and MS would give them a great deal on Windows licenses. The deal was so good that the company went along with that vicious marketing tool. Shame on them, shame on MS! Instead of purchasing software based on the needs of the organization, software purchases are now based on the needs of MS!

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It’s a dog eat dog world, partner. I used WordPerfect extensively back in the Win 3.1 days. It was an awesome product back then…far better then MS Word etc. BUT, WordPerfect just didn’t keep up. I am not a MS defender by any means. BUT, one has to admit that MS (rightly or wrongly) did a great job with marketing Office over the years.

I used Office at work for many years and admit that it has a learning curve if you don’t use it a lot, but if you want a good email client (I still prefer to do this versus web-based email use…although use web-based when traveling)…then Office is really it nowadays (since Outlook Express went away).

The GUI issue for MS (as earlier posters pointed out) is that whatever MS do, it is not right for someone. Therefore, I would think that the battles at MS are frequent in the Office GUI team. When I first installed Office 2013…it took a little while to get used to it (I still do not like “you can have any of three shades of gray that you want color style for 2013), but it doesn’t take too much to get used to it…even if you have simple needs. Office 2013 help system is very good.

Having retired after 44 years as a software developer, I sympathize (to a degree) with what MS must go through trying to do GUI development for the masses – this is impossible to get right. I hope the next version of Office doesn’t change all over again.

Anyways, my ranting is over now. I admit that I learned quite a lot about other Office type products in this thread, so thank everyone for that. I do teach a computer basics class locally, so can use some of this data for alternatives for the classes. I didn’t know that WordPad would read DOCX files…interesting.

I do use Office a reasonable amount (even in retirement – especially Outlook) and do not find it overkill for my needs (which are relatively simple in retirement). However, I used Office a lot over the years when doing military and federal documentation for various software systems. For me, buying Office before I retired for $21 was a big deal). MS offers this for employees major licensers of its products…so if anyone is retiring soon and wants Office …check it out.

Regards,

K

As with others that have posted here, I started using WordPerfect when it was a DOS program and it was a company called WordPerfect. Now of course there are many word processor programs that are good but not able to spend advertising dollars to combat Word from MicroSlob. Basically we have WordPerfect from Corel and WordImperfect from MS.

As was mentioned earlier, at install time in WordPerfect, we choose which parts are to be installed. The various modules can be installed and will not effect speed or clutter or size till used.

MS’s posture is to load up Word with a bunch of “features” that few want, but will cause WordPerfect to have to meet the competition. It muddies the water when trying to evaluate word processors to see which best meets the needs of an organization. Organizations which will evaluate the needs of the organization will find that most word processors will meet the needs. Comparing word processors against Word does not evaluate which will be best for an organization.

When I retired 15 years ago, I was working for a very large organization that has 20,000 or more computers spread all over the world. That company had used WordPerfect since the days of DOS on every computer world wide starting before Word was invented. The only reason Word was invented was to put WordPerfect and one or two others out of business. At that company where I worked, MS proposed that they should cease using WordPerfect and MS would give them a great deal on Windows licenses. The deal was so good that the company went along with that vicious marketing tool. Shame on them, shame on MS! Instead of purchasing software based on the needs of the organization, software purchases are now based on the needs of MS!

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Thanks “Partner.” I started my computer work in the late 1960s by working for hours/days at an IBM 029 keypunch and have been in computers ever since through all the generations. Yes, in my earlier years I was a devoted fan of WordPerfect–you could reveal codes exactly as written and edit in that small code window at the bottom. Now that Word has taken over the business/academic world and I’m forced to depart from WP except for special needs. I must write that I use Word about 98% of my working hours for writing scholarly documents and editing doctoral dissertations, for obvious reasons; however, I’d go back to WP in an instant if possible. Granted I’m one who doesn’t frequently plow through the Help options mainly because many of them don’t completely answer my questions/frustrations. Then at the end, MS has the gall to ask me if their answers were helpful–ha. When hard at work advising/editing a PhD dissertation do they expect me to take more time to tell them why their Help wasn’t helpful? I’ve worked with Word for so many years in graduate academia that I’m mostly comfortable with its idiosyncrasies and complexities that I do ok with it most of the time. However, a couple of things that drive me nuts and I think could be simplified are: (1) Structuring outline procedures with easily set and consistent indents plus standardizing and clearly explaining their hierarchies and line spacing when moving from separate documents or crossing sections in a single document. I like Word’s bubble/comment feature; however, it also can be irritating when you can’t control colors and must go through a “procedure” in order to gain standardized font settings and bubble response settings from students. Actually, my main complaints with MS Word deal with ease and consistency of formatting and the complexities of their “normal template” so that I can depend on the same document structure appearing every time I open a new or freshly-written document sent to me by a student. I expect that most professional secretaries use only about 20% of Word’s power—do most of us really need all of the sophisticated “stuff” MS has packed into Word? On the other hand, I appreciate Outlook although they have also made it extra complicated and fragile. Excel and PowerPoint are my favorites and I have very few complaints with these programs. I’d just as soon they would trash Access as it could be much easier to work with. OneNote is excellent but if you have ever screwed it up, expect to spend several weeks in getting it back in shape. The remainder of MS Office is mostly useless to me. I’m a professor and PhD in a major university using Windows 7 Pro on a 64-bit machine and MS Office 2010 wherein I’ll continue to use for a considerable number of years. MS, please stop your frequent shoving of new versions of Windows, etc. at me for big $$$.

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I hear you there. Most of the time when creating new documents with Word in the past (having got a previous one setup just the way I like)…I make a copy of the previous document stripping out all of the main content (but leaving the TOC, Lists of Figures and Tables intact) and start the “new” document there.

WP was always better at generating TOC etc and keeping the format intact compared to Word (well, it was last time I used WP – which was many years ago). Getting a document sent to you, of course, is another whole matter. I imagine that many students do not handle Word and use Styles very well?

Setting up (and regenerating TOC etc was not a big problem for me). Lists of tables and figures always annoyed me as Word insisted in putting the text “Figure” or “Table” on each line when regenerating those lists. I never found a way of stopping Word from doing that. I looked at this quite a lot at one time (some years ago now). I ended up just not generating those lists frequently (only when needing document review) and the generated the lists and then used search and replace to remove “Figure” and Table” from each generated line. WP never had this problem from the get-go.

K

Thanks “Partner.” Actually, my main complaints with MS Word deal with ease and consistency of formatting and the complexities of their “normal template” so that I can depend on the same document structure appearing every time I open a new or freshly-written document sent to me by a student.

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I just wanted to clarify something. A number of people have rightly pointed out that each user has their own favorite 5 features. Some like automatically bulleted lists which I detest, some use styles a lot while I don’t. IOW, different things float different boats. It’s not so much an issue of features as it is an issue of clutter.

Here is a simple example… On the old drop down menus, you could get the Tabs dialog box directly from the Format menu. Now, you have to go the Home tab, Open the Paragraph dialog, then to to the Tab button on the bottom. Much of what MS has crowded onto the Ribbon are layout tools which makes it harder to find the things that every basic word processor has had since day one. Word has gone from being a word processor to being a publishing program. Why?

I remember a study that was done in the 90’s that compared college papers from people using a DOS word processor to those using a Mac word processor. What they generally found was that the Mac documents were visually much more appealing but that the DOS documents had more substance. You can draw your own conclusions but many saw this as an issue of time management – what do you spend your time on, substance or appearance.

I’m sitting here, at this moment, writing this post in a really basic word processor. It has spell check, lets me copy and paste, bold, italic, underline, change font size, insert pictures, and more. I’m mainly concerned here with substance, but can fancy it up a little if I wish. I’d be willing to guess that for many people who own Office, that’s all they need.

WordPad can do a few more things but can’t spell check without an add in (thanks to the person who mentioned one) but it looks like it would do a lot of things that most people need. I just have to wonder who thought that a default line spacing of 1.15 with 10pt space after a CR was a good idea but didn’t think that giving the user the option of setting that default was worth the bother.

I really need to look at Libre Office again. I’ve looked at some online images and it looks like you can turn on and off a number of additional panels and bars to add or remove blocks of features. That would definitely help with the clutter.

Just out of curiosity, I put WPS office on my iPad last night and linked it to my Dropbox and was able to create a small DOCX that I could then open with WordPad on my laptop. So WPS office is definitely on the list.

Getting back to the question of which 5 features, it’s a really valid point but I suspect that the folks at MS should be able to tell me what features they consider to be basic, advanced, and specialized. If they can’t then they may be really out of touch with the people buying their products. Imagine if a car maker decided to put a racing car guage set in their minivans because they wanted to appeal to race fans.

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I understand your pain, I really do. Maybe MS should offer the settings that would allow your “basic, advanced and specialized” scenarios. I could see that as being a good thing. However, I suspect that MS would never get buy-in as to what to put where. I know many other developers that hate working on GUIs as you can’t please everyone. Kinda reminds me of contracting in the Government world…where you hear about “bring me a rock syndrome”. When one asks the Government “what kind of rock would you like?”…the answer is “I don’t know, but I’ll know it when I see it” (that comes from retiring from a 3 letter Government agency but having worked as a contractor for may years also).

Good luck with your efforts to find what you need. I have really enjoyed and learned from others in this thread.

K

I just wanted to clarify something. A number of people have rightly pointed out that each user has their own favorite 5 features. Some like automatically bulleted lists which I detest, some use styles a lot while I don’t. IOW, different things float different boats. It’s not so much an issue of features as it is an issue of clutter.

Here is a simple example… On the old drop down menus, you could get the Tabs dialog box directly from the Format menu. Now, you have to go the Home tab, Open the Paragraph dialog, then to to the Tab button on the bottom. Much of what MS has crowded onto the Ribbon are layout tools which makes it harder to find the things that every basic word processor has had since day one. Word has gone from being a word processor to being a publishing program. Why?

I remember a study that was done in the 90’s that compared college papers from people using a DOS word processor to those using a Mac word processor. What they generally found was that the Mac documents were visually much more appealing but that the DOS documents had more substance. You can draw your own conclusions but many saw this as an issue of time management – what do you spend your time on, substance or appearance.

I’m sitting here, at this moment, writing this post in a really basic word processor. It has spell check, lets me copy and paste, bold, italic, underline, change font size, insert pictures, and more. I’m mainly concerned here with substance, but can fancy it up a little if I wish. I’d be willing to guess that for many people who own Office, that’s all they need.

WordPad can do a few more things but can’t spell check without an add in (thanks to the person who mentioned one) but it looks like it would do a lot of things that most people need. I just have to wonder who thought that a default line spacing of 1.15 with 10pt space after a CR was a good idea but didn’t think that giving the user the option of setting that default was worth the bother.

I really need to look at Libre Office again. I’ve looked at some online images and it looks like you can turn on and off a number of additional panels and bars to add or remove blocks of features. That would definitely help with the clutter.

Just out of curiosity, I put WPS office on my iPad last night and linked it to my Dropbox and was able to create a small DOCX that I could then open with WordPad on my laptop. So WPS office is definitely on the list.

Getting back to the question of which 5 features, it’s a really valid point but I suspect that the folks at MS should be able to tell me what features they consider to be basic, advanced, and specialized. If they can’t then they may be really out of touch with the people buying their products. Imagine if a car maker decided to put a racing car guage set in their minivans because they wanted to appeal to race fans.

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MS offers this for employees major licensers of its products.

K
Where would I find out about this?

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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K
Where would I find out about this?

It probably is in the Volume Licensing or Enterprise versions that companies buy due to the number of computers and employees.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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berton/wavy,

This is covered for large entities that have volume purchase/licensing agreements – the exact details I’m not sure. So, the person to talk to is the contract/software purchasing person in your corporation/agency. I suspect that just about everyone in Government employ is eligible for this as long as MS still offers it. Lockheed also got it when I worked there.

I don’t know for sure whether MS still do this but they have been doing it for quite a few years. Visio (when I ordered it close to 2 years ago) was available for the same $20/21.

Regards,

K

It probably is in the Volume Licensing or Enterprise versions that companies buy due to the number of computers and employees.

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It’s not so much an issue of features as it is an issue of clutter.

If the QAT I mentioned above doesn’t solve clutter, do you know you can get rid of any tabs you don’t want on the ribbon? R-click any tab name and select Customize ribbon, then untick the boxes on the right.

Now, you have to go the Home tab, Open the Paragraph dialog, then to to the Tab button on the bottom.

You don’t “have to” anything if you put your main functions on the QAT or a ribbon tab you customized for yourself.

Libre Office … it looks like you can turn on and off a number of additional panels and bars to add or remove blocks of features. That would definitely help with the clutter.

See above re turning off / adding ribbon tabs.

the folks at MS should be able to tell me what features they consider to be basic, advanced, and specialized.

I agree with your Basic-Advanced-Pro idea. What I read somewhere years ago is that MS use the data they collect from installs [you know, the “allow MS to collect anonymous usage data” thing you can accept or decline somewhere] to guide them re which are the most frequently used functions, and then make them most easily available. That’s a reasonable approach I think.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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K,

AMEN! I carried a lot of ROCKS in my working days also at a 3 letter agency and as a contractor! I can feel your pain! :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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99% less 1.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Just how many times can a wheel be re-invented before it becomes a rock again? Microsoft will be sure to show us!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Jarte has gone unmentioned, so far, and it has had a recent upgrade to 5.3. I highly recommend it in light of the various complaints expressed in the thread to this point. Jarte Featureswill explain it best. It helps if you happen to have WordWeb, as I do.

yWriter5 is a delightfully offbeat book-authoring word processor from a writer of juvenile literature. If you (or any kids you know) want to learn to write, this includes tutorial matters and all manner of things.

Atlantis is definitely in a class of its own, and it’s very high on my list, but for a special reason that could be adopted by other word processors, and probably can be if readers catch on and care to share the secret of how to do it.

Atlantis includes sound effects, including what appears to be the sound of a conventional (meaning old-fashioned) typewriter, which is a great joke for a few minutes, but a fabulous enhancement if you use it for a time. There are two reasons for that – one is that if your spellchecker is turned on you get a raspberry, of sorts, every time you make a mistake, thereby providing audio feedback on your accuracy, and the typing sounds help you get your keyboarding speed up, so that you can get the speed up balanced against accuracy. Audio feedback can drive you crazy or smooth your workflow, with a lot in between, but this is a feature that no other word-processor that I’m aware of has, and there may be a very high-end potential to that.

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I am unable to discern if the challenge is in the application or the task.

What can you change?

What’s more important – writing, revision, or publishing?
What about reading and/or reusing old files?
Is the task limited to one file of text-based content?

Limited to one such file, I can live with Notepad. In Win 8.1 update, Notepad allows Save As UTF8. But for me, limiting the task to one file is retro.

Allow me to frame my remarks in terms of writing and reuse. My primary is writing – input and editing. Second is revision of layout and format. Publishing is a variable – print to PDF or HTML.

For me, neither Word or Open Office Writer is my first choice. I have had no experience with Corel WordPerfect for many years, but I loved Quattro Pro, and learned about events bubbling up in Paradox OPAL.

Return to the issue of task, for me Open Office Calc is satisfactory. Spreadsheets are irreplaceable in my needs. Wordprocessors and presentation programs are replaceable.

Print to Acrobat XI and print to paper are the same to me. With HTML, I rely on CSS for print to paper.

From my current experiences with Word 2007 and everyday Word users, Word to HTML is a pipe dream – the political will is not evident.

I learned styles in WordPerfect for DOS. I am pragmatic about using styles – depends on where the content will be viewed. My favorite wordprocessor was Framemaker 8. Currently, I do writing in Komodo Edit, ActiveState’s community edition of Komodo IDE. Ie. I write in a ‘Reveal codes’ mode.

Turn left here, and look back before windows to 800×640 and full screen DOS WordPerfect. Previously, one had to switch the view window between ‘Reveal codes’ and WYSIWYG.

Nowadays, one can have two windows tiled and see both at the same time. I don’t know if this is possible with modern WordPerfect. But I can do this with HTML in a Komodo Edit window, and the web page in a web browser window.

Now turn back, and then, right, and consider how your file will be used. For me, there is no collaboration, so choice of application(s) is much wider. If your file is part of a workflow across multiple users/commenters, then there are complications.

I am curious about such workflows. Recently read “APE How to Publish a Book” by Guy Kawasaki. He’s from Hawaii, and I met him once. The book showed up in my local brick-n-mortar, so I contributed.

APE How to Publish a Book
Author Publisher Entrepreneur
ISBN 978-0-9885231-0-4
page 48 Chapter 5 Tools for Writers
“First, Word is the de facto standard among designers, editors, resellers, PR consultants, and beta testers….
Second, Word can track the changes, comments of people who have reviewed your manuscript….
Third, Word allows you to assign styles to format your manuscript….”
page 57 Chapter 5 Tools for Writers
“Summary –
Let’s cut to the essentials: write with Microsoft Word on a MacBook Air, and use Evernote, Dropbox, and YouSendIt….”

Turning back again, is DOCX important because of some XML app or because it’s the default Word format? If the former, then you may have to limit yourself to MS Word. I have opened Word DOCX files in Apache Open Office 4.0 Writer, the layout has gone astray. Maybe 4.1 is better.

If the DOCX is your choice when saving in Word, then I suggest you consider a new workflow. Depends on if you need your old files in DOCX. Years ago, after multiple upgrades and changes in office suites, I changed my workflows, and for content I expected to need to view into the future, selected generic file formats. Like TXT, XLS, HTML, and PDF. Or, linked the content in a HTML container.

For PDF, I have been purchasing Adobe Acrobat since version 3. I want a PDF with selectable text.

Is the challenge in the application or the task?

For me, it’s the task. Nowadays, I’m into structured programming ala Notepad.

Afterthought 1 – When I confronted the ribbon in Office 2007 Excel, I began relearning the keystroke sequences for my common tasks. The new keystroke sequences are often shorter.

Afterthought 2 – Years ago, we laid bricks to lessen weeding. It worked, now the weeds only grow between the bricks. Now weeding occurs with a screwdriver to expand the space between the bricks, and an ice pick to loosen and lift the weeds. A new technology.

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Structured programming in Notepad? Sounds very retro to me.

Personally, I cannot for the life of me understand doing any software development in Notepad. But, then again I only wrote software for 44 years…what do I know…LOL

K

Nowadays, I’m into structured programming ala Notepad.

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Structured programming in Notepad? Sounds very retro to me.

Personally, I cannot for the life of me understand doing any software development in Notepad. But, then again I only wrote software for 44 years…what do I know…LOL

K

I’m not a real software developer. I once delved into tools like Turbo Pascal, then three versions of C++ Builder, but gave up. My interest now lies more in personal productivity like Perl scripts for file management or batch searches.

So for me, “structured programming ala Notepad” reflects my belief that digital content for paper printer output or web browser rendering can share structure (HTML) and formatting (CSS). And extend beyond one file or one application. Which has led me to plain text and semantic groupings. I thought “structured programming ala Notepad” sounded better than “plain text and semantic groupings”. Or word-processing.

I share gsmith-plm’s desire for a simpler application for everyday writing, but I have decided the application category containing Word was no longer the best place to look. So I redefined the task, and I’m back in plain text with structure to mitigate formatting changes, and little else.

In college I had a math prof who told us learning was retrogressive. In terms of word-processing, not desktop publishing, and my personal content management system, … yes, structured programming ala Notepad is retro.

Is a functional programming paradigm retro too?

gsmith-plm I share your dissatisfaction with Word, because I don’t enjoy everything it can do. I decided to punt.

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Well, WRT to your question below…..the notion of “functional programming paradigm” seems, to me, very “educationally stated”. In the real world of software development nowadays, anywhere that I have worked (commercial, military and federal workspaces) use tools specifically related to software development (the likes of Rational Developer, Visual Studio etc).

People get on with the work and code to known standards in their specific environment (often suggested or dictated by military or federal contracts). Unfortunately, nobody really agrees on what standards should be used. Common sense programming styles tend to be used most. I just had a younger developer that I worked with in the federal workspace (he was straight out of school when I met him and very sharp) recently praise the fact that I pushed coding styles, comments and module headers for code that had to “last a long time”. Typically, this type of code has to be maintained by someone else.

So, this URL (http://people.cs.aau.dk/~normark/prog3-03/html/notes/paradigms_themes-paradigm-overview-section.html#paradigms_functional-paradigm-overview_title_1) looks at different paradigms but IRL…people do what makes sense for the language and platform that they are working on.

Regards,

K

Is a functional programming paradigm retro too?

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Well, WRT to your question below…..the notion of “functional programming paradigm” seems, to me, very “educationally stated”…..
…
So, this URL (http://people.cs.aau.dk/~normark/prog3-03/html/notes/paradigms_themes-paradigm-overview-section.html#paradigms_functional-paradigm-overview_title_1) looks at different paradigms but IRL…people do what makes sense for the language and platform that they are working on.

gsmith-plm – My apologies if you feel I strayed off-topic. This will be my last entry in this thread.

kevmeist – Thanks for the link.

“educationally stated” is not me. I’m not credentialed.

For me, personal computing is the big thing. My idea of programming is looser than kevmeist’s.

I still enjoy using my computer, and “programming” to make my life easier. For me, that’s personal computing.

For me, access to my personal computer, the internet, and software to purchase, is more valuable than TV. The TV is an appliance, my laptop is more than an appliance. My computer activities are more idiosyncratic than TV, or social media. Like programming.

It was in this vein that I entered this thread. I share gsmith-plm’s position, “Too much stuff, it’s getting in my way”, and presumed my alternative viewpoint might have some value. MS Word has it’s place, but tasks change, and application and comfort levels may diverge. Does WYSIWYG apply on the web?

Moving content across the web changed the value proposition of applications like MS Word or Corel WordPerfect.

So did cheaper storage. Do I want a special program to find my stuff?

I am considered an IT guy. My work experience is between the software and the end user. Compared to software development, my needs, resources, and audience, differ.

Note: I don’t program Visual Basic in Word.

For the “programming” I do, I owe everything to programmers like kevmeist. My efforts take place between his output and the end user. Often I am the end user as well.

My programmed personalizations, or applications, have taken place over many years, different operating systems, and so-called vertical applications. In each instance, I was dependent on software developers like kevmeist.

My interest in the functional programming paradigm is that of a cook, or a farmer. A matter of perspective. More curious philosophical than educational. My formal education was a BA in math.

Haskell is a pure functional language. Watched videos on Haskell. Read a book on it too. In Haskell, output is a side-effect. To me, that’s hilarious. I got interested. Still reading, not doing.

Maybe it’s educational, but in a free form, unfocused, and child-mind, way. College is not in my future.

I first ran into functional programming years ago, in a Perl book “Higher-Order Perl” by Mark Jason Dominus. Read it; I didn’t get it. I didn’t refactor my procedures. No time.

Along the way, I checked out MSDN –
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb669144.aspx

And years later, I ran into this video series of 11 lectures. I think these are presentations to Microsoft’s developers, “Video lectures using the above powerpoint slides for each chapter were given by Erik Meijer on Microsoft’s Channel 9”. The first video “introduction” –
http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C9-Lectures-Erik-Meijer-Functional-Programming-Fundamentals/Lecture-Series-Erik-Meijer-Functional-Programming-Fundamentals-Chapter-1

So maybe not “functional programming” as a notion “educationally stated”, but as an alternative viewpoint in problem definition.

So tools like Word are no longer integral in my workflows. Personally, I can avoid it. Plain text is dominant, the choices are broader.

gsmith-plm, Happy Saturday. Muchos mahalos.
kevmeist, Muchos mahalos.

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You are right, my “personal” is not your “personal”. I appreciated your comments as it gives me an idea of what others do with their “confusers”.

The trouble is, mentioned by both me and others before, is that whatever MS do with their GUIs…there will be someone that doesn’t like it. Software development is not like Burger King…many times (most?) you can’t have it your way….LOL

I have enjoyed this discussion a lot and thank all the posters for their contributions.

K

gsmith-plm – My apologies if you feel I strayed off-topic. This will be my last entry in this thread.

kevmeist – Thanks for the link.

“educationally stated” is not me. I’m not credentialed.

For me, personal computing is the big thing. My idea of programming is looser than kevmeist’s.

I still enjoy using my computer, and “programming” to make my life easier. For me, that’s personal computing.

For me, access to my personal computer, the internet, and software to purchase, is more valuable than TV. The TV is an appliance, my laptop is more than an appliance. My computer activities are more idiosyncratic than TV, or social media. Like programming.

It was in this vein that I entered this thread. I share gsmith-plm’s position, “Too much stuff, it’s getting in my way”, and presumed my alternative viewpoint might have some value. MS Word has it’s place, but tasks change, and application and comfort levels may diverge. Does WYSIWYG apply on the web?

Moving content across the web changed the value proposition of applications like MS Word or Corel WordPerfect.

So did cheaper storage. Do I want a special program to find my stuff?

I am considered an IT guy. My work experience is between the software and the end user. Compared to software development, my needs, resources, and audience, differ.

Note: I don’t program Visual Basic in Word.

For the “programming” I do, I owe everything to programmers like kevmeist. My efforts take place between his output and the end user. Often I am the end user as well.

My programmed personalizations, or applications, have taken place over many years, different operating systems, and so-called vertical applications. In each instance, I was dependent on software developers like kevmeist.

My interest in the functional programming paradigm is that of a cook, or a farmer. A matter of perspective. More curious philosophical than educational. My formal education was a BA in math.

Haskell is a pure functional language. Watched videos on Haskell. Read a book on it too. In Haskell, output is a side-effect. To me, that’s hilarious. I got interested. Still reading, not doing.

Maybe it’s educational, but in a free form, unfocused, and child-mind, way. College is not in my future.

I first ran into functional programming years ago, in a Perl book “Higher-Order Perl” by Mark Jason Dominus. Read it; I didn’t get it. I didn’t refactor my procedures. No time.

Along the way, I checked out MSDN –
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb669144.aspx

And years later, I ran into this video series of 11 lectures. I think these are presentations to Microsoft’s developers, “Video lectures using the above powerpoint slides for each chapter were given by Erik Meijer on Microsoft’s Channel 9”. The first video “introduction” –
http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C9-Lectures-Erik-Meijer-Functional-Programming-Fundamentals/Lecture-Series-Erik-Meijer-Functional-Programming-Fundamentals-Chapter-1

So maybe not “functional programming” as a notion “educationally stated”, but as an alternative viewpoint in problem definition.

So tools like Word are no longer integral in my workflows. Personally, I can avoid it. Plain text is dominant, the choices are broader.

gsmith-plm, Happy Saturday. Muchos mahalos.
kevmeist, Muchos mahalos.

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I’ve been using Word for many years to write a monthly column for a hobby publication. Most of my work can be accomplished with keyboard shortcuts so I often hide the ribbon. Ctrl+2, for example, will double-space my article, which is the format my editor wants. Ctrl+1 turns the document back to single spacing so that I can conserve paper when printing it. I also use Excel to keep track of all those columns — 384 to date, including some that were written on a typewriter and later scanned via OCR into Word.

I have also used Libre Office and OpenOffice. They both include drawing components that are missing from MS Office.

I commend the poster who suggested adding often-used features to the quick-access toolbar.

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Adding things to the quick access bar is one of the first things that I do in Office programs after I install. I suspect that many don’t know about this “feature”?

K

I’ve been using Word for many years to write a monthly column for a hobby publication. Most of my work can be accomplished with keyboard shortcuts so I often hide the ribbon. Ctrl+2, for example, will double-space my article, which is the format my editor wants. Ctrl+1 turns the document back to single spacing so that I can conserve paper when printing it. I also use Excel to keep track of all those columns — 384 to date, including some that were written on a typewriter and later scanned via OCR into Word.

I have also used Libre Office and OpenOffice. They both include drawing components that are missing from MS Office.

I commend the poster who suggested adding often-used features to the quick-access toolbar.

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Adding things to the quick access bar is one of the first things that I do in Office programs after I install. I suspect that many don’t know about this “feature”?

K

As a retired programmer and systems analyst. Above is the answer. How many times have I heard “all I want is this” “great but could you add this?” And then the next user “but I still need this”. That’s how bloatware develops and is tough to avoid. If you want to pay a million or so I am sure someone can write you a personal text/word processor. Otherwise be happy that it can be customised and that prices have fallen!!:rolleyes:

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everything you say is (for me) true. I am toying with the idea of not just customizing, but “rebuilding” my ribbon tabs so that the unneeded elements assume a background position and the ones I use most often are grouped based on use.

We’ll see…

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

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For info… the original query was “What ever happened to the scaled down version of Office that Microsoft talked about as a replacement to Works? Is there any hope that us mere mortals will ever see a simple word processor and spread sheet that will work with Office documents? Something that isn’t so crammed with bells and whistles that it looks like a circus clown car ready to explode?”

Wow… 93 replies so far. Has the original query (by gsmith-plm) been answered satisfactorily yet… so this, um, fascinating 7-pages long thread (post?) can be closed? 🙂

(Just asking… feel free to disagree. :))

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Hey Rick,

I think the question has been answered in “many” ways…not sure if it met the answers that the OP was looking for though.

K

For info… the original query was “What ever happened to the scaled down version of Office that Microsoft talked about as a replacement to Works? Is there any hope that us mere mortals will ever see a simple word processor and spread sheet that will work with Office documents? Something that isn’t so crammed with bells and whistles that it looks like a circus clown car ready to explode?”

Wow… 93 replies so far. Has the original query (by gsmith-plm) been answered satisfactorily yet… so this, um, fascinating 7-pages long thread (post?) can be closed? 🙂

(Just asking… feel free to disagree. :))

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Like most things in life, there probably isn’t one correct answer to this. I was mainly bemoaning the interface clutter that Office (and Windows for that matter) has become in an attempt to be all things to all people. It’s not just the features, it’s this tendency to pack the interface with too many things. And the option to execute all of those things 3-4 different ways.

One of the problems this creates is that the alternatives tend to follow the same pattern of feature bloat. Part of that is that we (the consumers) tend to favor the product with the most features. Even when we don’t know what many of them are or when we might need them. “Get the new Acme Ping Pong Paddle with ambidextrous grip and precision formalbulated surface.”

Perhaps it’s just the dreamer in me but I believe that there is a market for simpler if MS would simply go after it.

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The trouble with that for corporations is a burgeoning codebase to maintain for “ostensibly” the same product (like Word/Works and Outlook/Outlook Express). It just becomes too difficult and expensive to maintain those multiple code baselines.

K

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It just becomes too difficult and expensive to maintain those multiple code baselines.

There wouldn’t need to be multiple codebases, just different installs. The interface is already customizable by the user (and can therefore be customized at install) and the installer is already capable of installing different modules. This is not a new concept.

The database program I work with (Ffenics) can be installed as either a developer or runtime version – same code base, just a different interface.

———————-
Regarding WPS Office (formerly KingSoft Office). It looks like it is changing as well. They still have a scaled down Home (free) version but they now have a Home Premium and Business editions that are monthly/yearly subscriptions. There are still downloads of KS 2014 and 2013 on the net, but what’s available at WPS is the 2015 subscription version. Just goes to show that it doesn’t take long for the innovators to become the followers.

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Sounds like that would be easy to do, doesn’t it? Well, if Word etc had been designed that way in the first place…maybe you would be right. However, it probably wasn’t designed that way in the first place and it is really pretty hard to do that type of thing after the codebase has been established (and the Word codebase has been established for a LONG time now). Furthermore, one would have to ask what would MS gain out of that? I believe that what you would like is NOT as easy you think it would be (for relatively little gain for MS).

K

There wouldn’t need to be multiple codebases, just different installs. The interface is already customizable by the user (and can therefore be customized at install) and the installer is already capable of installing different modules. This is not a new concept.

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Part of that is that we (the consumers) tend to favor the product with the most features. Even when we don’t know what many of them are or when we might need them. “Get the new Acme Ping Pong Paddle with ambidextrous grip and precision formalbulated surface.”
.

Given this, it’s us that has to change. Our choices have effects beyond the immediate outcome and those are as much our responsibility as any, whether or not we foresaw them.

ie If you stop shopping at the local store and instead drive to the supermarket you cannot complain when the local store closes due to lack of custom and you have to drive to the supermarket to buy one item.

You can’t blame a company for giving their customers what they say they want (short of illegality).

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Personally, I find Google Drive’s Docs and Sheets to be a stripped down Word and Excel. Much fewer bells and whistles, but all the basic functionality I need. Plus, Docs and Sheets can be Shared and worked viewed, commented or edited by others if you give permissions. And 1 Doc is synced over all devices, because it’s the same document. Versions are kept. It will import and save docx, xlsx, doc, xls and other formats. I love Google Drive.

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In my opinion this is the best and most practical thread I’ve seen in the Forum since joining many years ago. Excellent thinking, comments, and intelligent suggestions that apply to what might be termed “normal usage” of Word and WordPerfect. I particularly want to compliment “gsmith-plm” who makes a lot of sense in many areas–nice job, and “partner” with very sensible thinking/posting–right on target! I’d go back to WordPerfect in an instant if it hadn’t become overcome by Word. To be clear, I like certain features of Word; however, the complexity that MS has built into this program is totally overwhelming and unnecessary. Has anyone used the statistical program SPSS? They provide options of purchasing modules that can be plugged into the basic program, i.e., if you want to do only descriptive statistics, just go with the basic program but if multiple regression or if multivariate analysis of variance or other sophisticated analysis is needed, you only purchase the module that is appropriate. Why can’t Microsoft produce specific modules like this instead of forcing customers to purchase the whole package? Granted both MS and Corel make provisions for the installation of desired programs in their package offerings, the user mostly is stuck with spending big $$$ on a single combined conglomeration of various programs vs. offering a program like SPSS with individually selected modules that meet specific needs–not covering world needs. University graduate schools throughout the nation have very stringent requirements when formatting a PhD dissertation. I’ll state only one example here dealing with formatting a Table of Contents (TOC). Just to name only one area that is somewhat of a universal requirement focusing on margins, vertical alignment, indentations, justification of the beginning and ending of lines, chapter/page number placement wherein periods are vertically aligned, and dot leaders that are double spaced and vertically aligned, and other technicalities that I’ll not mention here. I don’t teach word processing in my doctoral classes but often am forced to provide private lessons, especially on formatting in Word. You should see the doctoral students’ eyes pop open when they’ve spent a day or more attempting to create an accurate TOC in Word and when asking for help come to my office and I zap the unformatted TOC into WordPerfect and produce a “perfect” TOC in five to ten minutes vs. the many day’s work the student has spent when attempting to struggle with Word. Well ‘nuf of this rambling, but my main point here, hopefully in closing down this thread, is that we need these companies who produce software to recognize specific needs and provide units or packages that meet specific work area needs.

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I certainly agree that WP (many moons ago) did a far better job at building TOC, lists etc (and keeping the format that a user wants) than Word does nowadays.

K

In my opinion this is the best and most practical thread I’ve seen in the Forum since joining many years ago. Excellent thinking, comments, and intelligent suggestions that apply to what might be termed “normal usage” of Word and WordPerfect. I particularly want to compliment “gsmith-plm” who makes a lot of sense in many areas–nice job, and “partner” with very sensible thinking/posting–right on target! I’d go back to WordPerfect in an instant if it hadn’t become overcome by Word.

University graduate schools throughout the nation have very stringent requirements when formatting a PhD dissertation. I’ll state only one example here dealing with formatting a Table of Contents (TOC).

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Here is where I am at with all of this…

What started this thread is actually Windows 10 (or whatever it’s to be called). With that on the way, there is likely going to be a new version of Office as well. That got me to thinking about a future upgrade and the fact that I really didn’t want a new version of Office – I wanted Office Lite – an updated version of Works – something, anything, other than a huge beached whale of an Office suite with 10,000 features I would never use (pardon the hyperbole).

I have come to accept that my needs have changed quite a bit over the years. There was a time when I needed PageMaker but most of what I did then could probably now be done with Word or one of it’s competitors. Today, I don’t use Word for much more than some end-user documentation requirements which are pretty simple. WordPad can probably do that – with an add in spell checker.

My reality is that while I was at or ahead of the curve since 1972 (when I first started with computers), I am now on the trailing end of the curve as my needs are simplified. That’s a tough place for me to be, because in my head I’m still a computer guru. But that doesn’t make my objections any less valid. I deal with people all the time that are still less computer literate than I have become and wonder if this stuff is starting to overwhelm me, what about them. I deal with people who spend a couple hours a day in Word and probably use less than 5% of the features.

What I probably should do for now is bite the bullet and try and customize Word a bit. If nothing else, it would help me focus on what I find useful and what I don’t. But I’m also going to think about turning an older computer that isn’t doing much into a test platform for Office replacements.

It’s also probably time to consider a “cloud” based solution like Google Docs. I’ve avoided that because I’m still not comfortable with the whole concept. But I’ve been using DropBox for a couple years and spend half my work day on a VPN so it’s not unfamiliar territory. It’s just that it’s been tried and failed in the past. However, if there was ever a place for streamlined software, it’s going to be something like this.

The other thing that’s been driving my interest is a brief time spent helping a friend with a new Asus Transformer last year. I was dumbfounded that MS didn’t have a scaled down version of Office for this. Holy cow, the controls in Word and Excel took up half the screen and trying to have Word and Excel open at the same time could try the patience of a saint. If there was ever a driving need for a streamlined Office product, it’s the new tablets that are taking over the market.

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Here is where I am at with all of this…

Nice summary there after a very interesting discussion thread. I would certainly be interested if you come to any conclusions about the best software that looks like “Word Lite”. I certainly have some people in the Computer Basics course that I teach locally that would be interested.

K

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kevmeist 2015-02-27, 07:02 – Sorry, I have never heard of “Word Lite” so can’t help with this program. The first question I would ask regarding teaching a “Computer Basics” course is what are the objectives that you expect from your students regarding the outcome of this course? Second, what do your students need in their future profession in the venue of word processing? As much as I hate to admit it the professional world has forced me from WordPerfect to MS Word, I had no choice. Therefore, I learned Word (still struggle with it at times). Even at age 78 and retired, I retain connections with colleagues who need letters of recommendation for job interviews and former students who ask for advice and editing in order to submit scholarly research proposals for symposia and papers for publication in refereed publications. All of these are required to be submitted in Word. What is one to do? As many have stated in this thread, we don’t need all the bells and whistles that Word provides but you’ve got to understand some of these in order to produce a scholarly document that is formatted according to professional standards.

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The course I teach is for seniors (so, nothing too heavy) but gives a background on how computers work, touches on Office and comparable products, talks about numbering systems, ASCII/EBCDIC etc etc. So, first, I’m not sure what to expect from the students ( I get very little feedback)…it is just to help them understand computers better. Secondly, I highly doubt that they will be doing future professional stuff. 🙂

I really do understand the OP about looking for a “Word Lite” product. I’m sure many people would like that. I just don’t see MS producing one.

K

The first question I would ask regarding teaching a “Computer Basics” course is what are the objectives that you expect from your students regarding the outcome of this course? Second, what do your students need in their future profession in the venue of word processing?

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To gsmith-plm, your reply of 2015-02-26, 07:39 is brilliant and I believe your opinions couldn’t be stated more accurately and to the point of this thread. Your thoughts and expressions represent my views exactly–I don’t need to elaborate–thank you for a pragmatic and very reasonable view of this issue. Just out of curiosity, did you start your computer work as I did by slaving hours and days at an IBM 029 Keypunch? I started this in the late 1960s. People now can’t even comprehend what we’re talking about regarding the labor and frustrations that went into this procedure in order to get results which were mostly statistical analysis, not word processing. Even in the past decade I’ve had students bring their dissertation Table of Contents to my office showing great pride in achieving spaced/aligned periods from chapter and section headings leading to the page numbers in each line. When asked how they did this I often find that they manually inserted dozens of spaced tabs at the top of the page so the required placement of periods could manually be inserted and aligned, well that is until they crossed a section or some irregularity when the periods then shifted and they didn’t know what to do. Of course I’m referencing Microsoft Word and until I created a template and specific instructions for creating a TOC using Word which I issued to every graduate student starting a dissertation, did we eliminate the spaced/aligned periods problem, other than creating the TOC in WordPerfect. I like Word but not its complexities, many of which are not used even by professional clerical people. Without repeating gsmith-plm’s well-stated points I see no justification for all the bells, whistles, and hidden ways to produce a simple and well-formatted scholarly document to achieve a PhD when struggling with Word and its complexities. In the final semester of a doctoral degree program I have documentation showing that these mature and intelligent students frequently waste more time with formatting and standardization of “mechanics” than presenting their research content. Incidentally even today, I wouldn’t recommend attempting to produce a highly refereed PhD dissertation by using a tablet ;). Try doing a Bibliography according to APA (American Psychological Association) specifications by using Word (even WordPerfect) versus a tablet. Granted there are programs and a feature in Word that will product a fairly accurate Bib. although still work intensive.

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Well, if these mature and intelligent students had any sense when using Word….they would NOT try to “force” any alignment manually…that stuff was left behind with typewriters. Why did they not use Google, Yahoo etc (or the Word help system) to look up how to do a TOC, lists of figures or tables? This stuff is NOT rocket science!

K

In the final semester of a doctoral degree program I have documentation showing that these mature and intelligent students frequently waste more time with formatting and standardization of “mechanics” than presenting their research content. Incidentally even today, I wouldn’t recommend attempting to produce a highly refereed PhD dissertation by using a tablet ;).

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Kevmeist – Because university graduate schools in universities across the nation require slightly different formats and regulations. Students can’t fully depend on Google, Yahoo, Word, etc. in order to achieve scholarly standardization because most universities publish a style sheet that is not universal. Style and mechanical formatting are usually dictated by specifying “your dissertation must conform to APA or Turabian standards.” Further, universities often insert some individual quirks that require special formatting such as where the page number appears. Yes, you can do searches and find APA or Turabian formats; however, this won’t account for the special formatting requirements of various universities. Obviously you haven’t labored through the final semester of finishing a PhD dissertation and experienced submitting the final copy to the Graduate School or Graduate College and having it rejected several days before the deadline because of a “glitch” in the formatting that doesn’t comply. I don’t know that this is “rocket science” but the formatting regulations (somewhat difficult in Word) certainly are required if a student is approved for graduation. Further, a list of figures and a list of tables usually require a slightly different format than a TOC. Try doing footnotes and a bibliography with specified spacing and required listing format of authors, dates, volumes, and issues ! ! !. I’ve advised over 70 PhD dissertations and am confident in my statements (now age 78 and still editing). Incidentally, I payed a professional typist to produce my PhD dissertation on a typewriter in 1973 and gave her my university’s dissertation guidebook to study before handing her my prepared manuscript as I typed the draft on my typewriter.

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You are right. I have not done the laboring that you mention. Although I have labored through creating and editing MANY documents according to several different Mil-Stds over about 30 years or so – these are documents running to many hundreds of pages each. I have no idea whether that is more or less difficult than the styles that you mention.

My point was if they have manually inserted spaces/tabs etc…then they apparently never even tried doing a basic search on “how to do various things” in Word.

K

Kevmeist – Because university graduate schools in universities across the nation require slightly different formats and regulations. Students can’t fully depend on Google, Yahoo, Word, etc. in order to achieve scholarly standardization because most universities publish a style sheet that is not universal. Style and mechanical formatting are usually dictated by specifying “your dissertation must conform to APA or Turabian standards.” Further, universities often insert some individual quirks that require special formatting such as where the page number appears. Yes, you can do searches and find APA or Turabian formats; however, this won’t account for the special formatting requirements of various universities. Obviously you haven’t labored through the final semester of finishing a PhD dissertation and experienced submitting the final copy to the Graduate School or Graduate College and having it rejected several days before the deadline because of a “glitch” in the formatting that doesn’t comply. I don’t know that this is “rocket science” but the formatting regulations (somewhat difficult in Word) certainly are required if a student is approved for graduation.

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…I have documentation showing that these mature and intelligent students frequently waste more time with formatting and standardization of “mechanics” than presenting their research content.

Indeed. There were studies done years ago that compared student papers done on a PC to those done on a MAC. The MAC papers were much better looking and thus “presented” better, but the PC papers tended to have more substance.

While I didn’t have to prepare a detailed PhD dissertation, I did have to prepare any number of equally detailed documents during my 20yrs in the Army – particularly during the last three years at the Pentagon. Neatness and an ordered structure are important if you want someone to take the time to read what you have written. But if you have a limited time to spend on something, be careful where you spend it.

As to my first computer, it was in the Army using a teletype terminal connected to a mainframe at a nearby university. I was teaching medical laboratory and writing Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) courses. It was a simple branching logic program that basically paralleled what was being done in books at the same time. It also paralleled the way the Army was teaching at the time by presenting information in small chunks then restating it in summary then asking questions.

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Before this ends up as dissertation on dissertations, let me just interject that preparing a dissertation is well beyond the needs of the average person, which was the whole point of this thread in the first place.

P.S. WordLite is my invented name for a word processor that’s not as bloated with features as most are today.

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Before this ends up as dissertation on dissertations, let me just interject that preparing a dissertation is well beyond the needs of the average person, which was the whole point of this thread in the first place.

P.S. WordLite is my invented name for a word processor that’s not as bloated with features as most are today.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say ” there is no average user”. Those that post here are certainly not average users. The vast majority of users never post on a forum.

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Wow, this is getting to be one of the longest threads. It would be very good if all this information could somehow be sent to Microsoft for their use in making Office 2016. Maybe they could even do something smart and make a toned-down, easy to use version of Office for people to use at home who don’t need a super-duper Swiss army knife for what they do.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Wow, this is getting to be one of the longest threads. It would be very good if all this information could somehow be sent to Microsoft for their use in making Office 2016. Maybe they could even do something smart and make a toned-down, easy to use version of Office for people to use at home who don’t need a super-duper Swiss army knife for what they do.

One question, what proportion of Office users posted to this discussion? We are a tiny minority of Office users, so why would MS listen to us over anyone else?

The great lesson from physics, we are not special!

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We are a tiny minority of Office users, so why would MS listen to us over anyone else?

Here’s larger question, who does Microsoft listen to? Or rather who’s opinion is likely to sway them?

This forum does not represent average computer users. It represents advanced amateur and professional users. This group also represents people who would be far more likely to try an alternative, just because we can. And yet, with all the savy and experience here, there is still some interest in some kind of WordLite.

From a marketing perspective, Microsoft has no compelling reason for producing WordLite or OfficeLite. Most people who buy a computer will buy one with some version of Office pre-installed. Most will either pay for it with the computer or when the trial runs out or whatever other gimmick marketing has come up with. MS has no fear of losing any significant amount of market share.

So, who is MS listening to? Based on my experience in the software business, the big buyers are driving this. The large companies with large numbers of power users. Why not? The casual users will continue to pay for MS Office because they have little choice in the matter – at least few choices they can/will exercise. If that sounds cynical, well that’s what comes from being in the business as long as I have. Software engineers will continue to add features because they can and because marketing demands it. Features sell products.

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gmsmith…….I agree with all that you say here. Corporations make up the vast majority of income for Office sales. Having said that, for a lot of people (that still work) check with your company purchasing agent to see if employees qualify to buy Office at discounted prices (mine cost $19.95 before retiring 18 months ago, Visio cost the same amount).

Kevin

Here’s larger question, who does Microsoft listen to? Or rather who’s opinion is likely to sway them?

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Recently I had a customer call me, telling me that when ever she downloads any Office Document from an email, that her Office 2007 refuses to open it.
Even saving it to her My Documents folder made no difference.

Just experimenting, I installed Open Office for her, and it read all those downloaded files perfectly. Problem solved…..and for FREE. It don’t get much better than that.

I gave up on MS Office a long time ago, just because of all it’s idiosyncrasies. Now I use only Open Office.

Cheers Mates

The Doctor 😎

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OpenOffice and LibreOffice (and others) also have their own “oddities”. Anytime software is written to “emulate” something else…it will be prone to behavior like this. Here, when opening Powerpoint documents with Open Office (current version) about 6 months ago, all colors disappeared when the file was open. LibreOffice worked just fine with the same document. So (obviously) did Office 2013.

I wonder if someone was sending her Word documents of a newer “format” than her Office 2007 coped with? I have never seen (from memory) Word (of a current release level – and hers is about 8 years old now) refuse to open a Word document. I have used Word for about 25 years now. Obviously, the OpenOffice that she downloaded was of a CURRENT release, her Word 2007 is not. So, you are comparing apples and oranges here.

K

Recently I had a customer call me, telling me that when ever she downloads any Office Document from an email, that her Office 2007 refuses to open it.
Even saving it to her My Documents folder made no difference.

Just experimenting, I installed Open Office for her, and it read all those downloaded files perfectly. Problem solved…..and for FREE. It don’t get much better than that.

I gave up on MS Office a long time ago, just because of all it’s idiosyncrasies. Now I use only Open Office.

Cheers Mates

The Doctor 😎

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However, I swear that I later saw a version of Works in which the internal word-processor and its capabilities had been restored

It’s Microsoft’s naming conventions at play. There are two versions of Works, Works and Works Suite. The Suite version did have the word processor replaced by a version of Word [sometimes the next older version], useful for those folks that took work home but needed Word so as to be compatible for what they used at work and/or for sharing with those without Works. The last released version of Works is 9.x, seems to work with the older files.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Kev, it’s not really about the cost. I’ve looked at a couple of the free office suites and they suffer from the same level of feature overkill.

Right now I’m looking at the free version of WPS office. It does offer a more streamlined “classic” menu, but it’s still so feature heavy it’s beyond belief. They’ve even added some settings and features that appear to have no explanation in the help files or online.

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As I see it the problem with any one company producing a lite version of their software is what defines lite and which features should they include or leave out? If a piece of SW has 30 features, each of those who have wished for a lite version on this thread might want it reduced to say 5 features. But which 5, you might all want different ones?

Personally I’ve never found a problem with more features as I’ve occasionally found that a feature I’ve never used is actually helpful to me.

And you can always use Notepad 😉

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Access… While it’s been agreed that different people will want different features, there should be someone at MS who should have a pretty darn good idea as to what constitutes “basic functions”. If not then someone isn’t doing their job because having good user profiles is at the heart of marketing.

As already noted, this and other forums have a very simple word processor function with simple formatting abilities and spell check, something that WordPad lacks. I’ve experimented with WordPad and, except for spelling, it can do a surprising amount of things.

And it’s not really about features as much as it is about so many of them all front and center. It results in an overly cluttered interface. Simple example – in Word on the Ribbon, Home Tab, Clipboard Section, there is something named Format Painter. It took me describing 5 things to get you to this function. Now, what does it do? I looked it up and I’m still not sure what it does or why it’s where it is. How many people use it? Is it really something you would consider to be on an equal footing with the other things in that same section?

It’s not my intention to nickle and dime Office a feature at a time. I simply think that it’s needs to either go on a diet or have a facelift – or both.

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And it’s not really about features as much as it is about so many of them all front and center. It results in an overly cluttered interface. Simple example – in Word on the Ribbon, Home Tab, Clipboard Section, there is something named Format Painter. It took me describing 5 things to get you to this function. Now, what does it do? I looked it up and I’m still not sure what it does or why it’s where it is. How many people use it? Is it really something you would consider to be on an equal footing with the other things in that same section?

It’s not my intention to nickle and dime Office a feature at a time. I simply think that it’s needs to either go on a diet or have a facelift – or both.

I use Format Painter all the time. I use it in Outlook, I use it in OneNote, I use it in Excel and I use it in Word. It’s great when you want to format something with the format of an already existing item, which I find myself doing fairly often. It is surely in my top 5 used Office features and I would be very angry if it was removed from an easily accessible place in Office’s UI.

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I will guarantee you that Microsoft has done and continues to do analysis of usage metrics to determine what is placed where on the Ribbon. You may not like it or understand it but if they were so inclined Microsoft could give you all the results. Remember, if you have 5 or 10 functions you like you may put them in the QAT and collapse the ribbon.

Joe

--Joe

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I use Format Painter in Excel quite a lot. Less so in Word but it’s useful to copy the format of already existing formatted text. So I would want it! YMMV.

Unfortunately I don’t know of a simple text editor to suggest. I was going to suggest Notepad ++, but it’s really for coders not plain text (you can’t easily change fonts or sizes for plain vanilla text).

Have you Googled for a simple text editor? I did and got a few links e.g.
http://www.howtogeek.com/112385/the-best-free-text-editors-for-windows-and-linux/
http://www.sublimetext.com/ (well it mentions prose….)
http://darkcopy.com/ (hmmm)

Happy hunting!

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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What ever happened to the scaled down version of Office that Microsoft talked about as a replacement to Works? Is there any hope that us mere mortals will ever see a simple word processor and spread sheet that will work with Office documents? Something that isn’t so crammed with bells and whistles that it looks like a circus clown car ready to explode?

You had me baffled by something repeated a number of times in your posts until I slapped myself on the head today and groaned. It is even possible that I was your source, since I discussed it in a post in the lounge sometime last year, although I wasn’t able to find my post with a search. It is also possible that you already have or had it yourself, because it came pre-installed on PCs sold in a certain period, and you may have ignored it or, still worse, deleted it in one of those everything-preinstalled-is-garbage binges that some users go on when they get a new computer.

You used the wrong word, and you must forget it. Try hypnosis. Try anything to forget the word you used, but don’t buy pop or order a beer or it will be the first thing you will be reminded of.

Yes, Microsoft did publish a pair of Office 2010 programs, Word and Excel, which were limited in features, and it was called Microsoft Office Starter. That is the answer to ‘Whatever happened to…’, and that is the name to google, although including ‘2010’ might improve results. Microsoft’s own page is Getting started with Office Starter.

You will be delighted to know that you can install it on a stick for use on any computer (Win 7 or less), which suggests it may be a predecessor to the Windows To Go feature of Windows 8 and 10. Because it came preinstalled, everyone who bought a PC in the relevant period had it, so your impression that lots of people know about it is correct. You just used the wrong word to trigger the memory.

A lot of hits on Google are from parties exploiting the name and general confusion to try to sell you something, but it was free in the first place, MS is no longer active in selling the product it promotes, and with luck you already have it on your own PC without realizing it. Look and see.

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Office Starter 2010 is still available for download… I’ve just done this from techspot.com.

(Note: This download link shows “This version only works on 32-bit Windows machines.” but I downloaded and installed into a Win 7 64-bit VM.)

Using Word as an example, you end up with an advert-supported UI with reduced ribbon options:
39746-office-starter
Click to enlarge

Hope this helps…

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Never heard of Office Starter before but that would seem to fit the bill. Unfortunately, it’s going the way of the Dodo.

At this point, I have looked at a number of alternatives and even installed WPS office to test it out. Of those I have looked at, nothing had the kind of streamlined UI that I thought might exist. The version of WPS Office currently available is a full function trial that will scale back after 30 days. It’s not clear what features will be lost but it probably won’t be anything that a casual user would miss. I’m going to wait till the 30 days is up before I really spend any time on it.

It’s worth mentioning that while we have mainly discussed Word, Excel could also use some revamping. I often spend more time in Excel than in Word but there is very little in the way of formatting that interests me so a cluttered UI isn’t such a bother.

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The version of WPS Office currently available is a full function trial that will scale back after 30 days. It’s not clear what features will be lost but it probably won’t be anything that a casual user would miss. I’m going to wait till the 30 days is up before I really spend any time on it.

Well, my WPS trial period has ended and what I am left with is basically cripple-ware. I could live with most of the downgrades except for two things. First is that you lose the ability to save as a docx document, that’s a non-starter for me right there. Second, anything you print will from the free version will have something overlayed on it indicating it was printed from the free version of WPS office.

I might consider the paid version of WPS office as a replacement for MS office if it were not for two things. I’m not a huge fan of the yearly fee structure. I understand the advantage of it to the seller since I deal in software development and have considered doing this with some of the software I have developed. But I also know that it leaves me at the mercy of the sofware company since they can up the price any time they choose.

That brings me to the second point. I’m not overly trusting of whoever has taken over Kingsoft and turned it into WPS office. The whole bait and switch way they are marketing it as still being free when it’s really not and not revealing the differences between the free and $$ versions up front really bothers me.

I have not looked for any updated reviews, but I have the feeling they are going to get creamed by some of the technical reviewers who have been their supporters in the past.

I may still go back and download the older Kingsoft version out of curiosity, but I think that ship has sailed.

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I suspect that if Outlook was available as a stand-alone program…then I could LibreOffice for other needs

Outlook [not to be confused with Outlook.com] is available as a stand-alone application, just maybe not in local stores other than the office supply stores.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Outlook-2013/productID.259322300

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Thanks Berton…never realized that after all these years of using Office (probably around 25 years plus). But, I always managed to get copies of Office through large corporation or Federal government “buying plans”, so probably never looked either.

Maybe, when the next release of Outlook comes out…I may then ditch Office, buy the Outlook client and use LibreOffice. For what I need in Word, Excel and Powerpoint type programs…LibreOffice works just fine.

K

Outlook [not to be confused with Outlook.com] is available as a stand-alone application, just maybe not in local stores other than the office supply stores.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Outlook-2013/productID.259322300

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You’re welcome. Office 2013 will be my last purchased suite although I did get the year’s Office 365 included with my Dell Venue tablet, need to install it some time. I like LibreOffice and have put it on several clients’ computers mainly because version 4 still supports the older Microsoft Works files.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Kind of annoying though if I buy Outlook 2015/16 or whatever when it escapes MS that it will cost me $109. I might have to call some friends still working for the Feds and get them to get me the next copy through their purchasing plan (last time Office was $21).

K

You’re welcome. Office 2013 will be my last purchased suite although I did get the year’s Office 365 included with my Dell Venue tablet, need to install it some time. I like LibreOffice and have put it on several clients’ computers mainly because version 4 still supports the older Microsoft Works files.

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