More Word Feedback

XML and Word

Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:27:00 GMT

With WordML in there, how long until Word'll be able to open/save <a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office">OASIS Open Office format</a> documents?

re: XML and Word

Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:28:00 GMT

Hrm... Something went wrong there...

re: Let's talk about Word, per Chris Pratley

Owen Allen — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 00:30:00 GMT

re: More Word Feedback

Alex — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:12:00 GMT

This is like pointing out the obvious, but asking a slashdot idiot to share the details is more like asking him/her for more bashing. A slashdot idiot will never share the detail, if he/she could, he/she would already share it. They just love to accuse others, they can't stand up against serious arguments.

Watch out for more bashing.

I have used OO, the only attractive thing about is that it is a cheap solution. That's pretty much it, it clearly doesn't compete against Office. It became better than Office, because it is open source. Slashdot idiots love to claim that every open source app out there is somehow better than the closed ones, there are idiots who even claim that Gimp is better than Photoshop. It just doesn't make sense.

re: More Word Feedback

Russ C — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:01:00 GMT

It looks like your the only one doing any bashing here Alex, Please stop trolling and be Civil.

I read Slashdot avidly and haven't used either Linux or Apple in years ... It's just a good idea to be aware of everyones opinion, and I certainly don't consider myself to be an Idiot.

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Simon — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 01:21:00 GMT

What is your opinion of Mellel? I used Word for a long time (high school and college), and switched last year because I went to OS X and didn't want to pay as much for MS Word (Mellel is $25.)

re: More Word Feedback

Alex — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 04:01:00 GMT

re:Russ C
That's the beauty of being a Slashdot idiot, you just don't know that you are one.

I also read Slashdot, if you think for example Microsoft should die, or Bill Gates should die, you are certainly an idiot. I am also a Linux user, being a Linux user doesn't make you an idiot, agreeing on most of the stuff claimed on slashdot certainly does. So stop being an idiot and think a little.

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Jeremy P — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 04:02:00 GMT

I remember I commented on the guy who was all bent over on revealing codes. :)) I wonder if he knew he didn't have a point.

I agree with what Alex said in his final paragraph.

The first paragraph however seems to be just a repetition of the idea that there are people who can only talk about and can't see past the myth that all Microsoft is capable of doing is squashing the little guy and making less than desirable products---remember I said *MYTH*. I think they make great products and have excellent business sense (not a perfect business nor perfect products) but where is it written things are supposed to be perfect?

I guess it's about time I say this turned out to be an interesting blog.

re: More Word Feedback

Simon Cooke [exMSFT] — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:02:00 GMT

The amusing thing is, you can get a pretty good feel for the formatting just simply by selecting "Reveal Formatting" from the Format menu.

re: More Word Feedback

Jason O'Donnell — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:17:00 GMT

Chris, you made an excellent point earlier- something along the lines of "there are 400 million Word users, and if 1% of them hate it and post feedback in my blog, that's 4 million posts". People are more inclined to speak up with their negative feedback than their positive, simply because the anger of negative opinion is a far more seductive motivation to speak out. So if your feedback sounds far too negative, just remember (according to your own calculations) that there are 399 of us happy cusomters to every disgruntled person that posts here.
Also- I never in my wildest dreams expected to read the candid history of MS Word written by a current MS employee on his personal weblog. Thank you for putting in the time to write it- I appreciate that your personal time must be at a premium right now.

re: More Word Feedback

Zaine Ridling — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 13:26:00 GMT

Color me the "ordinary user," although I'm a Certified Word/Excel Expert. The last year I have had to learn XML schemas to do my work and though I initially protested WordML because it wasn't vanilla XML, I've learned better. Another paradigm-changing moment occurred when Word 2003 arrived and it was far better than I expected — the file format was intact, most every bug that had been fixed, and the Help File wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (moving it through the task pane).

Just a side note, and one you've undoubtedly heard for a decade: The reason the Word Count feature is ESSENTIAL is that my own work as a writer demands that I stay within certain limits, such as 200, 800, 1500, or 4000 words. Going over any given number (even if my editor is using OOo or WP) returns a nasty message for rewrite. So for every journalist, writer, student, and teacher who uses Word, Word Count is the equivalent of having a watch that keeps time accurately — when you need it, it becomes very important.

re: More Word Feedback

Tonetheman — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 14:05:00 GMT

WordML is the way to go for Word. Period. This is the type of stuff that should have been done long ago. Actually you could argue that for most products that allow users to manipulate content like Word. Anyway today I will not bash MS or Word, WordML is cool and really useful. Keep it up!!!!

re: More Word Feedback

D. Brian Ellis — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 14:33:00 GMT

Bravo Chris. Another informative article. You never cease to amaze me. I find the object model behind Word you describe fascinating. Question: How does that relate to interoperability with the other Office suite products? Do Excel, etc. use a similar model but with different objects and attributes, or do they simply receive a file labeled "Word File Format: Import This..."? Also, how does this model handle the newer Code-Behind model of the 2K3 suite? For instance how is a C# code-behind handled in a .doc and when transfered to Excel? Thanks, keep up the good work!

Brian

re: More Word Feedback

Kent — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:02:00 GMT

Chris, your candor is right in line with what the Channel 9 folks are trying to do. No BS!

Quick thanks

RobSaunders — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:27:00 GMT

Thanks Chris, I completely understand since your not involved with Works...

To date I have only enjoyed using three WordProcessors.
ClarisWorks (3/4), Word 2000/2002, and Word 2001/OSX.

That should be a good enough compliment ;)

FEATURE REQUEST

Brian Johnson — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:37:00 GMT

Hello Chris,

I see you're responsible for Word too so I have an interessting feature request:

Why isn't possible to create a grossary for the document I write in Word? I'm talking about something to enable me to mark the word I just entered and by right-clicking it/using a key-shortcut enter an explanation. The glossary at the end of the document (or wherever I want it) will be automatically built (sorted, layouted etc.). I’m NOT talking about user dictionaries in Word in which you can enter the words which Words dictionary doesn’t know. That such a mature word processing application (my Word 2003 reads 11.5604.5606 - so it's a major version 11) still doesn't have such a feature is pity. As a software developer I (after your excellent articles now even better) unterstand how MS decides on future features but it's unbelievable that such a feature "has not mad it".

What do you say?

re: More Word Feedback

Brandon Paddock — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 18:15:00 GMT

I'm guessing that a part of that feature would be to show a tooltip or something with the appropriate definition when someone is reading the document?

It sounds like an interesting proposal but I'm just trying to figure out the usefulness. I mean: why this would be better than just adding a glossary to the end of your file by, well, typing it.

I'm betting some of what you want could be done by a developer using VSO and word 2003, though it's really hard to say without knowing more about the "features" of this, um, feature :)

Reveal Codes

Matt — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 18:49:00 GMT

About your point that you can't do reveal codes in Word, I think you're missing a subtle point: WP can reveal codes because it's a direct visual reflection of their implementation. Word's implementation is different, but it doesn't actually imply that it would be impossible to support a reveal codes-like user interface, does it? It would be a pain to keep the two models in sync, but there is a pretty direct mapping between the taggging-a-run-of-text model for the UI and the bag-of-properties-for-a-run-of-text model that forms the implementation.

Not impossible, just a pain to build and to maintain.

Would it really be easier? That's harder to say.

re: More Word Feedback

Russ C — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:01:00 GMT

re: Alex

Which part of saying that I avidly read Slashdot, implies that I agree, hand on heart with anything that is posted there ?

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Russ C — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:01:00 GMT

Or indeed everything :)

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David Mooney — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:45:00 GMT

Another vote on the glossary feature. It would be nice if it had the side effect of acting like the glossary worked in the old .hlp help system. In those days, the help browser would underline defined words with a green dashed underline and if you clicked on it it would pop up a small window with the definition. It was a great feature which seems to have been forgotten in later generations of help systems.

Anyway, glossaries are a common "feature" in corporate documents and to have a Word feature like Insert Table of Contents, but Insert Table of Defined Terms (aka a Glossary).

re: More Word Feedback

Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:50:00 GMT

These days the glossaries (in help) seem to be inline. Nice, but there's a possibility that terms will change in different ways on different help pages. It's a side-effect of going to HTML for help, I think, and probably the only downside. (Dealing with old-style Help authoring was hell.)

I'd love to see that glossary feature myself. Still, as long as you're careful, you can use styles to do something along the lines of HTML's definition lists.

re: More Word Feedback

David Mooney — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:52:00 GMT

Gah! Insert "would be cool" before that last period. :(

re: More Word Feedback

Alex — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:56:00 GMT

re:Russ C
I didn't call you an idiot, did I? I mentioned the Slashdot idiots, and you came in and objected to me as if you are a Slashdot idiot. If you were not a Slashdot idiot, then why did you object? If you at least read Slashdot you should have known what I am talking about when I refer to a Slashdot idiot.

re: More Word Feedback

Tom_Yardley — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 02:32:00 GMT

I love wordperfect because of the reveal codes feature, your description that Word has no codes to reveal was eye-opening.

Maybe I'll give some of your software a try.

Where's Rick?

Buggin' My Life Away — Sat, 01 May 2004 04:57:00 GMT

Where's Rick?

Buggin' My Life Away — Sat, 01 May 2004 04:58:00 GMT

Where's Rick?

Buggin' My Life Away — Sat, 01 May 2004 18:14:00 GMT

Betalogue

TrackBack — Mon, 03 May 2004 21:22:00 GMT

Betalogue

re: More Word Feedback

Dave — Sat, 08 May 2004 15:43:00 GMT

Check out

http://www.levitjames.com/crosseyes/CrossEyes.html

for a third-party product that "reveals codes".

re: More Word Feedback

WP — Sun, 09 May 2004 17:55:00 GMT

Quote:
"So if your feedback sounds far too negative, just remember (according to your own calculations) that there are 399 of us happy cusomters to every disgruntled person that posts here."

Get real. What's the saying: 1 negative comment = the way 100 people feel?

re: More Word Feedback

Chris Pratley — Tue, 11 May 2004 09:17:00 GMT

WP, logically, you can both be right. The numbers we're talking about are in the millions, so it is easy to have 100 negative people for each negative comment and 399 positive people.

Actually, the ratio for positive comments is way higher than for negative. People with a negative experience tend to complain ~10 times as much as people wth a positive experience exclaim about their happiness. So you might want to multiply the positive posters here by 1000, if you were so inclined.

Of course, the reality is that the people who read and comment on this blog are in no way an accurate statistical sample of the real user base.

Glossary - Research Task Pane

Simon Marks — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:45:00 GMT

If you're just looking to put in definitions of words, then use the Research Task Pane in Word 2003 (and a bunch of other Office 2003 products). If you Alt-click onto any word in a document then you get given a bunch of info about the word, including spelling, translation, thesaurus, etc. For free you can access the Encarta Dictionary. It's a relatively easy task to create your own service that can be accessed if you want a glossary for particular terms (we have an Internal Microsoft Glossary for all the arcane TLAs and code-names that noone can remember what they mean)

re: More responses to comments on Word posts

Chris_Pratley's WebLog — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:24:00 GMT

re: More Word Feedback

Sam Smith — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 22:35:00 GMT

I would just like to second the opinion that OpenOffice format documents should be recognized as a serious format and supported as one, although I can understand reasons for not doing this.

More Word Feedback

XML and Word

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re: Let's talk about Word, per Chris Pratley

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Quick thanks

********** FEATURE REQUEST **********

re: More Word Feedback

Reveal Codes

re: More Word Feedback

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Where's Rick?

Where's Rick?

Where's Rick?

Betalogue

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Glossary - Research Task Pane

re: More responses to comments on Word posts

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FEATURE REQUEST