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Original poster

To be amazed how hard it is to use Microsoft Word now?

133 replies

1jan2020 · 21/10/2023 21:13

I'm not talking about using it to write stuff. But when it comes to saving the document, it's an absolute nightmare! That big black screen, with so many different options for what to do (and none of them very helpful). It's really not obvious how to simply save something to the desktop. It honestly looks like something from the 1980s, so clunky!

I really wish I still had my old version of Word which was so incredibly simple. It also had a nice bright background and saving to the desktop took about two seconds. Why have they made the save screen so complex to use - and why the incredibly basic looking background/graphics?

OP posts:
Graciebobcat · 22/10/2023 01:27

I am grateful that we are fairly antedilluvian at work and still save documents to our own folders, machine or a shared drive.

I find Word and Excel pretty easy to use apart from things like formatting which I've always found unintuitive and intrinsically unhelpful.

You've done half a document in Times New Roman. You really need the next paragraph randomly in Calibri and a far smaller font. I see you are inserting numbering- let me fuck up the previous four paragraphs for you. No, you can't have that lined up with the others, it must remain 3mm out.

I did used to enjoy the Microsoft assistant memes that used to get sent round. "I see you a writing a letter. Let me fuck that up for you."

2023shady · 22/10/2023 01:40

I hate it. And also our IT dept

Imagine I'm an estate agent, rightmove would be a fairly key website right? IT dept randomly block it, for no reason whatsoever and then deny all knowledge they've done it. There's no pattern to it so you might go weeks happily using rightmove then bam, this website is blocked. Queue to ring IT and then beg them to fix it, at which point they sound confused and say nobody has blocked it

Fuck it, I'll use my phone instead because it's quicker AngryGrin

hoobanoobie · 22/10/2023 01:48

I still can't believe you have to pay to use these things now. MS Office! Fuck off! They were part of having a computer/laptop! Don't even get me started on laptops no longer having a built in disc drive. Oh no, you've got to buy one that plugs in! And the laptops we can have within some degree of affordability are so fucking slow. Unless you've got thousands to spend and are au fait with every new thing they have. I want my Sony Vaio back. HP can can do one. Bring back windows 97 Angry

StuckintheUSA · 22/10/2023 02:07

HipTeens · 22/10/2023 00:03

What we shouldn't forget is the people at Microsoft made word and then said , there we are, job done, see you tomorrow lads.

Then the next day, came into work, and said "what are we gonna do today?" And started tweaking.

Bit like that episode of father ted when he's trying to knock the dent out of the car.

And a bit like Facebook, and every piece of technology I own, white goods, etc etc etc. I just bought a washing machine - why are they now affixing computers to washing machines? More bits to malfunction!

This! What are you going to do with all the developers that are employed? Have them mess up the previous version of software and make it less user friendly.

Same goes for my iPhone. Every time I update my phone, it's worse than before.

MigGirl · 22/10/2023 02:18

We haven't moved over to office 365, sod them if I'm going to pay a subscription for a peace of software. We still have our old version of word so have that installed on the PC. The kids do use it as school has access so they just login.

I hate with a passion Google docs though 😒. We use it at work and probably the biggest grip I have is we save everything to Google drive, it's the list intuitive system to find files on.

Coatsrus · 22/10/2023 02:25

As with so many things, adding more and more features means that the basic functions are now more difficult to find and use.

If I ever get my hands on the turd who decided that Word and similar products needed auto format so that whenever it thinks I’m making a list, it knows best where to put tabs and to be the b,c,d etc on the next lines automatically, I’m going to lynch him. The time it saved must be absolutely dwarfed by the time spent undoing the unwanted automatic formatting.

Rudderneck · 22/10/2023 03:14

Oh, gods, I had thought I was becoming stupider. I am glad it is not just me.

I also struggle with automatic formatting especially of lists which I need to make often, figuring out where saved things zoom off to, and what the heck the dozens of icons mean. (I always want to say, you know with the alphabet, you only have to memorize 26 characters, how is it better to memorize hundreds of icons? There is a reason alphabets replaces pictograms.)

I don't have to use Excel much now, but I used to do it regularly 20 years ago. I had to do some recently and could not get stuff to stay in the right boxes, which seems like it should be pretty straightforward?

Original poster
1jan2020 · 22/10/2023 05:16

What I can't stand is how hard it is to save to desktop or folder. It wants to save it to the cloud. No, I want to save it to the desktop then attach the stupid thing to an email.

This is my main gripe too! It is so not obvious or easy to save to the desktop. I don’t want my documents in some random cloud either!

OP posts:
Greatbigfluffytrousers · 22/10/2023 05:27

I loved the Excel flight simulator

daisychain01 · 22/10/2023 05:35

1jan2020 · 21/10/2023 23:27

That’s the thing - I just want to save stuff to my desktop. Hardly a big ask (you’d have thought) but it seems to do everything it can to make that exceptionally time-consuming and difficult!

Show quote history

You've obviously never had a total C:\ failure aka blue screen of death, otherwise you'd know never to save files to your local drive. I lost a year's worth of my Masters data by saving everything locally, aka desktop with no security backup, my C:\ crashed and everything went up in a puff of metaphorical smoke.

If you get into the habit of saving files to your OneDrive, which is the modern version of the old file shares that existed before Cloud Computing, it does create a local version, which means you can work offline ie if you don't have internet, but it always backs itself up. Then you never lose work, it has saved me hours of wasted time.

daisychain01 · 22/10/2023 05:48

No, I want to save it to the desktop then attach the stupid thing to an email

you don't need to save a file to your desktop to attach it to an email. You're making life far too difficult! I will caveat this by saying I assume you're using O365 and the Cloud

If you create your file eg MS Word document in your OneDrive, then when you're ready to attach the file using Outlook email, just click on the icon in the ribbon to attach and it will remember that you've just been editing your MS Word file so it will be on the list of recently edited files and you can click on that file name. It doesn't need you to save it to your desktop first.

greenhydrangea · 22/10/2023 07:59

I don't use the Cloud. I just save to a file and also then to a thumb drive.

PuppyMonkey · 22/10/2023 08:13

We use an old old version of Word at work thank God. Quite grateful to be living in the past frankly!

borntobequiet · 22/10/2023 08:25

I’ve been using Office applications since the early 1990s and yes, they’re well past the point of comfortable useability now.

cakeorwine · 22/10/2023 08:25

daisychain01 · 22/10/2023 05:35

You've obviously never had a total C:\ failure aka blue screen of death, otherwise you'd know never to save files to your local drive. I lost a year's worth of my Masters data by saving everything locally, aka desktop with no security backup, my C:\ crashed and everything went up in a puff of metaphorical smoke.

If you get into the habit of saving files to your OneDrive, which is the modern version of the old file shares that existed before Cloud Computing, it does create a local version, which means you can work offline ie if you don't have internet, but it always backs itself up. Then you never lose work, it has saved me hours of wasted time.

Show quote history

Exactly.

I am not sure people understand what One Drive actually is.
When my PC died, I lost a lot of stuff as the hard drive died.

Being able to share documents, work on the same document, to have document control, to be able to go back to previous versions when people screw up spreadsheets, to know that you can both work on the same spreadsheet at the same time without it telling you it's locked.

All useful stuff.

Boopear · 22/10/2023 08:32

Apart from it doesn't remember it. Ever. I have no idea what the algorithm is for adding a file to the 'Attach' list in Outlook where i work but whatever it is, it is broken. I thought I'd cracked it when i realised it doesn't show files that are still open, but, no, closing them still doesn't add them to the list even when close email and restart. I still have to fanny around the various 2343355 places the file may have been saved to to find it to attach. 😡

Boopear · 22/10/2023 08:33

That was meant to be a reply to @daisychain01 ..(maybe it is my tech skills 😂)

mechanicalpencil · 22/10/2023 08:34

Glad it’s not just me!!!!!

Does anyone use the Apple version of Word instead? If so is it any better?

cakeorwine · 22/10/2023 08:37

Boopear · 22/10/2023 08:32

Apart from it doesn't remember it. Ever. I have no idea what the algorithm is for adding a file to the 'Attach' list in Outlook where i work but whatever it is, it is broken. I thought I'd cracked it when i realised it doesn't show files that are still open, but, no, closing them still doesn't add them to the list even when close email and restart. I still have to fanny around the various 2343355 places the file may have been saved to to find it to attach. 😡

If you open Word, you should be able to see the file path for your most recent document if you have forgotten where you've saved it.

ChillysWaterBottle · 22/10/2023 08:38

Mackeroo · 21/10/2023 23:24

I long for the olden days where you saved your own documents to your pc and there was one place for shared documents. With the advent of 365, Sharepoint, Sway and Teams stuff is in a jumbled mess all over the place. Really hard to find. Also the sheer amd ever growing number of Teams I'm in doesn't help. I think this is the point where I slide towards being a tech dinosaur.

This. It hasn't made work any more efficient or productive. It's made everything so complicated and laborious for no reason! I'm not even old!

GoodOldEmmaNess · 22/10/2023 08:38

Word is terrible now. I wish they had simply developed a separate piece of software for people whose priority was sharing, collaborative working and cloud storage. Now, if you are a solitary writer, you have to battle past a forest of options that aren't relevant for you.
Also, it is no longer structured as a product, but as a service. You are never alone with it. Even when you are simply editing in the most primitive way it constantly reminds you that you are locked in to a host of internet-based functions that you don't even need (with disgusting cheery messages like "we're working on it" (No you're not -- I AM)) .
I love, love, love all the functionality that it perfected around a decade or so ago. Everything since then is white noise that makes me want to go back to an A4 notebook.

Ceit · 22/10/2023 08:40

DisforDarkChocolate · 21/10/2023 21:22

Working for more than one company means that Teams is the bain of my life. Why make it so fucking difficult for people like me.

This. Nightmare.

megletthesecond · 22/10/2023 08:41

Mine auto types a word ahead in grey text just to put me off. I must learn how to switch it off this week.
Teams still does my head in despite using it since the pandemic. It's so flippin' messy.

Puddypuds · 22/10/2023 08:44

Another yes to SharePoint horror. Spend more time asking work colleagues to check in and check out documents. Drives me insane and I work for a large council so we're all bloody on it!
While we're on the subject cant stand Hotmail either or maybe that's just me!

Fatcat00 · 22/10/2023 08:48

There’s too many parts. Word 365 office excel and I don’t know the difference between any! Thank god I haven’t got an office job but I loathe whenever I have to type something up