So I’ve been working on documentation, and just got logged off my PC to install the latest version of Office.
So far today, I’ve had 4 times Word just stops, 2 times it has turned off the spell checker, and 1 time it just turned gray.
I’m not counting the odd things like it randomly draws diagrams from other pages that happen to not be portrait on the right margin, or my recent documents occasionally is not the documents I recently used. At least it draws the page edge.
I’m afraid that I’m sounding like the old man with this rant, but here goes.
I started using word back when office was not a thing, it ran in DOS, and WordPerfect was king because it was reliable and consistent, and ran. The spell checker was awesome, and you could type a document using only a keyboard. When Word 97 came out it still retained this functionality, but once the ribbon came out you no longer could type a document, but had to mouse-keyboard a document. Now with office365 integration I can type on my phone, which I always want to type on a tiny keyboard hunched in a train / plane / automobile somewhere. This feature I have used exactly once, to correct a typo on a single document, which at the time was very useful.
The problem I have is that I keep my PC around to type. I.E. program, document, and all of those supporting tasks. That program should be designed to do such, and not crash randomly or allow such problems.
Microsoft, If you find this rant, please note. Test, Test, Test your programs, and stop notifying me about the latest and greatest. I would rather have a program that has less features, and more functionality than one that looks good, and does not function. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc are tools, not wardrobe accessories.
We buy hammers to build houses, and just put the bow on the front door, if we have time. Program accordingly.
The contract has decided that all documentation is done in Word, because the company purchases Office365 for email, and the document is complex enough that I don’t want to just say F this and use a tool like OpenOffice.