That's actually kinda funny ...
I've just read through the year-old thread "how do i enable the old
menu bar" where many of the shortcomings of Office2007 have been
discussed, especially right after its release, and it does little to
enhance confidence in the new version.
But: I'm looking longingly at the recently introduced tiny notebook
computer (with 7" screen , 512 Mb RAM and 4 Gb storage, weighing 2
lbs., and a $350 price tag -- I don't want to get too specific lest
everyone suddenly rush off and sign up on the waiting list for the
$500 model that will have double those memory amounts in the same-size
unit) that runs on Linux and comes with 40 apps including OpenOffice
(plus, it says it can run XP Pro if you already own the disk). I
downloaded the 500-page OpenOffice manual, and it _looks_ like it can
do just about everything I'm used to (probably not Track Changes, but
that's not the sort of thing one would do on the road anyway). (I've
never had a reason to use a spreadsheet, so Excel is irrelevant.)
Am I missing something? Does OpenOffice have drawbacks I won't
discover until I try to start doing something a little sophisticated?
(I guess for me specifically, I need to know if it supports Unicode,
right-to-left, and character scripts.)
Thanks all!
On Jan 19, 4:22*pm, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
While not disagreeing with your statement in principle, I'll point out that
in the specific instance you cite (esta establishment), and AutoCorrect
entry would be more suitable than AutoText, anyway. You might want to
consider how you could use AutoCorrect for at least some of your AutoText
entries.
As for the popup, if you didn't remember that the letters you are typing
were an AutoText entry name, why would you be typing them? If you weren't
typing them in order to insert the AutoText entry, then the ScreenTip would
just be a distraction (I had to remove my business name from the AutoText
entry list--where it was put by Word, not me--because it popped up every
time I typed "word").
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
"Phil" wrote in message
...
Bob Buckland said:
"As far as documents looking alike (consistency of presentation?) with
most things, some folks see the Office 2007 changes and expansion of
AutoText into Buiding Block galleries, as a means for making reusable
content more easily identifiable and accessible, others see it as a
change they didn't ask for"
Can I get straight here - I think what I called Autotext in 2003 is
missing completely, that's my complaint. *In 2003, I could set 'esta'
as autotext for 'establishment', so after i typed 'esta' I would get a
bubble asking if i wanted 'establishment' substituted, press enter and
the substitution occurred. *That facility is absent from 2007. You may
say the enter has been replaced by F3, but you have to know and
remember that you've saved an autotext. The whole beauty of the 2003
feature was that you didnt have to remember because of the bubble that
appeared.
As for the facility to insert boiler-plate text, that's useless for
simple word expansions such as this. *All this boiler plate text seems
suited to corporate life, in fact the whole 2007 release seems aimed
at corporate workers, and not at the individual with his own PC. *No
wonder Msoft made this special offer (in UK anyway) that anyone with
an academic email address could buy the whole lot for about 1/4 of the
normal price. But then they find there's nothing in it for them, and
before people point to the new reference/citation facility, I've had a
look and it seems very clunky without Endnote, and that costs as much
again, and works just as well with 2003.
The only good news is that I've managed to get WORD,EXCEL,ACCESS
loaded as both 2007 and 2003. *Aside for that I blow 2007 a big
raspberry.
Phil
On 19 Jan, 15:14, "Bob * Buckland ?:-\)" 75214.226(At Beautiful
Downtown)compuserve.com wrote:
Hi Grammatim,
As far as documents looking alike (consistency of presentation?) with
most things, some folks see the Office 2007 changes and
expansion of AutoText into Buiding Block galleries, as a means for making
reusable content more easily identifiable and accessible,
others see it as a change they didn't ask for, I suppose 
but as with
other Word features they can be avoided and the galleries
can be depopulated of their examples. Each version of Word has included
samples that can be used and modified (fortunately Microsoft
has left the 'Blue Skies and 'Adventure' themed ones from earlier
versions behind for this decade g).
The ability to setup custom packets of styles, headers and footers with
logos and specific formatting can be helpful in company
environments where standardization to a corporate 'look' is wanted, as
well as 'boilerplate'/approved wording of certain letters and
forms to allow, if nothing else, replicate using preprinted
letterhead/form letters in the printer from inside of Word g.
For folks in schools, or in the scientific community, who need to meet
specific formatting and layout needs, the galleries can also
come in handy, letting folks focus more on content than on how to match a
layout.
The access to templates in Office Button=Open is one I've seen as
appreciated by the casual user of Word from home for
letter/email/calendar flyer, etc creation. *For those folks, the allure
of an improved 'compare documents' feature could be on their
'why bother changing that' list g. It's not an easy task to 'please
millions' of folks with differing opinions of what they'd want
to see change'. *
FWIW, Bill Gates is in his retiring this summer. *Perhaps one day folks
will be saying 'Bill Gates wouldn't have done that when he
was in charge' as the next versions of Office come out, or 'I wonder what
Bill would think of this' g.
=================
* "grammatim" wrote in
...
Nothing listed by Aeneas strikes me as desirable -- especially what
they seem to be promoting especially heavily: the imposition of pre-
provided designs instead of the creativity of individual designers
(or, call it advertising departments). Evidently Mr. Gates wants all
documents ever produced henceforth to look alike.
The one useful feature of Word2007 that's been mentioned here is the
clearer method of comparing versions of documents.