Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Word 2002 - if you upgrade to it say goodbye to macros!
Microsoft Word is a good word processor, but if you use to work with macros, I strongly advise against upgrade to Word 2002. This version of the most famous word processor seems to be a step back instead forward. At least my experience with it says so.In older versions of Word you are able to record macros by performing a sequence of actions. In Word 2002 you can do the same, but with one important difference: macro does not remember font attributes like underline, italic, bold, style, font etc. If you're a PC guru you may probably be able to repair such incomplete macro by entering Visual Basic Editor, but if you aren't, you'll probably be helpless. Word 2002 has also some other bad characteristics. One of them is the size of its files. A 34 Mb Word 97 file fattened to enormous 49Mb in Word 2002 and a 55 Kb file to 70 Kb.
Another is a fact that almost all of the Spelling&Grammar and Auto Text options are turned on by default. If you're not an English or an American, you need to do a lot of clicking before you can begin to work with Word normally. And poor you if you don't know what to turn off to make auto corrections and other disturbing features disappear. Try to imagine what happens if you write in Slovenian language with the English spell-checker turned on! Microsoft should bear in mind that only (small) part of the world is English speaking and writing. There are also some troubles with cut and paste (Clipboard memory seems to be unreliable). PS
I gave Word 2002 4 stars for its basic word processing features, but only 1 star for its macros and reliability, and again only 1 star for its price. Together it's 2 stars.
Rating:  - Professional Program with Unprofessional Animations
Overall, MS Word is a very good tool. One extremely irritating addition to the latest version is "Mr. Clippet" or "Clippy", a cartoon animation that pops-up whenever the user needs to search the help index. If the user is consulting the help menu, he or she is probably already somewhat frustrated. The user doesn't need some dancing, dumb-ass cartoon as a distraction. Keep it professional! It also wouldn't hurt Microsoft's reputation if they were to make their program compatible with some of the other Word processing programs out there. For example, Star Office allows the import of MS Word documents, but Word doesn't allow the import of Star Office documents. Come on, Bill, play fair!
Rating: - No one needs Word anymore, with OpenOffice.org & StarOffice
Word is adequate, bloated, has a decent interface, and is ludicrously expensive. All in all, thumbs down. Word 2002 is just another edition of the same thing. I've used Word on and off since 1991, avoiding it whenever possible, and am so happy I don't have to use it anymore.Go to ... and download your office suite for free, or order StarOffice 6.0 here on Amazon. They both contain Writer, the Word equivalent that handles, and lets you create, Word files. (And programs that let you open and create Excel files and PowerPoint files.) Don't spend another penny on Word til you've tried OpenOffice.org or StarOffice.
|
