Microsoft Word 2010 review

Sorry, No

I've been using Word in various guises since the 1980s and have upgraded with each new release. But not this time. Word keeps growing (e.g. the photo editing facility - aren't there enough of them around?) but yet the basics are often broken. For example, in Word 2007 style management is a nightmare, format painter is broken, document map doesn't refresh, undo involving lists or over end of paragraphs is a joke, and numbering is so byzantine as to make me scream. (Yes, I did read an article by Simon Jones on how it works a while back: the fact that an article was needed says it all). I could go on and on. Most of this stuff worked back in Word 6 when it still a word processing app. I use Word everyday to work on big documents and everyday I despair of some broken basic feature: the next release should concentrate on fixing these rather than adding some new toy that looks good in a demo but is used by almost no-one in real life.

By RosslynDad on 1 Jun 2010

missing bits

Has anyone produced an add-on that brings back if not extends the animated text feature? This was taken away, yet was artfully useful.
The time to restore .pcx graphics integration both as importable to Word and viewable as thumbnails in Explorer is long overdue.
So here is the challenge - can PCPRO put out the above two fixes?

By specious on 1 Jun 2010

Broken or Missing bits?

RosslynDad, I'd love to know more about how you think features in Word are broken, EG Format Painter.
Often problems are perceived because the features are so complex that they are difficult to understand. If I can explain them, or produce a simplified UI as an Add-In I'd be happy to help.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 2 Jun 2010

too many distractions but can be turned off

Well I think that the new Ribboon interface is sometimes too overcrowded and distracting.

You can however minimize it by pressing CTRL + F1 and there are no distractions at all. :-)

Mike
http://www.mswordhelp.com

By mike_smith on 2 Jun 2010

Sorry, NO - NO!

I'm right behind RosslynDad. Seems most folk round here don't actually use Word for much more than a few fancy frills as otherwise they would be aware that it has consistently been a dog's dinner since W6. As a tech pubs person I also despair as each version of Word is rolled out with the same basic facilities not being fixed. The glossy interface does little to enhance functionality - enhanced cut and paste for heavens sake and a pretty new interface - bah! Fix cross-refs, bullets, numbering, import linking. I am fed up with forking out hard-earned $/£ for a turgid, windy bag of old tarted up product that has little to commend itself other than pretty new graphics. Oh, that goes for Visio to, a more arcane operating environment I cannot imagine.

By nick_w on 3 Jun 2010

Have they overcome the basic bugs yet?

I use earlier versions of Word frequently, mostly for work now as, don't laugh, but I've gone back to using Works 8 as my 1st choice WP app when I can!
Why? because it's stable, fast to load and close and doesn't keep wrecking my chosen formatting, inserting para numbers where I don't want them (and getting the style wrong anyway), switching to US spell checking and crashing!
Most of this is down to the Normal.dot bug, sorry, "Template" - possibly because my work involves a lot of cut/copy unformatted text pasting from other documents and from OCR.
Can anyone say if these woes have been vanquished in the new edition?

By Walsallian on 3 Jun 2010

Complexity

What's wrong with "cross-refs, bullets, numbering, import linking"
They are complex but necessarily so for some people.
If you don't need all the power of Word then perhaps it is not the right product for you. Have you tried WordPad on Windows 7? There's a very simple free word processor that still understands DOC and DOCX format.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 3 Jun 2010

Broken Bits

Hi Simon. If you send me your email address I'll send you some screendumps showing a broken format painter.

As an example of something that is so complex as to be unworkable: try formatting a table so that it appears on a single page (and floats to the next page when pushed down). I would suggest this a relatively common need yet the procedure is tortuous. I'd love an explanation of how to make this task simpler.

While your offer of writing Add-ins to fix Word's defects is very kind, surely that highlights the problem: the system out-of-the-box has major defects, especially unnecessary complexity. A good UI should strive to make simple things easy and complex things possible; recent versions of Word make everything complex.

By RosslynDad on 3 Jun 2010

Broken Bits

Address as in the magazine - simon dot pcpro at msdl dot co dot uk.

Page breaks before/after a table or put the table in a Text Box to anchor it to a particular paragraph depending on whether you want the table to be the only thing on the page or not.

Word is necessarily a complex application because it has to do so much. Some feature UIs are not as clear as they might be for people unfamiliar with that feature but you always have to spend some time learning how to use a complex tool properly if you are going to get the best out of it.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 3 Jun 2010

What broken bits?

Like nick_w I also am a technical author, but I have a completely different view of Word 2010.

I make extensive use of cross references, bullets, numbering, and the format painter (but not import linking). They all seem to work fine, to me.

I've been using Word since it first appeared in Windows, so I am reasonably familiar with it. For what it's worth, I think there were two "classics": Word 2.0c and Word 97. Since 97 it has been getting more powerful but messier, but I honestly think Word 2007 was a good attempt at cleaning things up and exposing more of the features.

Word 2010 is - in my opinion - Word 2007 done properly. Personally I get along really well with it, and I suspect it may go down as another milestone release, like 2.0c and 97.

Interestingly, I've recently used Word 2007 to produce a 200,000+ word technical training manual (spread over twelve volumes). As well as the text, it contains hundreds of photos and technical diagrams (done in Visio). During that time I flushed out some annoying bugs/glitches, but none related to those reported by RosslynDad, nick_w and Walsallian.

RosslynDad and nick_w - could you explain in a bit more detail what is wrong with those features you list? I may well be missing something and would love to understand alternative points of view.

Walsallian - what do you mean by the Normal.dot "bug"? In what way is it bugged? In what circumstances do you get unwanted paragraph numbering?

Seriously: none of the above is meant as a challenge - just genuine questions. Word is one of the tools of my trade and I would love to understand more about its shortcomings as perceived by other people.

Steve

PS: nick_w - this is totally OT, of course, but I was interested by your condemnation of Visio. It isn't really a Microsoft product originally, of course, coming from Visio corporation about ten years ago.

I've used it a lot (along with many other vector-based diagramming programs), and have to say that it is probably the finest piece of software I've ever used. The level of innovation by Visio Corp was remarkable, and my productivity far exceeds that in any other diagramming package.

However, I'm talking about Visio 2003. V2007 took the product nowhere and - in my view - needn't have been released.

Currently I'm enjoying V2010, but I'm still open-minded about whether it's any better than V2003.

By SteveThack on 3 Jun 2010

What? Sorry.......

Really sorry - my browser seems to have had a fit and posted the same thing three times.

I've no idea why (all I did was refresh the page to check for replies), but please accept my apologies.

Steve

By SteveThack on 3 Jun 2010

SteveThack: it's an annoying glitch that refreshing the page reposts the comment, we are working on a fix! I've removed the duplicates.

By DavidBayon on 3 Jun 2010

Sorry - also probs with Firefox

Wanted to comment but Firefox or something is stuffing things up and repeating my messages when I relogin and refresh.

By nick_w on 3 Jun 2010

Re what broken bits?

I give up. I started writing in reply about what was wrong with W2007 and after 200,000 words gave up - it's not the correct forum anyway. All I can say is that many of the problems with Word are well known and if you look at other programs (Framemaker/Quark for instance) show you why Word is such a dog's dinner and avoided by professionals where possible. If you are happy with W2007 then you are one of the lucky few – my congratulations. Visio gets much the same comment from me (honestly, look at some other software and tell me that Visio is not clumsy (though it does enable non-profs to build diagrams with relative ease).
200,000 words in 12 volumes does not mean a thing other than maybe your training manuals are perhaps a little over-blown and you should consider getting a professional in to edit them (smirk!).

By nick_w on 3 Jun 2010

Framemaker & Quark

Both these applications are Desktop Publishing packages which is a whole level above Word Processing which is where Word is aimed.
It is no wonder Word falls short of your expectations if you are comparing it with DTP packages.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 3 Jun 2010

Visio 2010

I think Visio 2010 is a huge step up from previous versions, not just because the Ribbon interface exposes commands that were otherwise burried but also because it has inherited many alignment tools from Visual Studio making layout much easier.
It still needs work on laying out diagrams so lines don't cross but it has always needed that. (The Visio team need to talk to the SQL Server team about their layout algorithms for entity/relationship diagrams.)

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 3 Jun 2010

200,000 words

nick_w - you've got no information about the distance learning course I wrote, so you don't know whether the word count I used is too much or too few! :-)

In all fairness, I've just done a quick estimate and I think the wordcount may be a little lower than my first estimate - somewhere between 180,000 and 200,000.

Back to the subject: my point was solely to show that I've used Word a great deal in the past couple of years, so my opinion is based upon a fair bit of experience, rather than just the occasional casual use.

Steve

By SteveThack on 3 Jun 2010

200,000 words

nick_w - you've got no information about the distance learning course I wrote, so you don't know whether the word count I used is too much or too few! :-)

In all fairness, I've just done a quick estimate and I think the wordcount may be a little lower than my first estimate - somewhere between 180,000 and 200,000.

Back to the subject: my point was solely to show that I've used Word a great deal in the past couple of years, so my opinion is based upon a fair bit of experience, rather than just the occasional casual use.

Steve

By SteveThack on 3 Jun 2010

200,000 words

Seems to me that RosslynDad who has used Word in earnest for several years has an equally valid view point that Word is rubbish. ta-tah..

By nick_w on 3 Jun 2010

Troll alert

nick_w: I'm sorry you are behaving this way. I thought we might get a useful discussion going on the merits and demerits of Word 2010, especially when compared with earlier releases and competing products.

Unfortunately you don't seem willing to behave in a polite and constructive way, which spoils things for others.

Oh - and for the record, I don't need you to tell me that RosslynDad has an equally valid point of view. That is exactly why I invited him to enlarge upon his comments - on the grounds that I might learn something and get some new insights.

Steve

By SteveThack on 3 Jun 2010

Wow, that went bad fast...

Simon, I've sent you a simple doc and instructions to show a painter problem. As I mentioned, I'm not bashing this feature in particular (I use it a lot) but it has enough idiosyncrases to make things frustrating. This applies to the other features I mentioned originally.

Thanks for the suggestions about keeping a table on the page. I had been struggling to set a table style with keep rows together. However, it would be very nice to create a KeepTableOnPage table style and apply it to each table rather than have to do it manually with anchored text boxes.

I realise that Word is a big product and we all stick with the tiny subset of features we are used to. However, I think it is a victim of its own growth. For example, does it need photo manipulation facilities? I'm sure many people like to live entirely within Word, but I prefer focussed tools for each task.

I've been playing with the Document Map in one of my larger documents to reproduce the problem I was having (the content disappearing with the window still open). It's working fine: maybe a SP fix? So ignore that comment above.

Now, the question is: do I follow Steve's comment that W2010 is W2007 done properly and upgrade...?

As a software engineer I obviously never read the manual (!), but perhaps it's time to hit F1.

By RosslynDad on 4 Jun 2010

Style management and numbering

I agree with RosslynDad that I don't really want photo manipulation features in Word. However I, too, realise that some customers perhaps do.

RD: could you enlarge upon your concerns re style management and the numbering features? I think both get quite complicated quite quickly, although I'm not sure how they could be made simpler and still do everything the do.

I suppose I'm bound to say this, but yes - I would recommend the 2010 upgrade. It feels much more "finished off" and "polished" than 2007. Also, it's great that you can customise the ribbon (though there are limitations pertaining to the standard groups).

Oh yes, and the title bar behaves properly again with respect to the new mouse-actions in Windows 7.

I guess in the end it depends on how much money you've got to spend on these things! ;-)

Steve

By SteveThack on 4 Jun 2010

Office 2010 - Is it worth the money?

In my opinion, I think it is but you should try it out for yourself and see.

If you're already on Office 2007 you should see how much more cohesive the 2010 suite feels and appreciate the new features and the many small improvements. If you're running an earlier version then there are bigger changes for you to get used to such as the Ribbon but research shows that the vast majority of people find that the new UI quickly makes them more productive and it certainly makes creating good looking documents easier.

The 60-day trial of Office 2010 is available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/evalcenter/ee39
0818.aspx

Try it out and make up your own mind.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 4 Jun 2010

Photo Manipulation

Here, Office gives basic features that can streamline the document production process.

Yes, you can go out to a separate Image Editing package, but Microsoft have just made it easier by allowing you to do the simple/common things all inside Office.

You pay your money and you take your choice. If you're happy with basic WP in one package and use a different package for images then that's fine but many people do want their working lives made easier with the tools all in the same package.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 4 Jun 2010

Works for me

I don't have the range of expertise of some of the contributors here. HOwever, I'm self-employed and regularly write 10,000 - 20,000 word reports which use a good deal of word's features. FOr me 2007 & 2010 have helped me produce attractive reports which get positive feedback from clients. I like the improved integration between word, powerpoint, outlook etc. in 2010.
For me, almost all the time, it just works and works well

By russweb on 7 Jun 2010

yes and no

Well, yes and no.
The thing is that MS Word 2010 is sometimes too focused on other things than word processing that is has lost its basics.

You can work with graphics, graphs and tables but I would leave that to other programs adn just copy it to MS Word.

If for nothing else, if you resize pictures in MS Word their size is smaller, but the file size remains the same and then you get 100 megs file. Not goot.

mike
http://www.mswordhelp.com

By mike_smith on 9 Jun 2010

Image size in Word

Mike, there is a button to take care of that. Picture Tools | Adjust | Compress Pictures.

It is up to you to decide if you want to compress your pictures. You may want full resolution for professional printing at 2400 dpi. You may not have finished editing yet and so may want to recrop your images. Word keeps the full image until you say otherwise by pressing this button and choosing between the options.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 10 Jun 2010

when to review Zoho.com?

Can PC Mag compare between google, zoho, microsoft app for word and excel?

By riscy on 10 Jun 2010

Style management and numbering

Try creating a numbered list and then right-clicking it and selecting "Restart at 1" - you will get the error "Requested member of the collection does not exist". That's only the first way numbering is hopelessly broken - try mapping lists to paragraph styles and you're into a world of pain. Try copying bullet lists between documents and again, you'll be banging your head off the wall in no time.

There are ways around these problems but the moment you send a document out to an author that doesn't understand them you're screwed.


Ditto "paragraph" and "character" style naming sprawl, the inability to get rid of document styles you don't want authors to go near, etc etc etc.

Make Word a bullet proof machine for applying paragraph and table formatting via styles and stick all the DTP stuff in Publisher.

And let me choose which ribbons I want to see in Print Preview - the custom toolbar isn't big enough to hold all the useful commands you've just made unavailable. If this is a "feature" of 2010 then all well-and-good but it's a bug-fix not a feature.

An export to epub function would be nice (or failing that a proper HTML / CSS exporter). Have't done that have they?

By jamesp on 11 Jun 2010

Style management and numbering

1) Restart List numbering at 1
Works absoutely fine here on Word 2010. Never had a problem with it.

2) Mapping Lists to paragraph styles
I've never had a problem putting numbering in headings or making another style that includes numbering.

3) Copying bullet lists between documents
Doesn't cause a problem here but you do have to watch whether you're going to keep source formatting or accept destination formatting. Word 2010 makes this easier with Paste Preview.

4) Sending documents to authors that don't understand Word (or features of Word)
Yes, this is a problem and it can be solved by training. Everyone who uses a tool should know HOW to use it in order to get the best out of it.

5) Paragraph & Character style naming sprawl
This hasn't been a problem since Word 2007 when they changed how "automatic style creation & naming" worked. Word no longer creates styles for every little difference in formatting.

6) Inability to get rid of styles
You can't delete built-in styles but you can control which styles people can use. Review | Protect | Restrict Editing.

7) Publisher is good for some things but many people want Word to cover most of their needs so that is what it does.

8) In Word 2010, Print and Print Preview are combined in Backstage. You do not get to edit the content of the document there.

9) Word is not an HTML editor. While it will export HTML it has never been very good at it because it was designed to created printed documents on physical paper. Use a proper HTML editor if you need to create web pages.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 11 Jun 2010

Normal.dot and other bugs

Steve asked about the problems with earlier versions of Word. As someone else said, I could write 000s of words but this is not the place except in explaining why I prefer Works, for all its own weaknesses.
Right, for starters, saving defaults in Windows and Word and ones own version of Normal.dot has only a temporary effect before nested paragraph numbers (eg 3.1, 3.2 etc) go pear-shaped, US spelling reappears, the font type changes (paste special > unformatted is unreliable), editing reverts to selecting whole words, tabs change position for no reason. etc. etc.
There seem to be no options to turn off automatic para numbering to stop it messing up manual typing of the numbers. Dialogue boxes to stop automatic language recognition have no effect.
I do miss Word tables though, which being sortable, can serve as a simple database. Also Works is determined to use its native wps format: rtf and doc are available but you have to save as a new file and use the scroll bar to select them every time!
I use Word 2002 at home and and 2003 at work, both with Windows XP, hard to believe that old! So, maybe, 2010 has resolved these issues - but I would need a great deal of reassurance given that the cheap option of buying WorksSuite has now been removed.

By Walsallian on 17 Jun 2010

Forgot the main problem...

My older versions of Word keep crashing. Trying to open Word, a message comes up saying something like "Normal.dot has changed. Do you want to load it?".
You have to say 'yes', which means losing your chosen settings, as 'no' either crashes Word or asks the question again! Making the bug/template Read-only just locks the program up and it is necessary to make it readable to change it.
This IS NOT the current version, I'm just replying to questions, but is a persistent bug which no Microsoft updates or help pages that I know of have resolved.

By Walsallian on 18 Jun 2010

Time Saver??? its a play toy

I have had noting but problems with the combination of Works and Vista...the only thing worst is the US Goverment web sites. If its not the pdf tool its the adobe tool...then it's the video tool....then you back up the thing onto itself, and it doesn't have enough brains to delete the old garbage, so, you just backed up the fifteen previous backups to the fifteenth power....

But, my first impression of works, in itself it was wonderful, until I got to the second page.
I suddenly thought, "Dear Mr. Gates, I'm not interested in learning computer science today, being a typest is a minimum wage job and all scool students are expected to do it for free."

Let's start easy. Why cant I collate a multi page document with page numbers on the bottom? It's the most common task on the face of this earth.
Why does any new paragraph automatically start at the top of the page? We don't read upside down.

Why don't Works and Vista work togeter to get my printer to run? Why can't I preview the document before I send it over to the printer?

Why have I wasted three days on playing with my computer?

Why is it that I have to go ask the local librian how to get the files into the email? If I can't read anyone elses mail because I have the wrong kind of software, dosent that mean that I just wasted four more days of my life?

I remember spending a huge amount of time when I was younger getting the computer's speakers to make a soft kliking noise when ever the keys were pressed. Now I spend huge time every day looking for the dissapering paragraph. My thumbs tent to tap the touch pad while I'm typing.

If I were a computer geek I might look at the machine while I'm working. Iwasted eight monts taking a typing class so I could copy my hand written notes.

You mean NO ONE ELSE ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH CAN READ FILES THAT ARE IN THE "WRONG" FONT? But that is not Microsoft's fault.

I think we write stuff intending others to read it. That's the plan.

Works 9's dictonary is pretty cool though. If I could only get it to stay on the page when I'm sending an e-mail.

Of course MSN has the worst WP in their e-mail box.

Then Vista crashes again..."If you backed up your..." WHAT IF I'M SICK OF HE THING AND DON"T WANT TO FIX IT? Then the cd burner runs, but won't read it's own files...Then the USB 2Gig thing crashes....

I went out and bought an old Smith Corona, it really is faster and I can think about what I'm doing instead of some geek theory about what I should be doing.

By JoeNikk on 19 Jun 2010

AWFUL...JUST AWFUL!

Thank goodness I got the Trial version of 2010...it is AWFUL! It takes sometimes ten minutes to open a document! Meanwhile, I keep getting this damn message about it downloading the feature!

WHY? Why should I need to wait so long to open a $300 software program!?

I only need the word processor. God, Gates, you are such a jerk! I never had to wait for docs to open before...this is INSANE!

And in two days since I tried the free trial, 2010 has crashed my system at least 7 or 8 times--requiring a hard shutdown.

AWFUL...too many bells and whistles trying to be too cute...the GD thing sucks up all the EFFEN RAM!!!!!!!!

By jameszerukjr on 29 Jun 2010

Awful

Most of those delays are probably from the Click-to-Run virtualisation system which was used for the Beta of the Home & Business edition and is an option for the trial of other editions.

If you use the traditional MSI installer you don't see nearly as many delays.

The longest delays are on opening files from non-trusted locations when the files are scanned for possible security problems before they are opened in the sandboxed "protected mode". You can list locations as "trusted" to avoid these delays by using the "Trust Centre" in File | Options.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 29 Jun 2010