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0 pointsNonNefarious4y ago0 comments

Unfortunately Office is no longer "the thing everyone knows." It has become a hideously dysfunctional mess, primarily because of UI-design defects.

Style management stands as a particular example. Now you must wade through dozens of unwanted canned styles to find the ones you've set up... if I remember correctly.

For the style mess and other UI regressions that I haven't taken the time to catalog, I switched to LibreOffice. Granted, I don't exchange Office documents with coworkers much. We use (also crappy) Confluence for most documentation; and if I just want to send a document to someone, I export to PDF.

I used to love Word. I used WordBasic to automate not only technical-documentation production, but also to parse and rewrite thousands of SQL routines on a DEC VAX system and save my company weeks of engineering time.

I hate Word now because Microsoft ruined its UI. Oh, and I detest the continual hounding to log into your "Microsoft account." Nobody wants your goddamned account, Microsoft. We all have PLENTY of accounts by now.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

kayodelycaon4y ago· 4 in thread

Personally, I’ve found the new UI in Word to be a massive improvement. The ribbon is way easier for me to navigate and find functionality.

Then again, I’m using the macOS version. It still has a menubar for less common functionality.

NonNefariousOP4y ago

I think it depends on what kind of user you are. If you're doing ad-hoc formatting all the time, maybe the ribbon is OK. But if you are used to managing styles and religiously applying them and using templates, I found that the new UI sucks (on both Windows and Mac).

The "ribbon" was widely mocked when it came out; I'm curious as to what you find easier about it.

heretogetout4y ago

I wasn't a big Word user prior to the ribbon so I can't compare before and after, however I've found applying styles about as easy as it can be (select text, click the style in the ribbon). Were they in a more convenient location before?

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kayodelycaon4y ago

The review ribbon has been very convenient. I use it constantly as an author.

Flipping between landscape and portrait and changing margins isn’t buried in an obscure dialog box. (I do this often to make signs.)

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kcplate4y ago

I use Office on a Mac as well, i have zero issues with the UI and UX on the recent versions.

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