Word 2010



I have some queries about Word 2010. I cannot pretend to be an expert, although I have tried to explore the options, searched posts like this, and Microsoft Natural Language blogs (which seem to have stopped two years ago), and other experts around the web. And I am left with a number of things which do not work as I think they should.

I have to use Word for my work, since that is the standard for the business school where I teach. Additionally the correction facilities are better than in Open Office, and I think this is also true of Libre Office, though I am still working on it (for instance I need to check whether a document saved in Libre Office as a .doc file will reproduce the mark-up I want). One point which might affect some of the following is that I am correcting students' work which comes with their own styles attached (so that I always have to adjust the Change Tracking options). But Word is not easy to use, and in particular I rue the day that I moved to Office 2010, which seems to me a shambles of the first water.

Hanging indentation, margins, etc.

In the middle of typing a paragraph, it will suddenly indent every line except the first, for no reason, since it does it without my accidentally pressing a wrong key (is there a right one ?). Drives me nuts, because it happens all the time.

(It also used to arbitrarily reset one or both margins for part or all of the document – though it seems to have stopped this now, for reasons of its own.)

Marking and checking text – and, inevitably, grammar

When I highlight something and underline / italicise / bold it, Word applies the instruction to the whole document; and I have to press the Undo button, or CTRL-W, to get rid of it (curiously one press undoes the rest of the document but not the highlighted section which stays underlined, etc.) I have read the MVP FAQ (referenced by Charles Kenyon yesterday) here:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting...eformatted.htm
but that only goes up to Word 2007, and when I try clicking Alt+F11 in Word 2010 nothing happens. I should point out that no AutoCorrect Options button (the one that looks like a stick of dynamite at the top with a flash of lightning coming down from it) appears, so I cannot click that button and turn it off. When I go to File - Options – Autocorrect – Proofing – Autocorrect I uncheck everything in sight that might be relevant to do with styles, and it makes no difference – and if I go back later I find many of the boxes have mysteriously acquired ticks again. (I have tried reading up on styles, again thanks to Mr Kenyon’s helpful references, but since I only ever use the one style, it does not seem very relevant. I accept that I probably should understand them better: one day ...)

When Word flags something as orthographically or grammatically wrong (green underline) and I click Ignore, it usually doesn’t ignore it but keeps on flagging it. Same for saying a word or phrase is in another language – it keeps coming back about it.
(This is clearly not what is supposed to happen, and I am not talking about starting to check again in a new session – cf. http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/22...8article10.htm )

While one can in theory edit the grammar rules, that merely amounts to saying which aspects of grammar you would like to check. Incidentally you really have to wonder about who compiled their version of a ‘correct’ English grammar and why they were allowed anywhere near a keyboard - for example, the previous sentence was flagged, with the following alternatives suggested: ‘rule, that merely amounts’ or ‘rules, that merely amount’. When I click ‘Ignore’, it comes back with a new query on ‘rules, that’: ‘rule that’ or ‘rules, which’ – Word’s illiterate dogmatism over ‘that’ and ‘which’ are one of its least endearing features. Anyway, once I click ‘Ignore’ to that query, it goes back to highlighting ‘grammar rules, that’ and proffers its original suggestions.

And woe betide you if you have a relative clause beginning ‘which’ as it will unfailingly want to put a question mark at the end of the sentence. Why do I let it check the grammar at all? Well, in case I foolishly write something wrongly: but I am more likely to pick it up myself - now it has become an addiction, to see how far it will go. I feel sorry for those uncertain enough to trust it. But just one more little example:

“The ‘assurance’ is unnecessary, as your reply should make clear that you have indeed examined the issues.”
Word puts a wavy blue line under ‘your’, signifying a grammar issue. When I right click on it, I am not offered any grammar solutions, only the opportunity to change ‘your’ to ‘you’...



Alas, yet another one has struck, which I cannot resist sharing with you. When I wrote:
‘ Even saying ‘Customer Service Department’ probably makes it sound too grand, but you have to say something.’
- Word 2010 underlined ‘have’ and wanted to change it to ‘has’: when I asked it to explain, it told me, in a know-it-all sort of way:
“Subject-Verb Agreement
The verb of a sentence must agree with the subject in number and in person.”
Any comment of mine would be superfluous.

Delete a text box

“Click the border of the text box that you want to delete, and then press DELETE.
Make sure that the pointer is not inside the text box, but rather on the border of the text box. If the pointer is not on the border, pressing DELETE will delete the text inside the text box and not the text box.” (Word Help)
- Unfortunately, this does not work as advertised: it deletes the box but also the text.

When I consult Help (F1, Remove the border from a text box or shape), I am told to select the text box and then
“2. Under Drawing Tools, on the Format tab, in the Shape Styles group, click Shape Outline, and then click No Outline”
Unfortunately my copy of Word in Office 2010 (purchased at vast expense from a shifty little company called Microsoft) does not produce a Format Tab, no matter how many times I click, all round, on and inside the offending box, with or without highlighting the whole thing. However this complaint should really be under a new heading called the uselessness of Microsoft’s Help, but I haven’t the strength to go into that.

Needless to say, if I look at Text Box on the Insert Tab, it provides me with a lot of text boxes but no button saying ‘remove’.

Dictionary:

1. I want to be able to open the dictionary then and there, from the right-click menu, and remove the appalling suggestions that Microsoft gives. (And cf. the closed loop for whoever / whomever noted by stancarey.wordpress.com in his ‘Sentence first’ blog on ‘Who to follow’)
2. Add to dictionary – why not a choice of which dictionary to add to ? For instance, I would like to have a dictionary of names, separate from ordinary words; and I would like to keep languages separate. And I want to access each of these dictionaries at all times. And cf. the post by Jan Te Lagen on 2Feb10 which no-one has answered.
3. Also the dictionary does not appear to accept two-word terms (mind you, it is in ‘good’ company, neither does the CD-rom OED, even though that also contains two- (and three-) word terms).
4. I am convinced that the dictionary loses words: I do not know how many times I have added ‘cheque’ to the (supposedly) UK dictionary I am (supposedly) using, but it keeps being queried and instead I am offered cheese and other nonsense.

Miscellaneous

And sometimes it suddenly changes the colour of corrections to a uniform red for no reason. ********* it!

It brings up Research (which I never, and would never, out of sheer loathing and cussedness, use) for no reason that I can think of except perhaps inadvertently touching the space bar – how can I turn this off ? (When you press F1 and type Research, it does not even tell you how to turn it on, so I have no idea how to avoid it.)

When I type a colon directly after a word, using a French keyboard, it leaves a space between the last letter typed and the colon. It has now started doing this with an English keyboard – how can I stop this ?


And just in case anyone knows the answer

Excel 2010

I have not yet managed to understand the reason for having a grey background screen, and have no use for one. Is it possible to dispense with it, because it just gets in the way when I am trying to resize the window?