From: qwa@hardy.u.washington.edu (Ned Bedinger)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.apps
Subject: Re: MS Word upgrade worth it?
Date: 3 Jan 1993 12:45:15 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.u.washington.edu


>> tlinn@uwovax.uwo.ca writes:
>>
>> Msg-ID: <1993Jan2.195443.1@uwovax.uwo.ca>
>> Posted: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 23:54:43
>>
>> Org.  : University of Western Ont, London
>>
>> Has anyone upgraded their Microsoft Word for Windows from ver. 1.0 to
>> ver. 2.0?  Was the upgrade worth the money?  I'm thinking of doing this
>> but am concerned that new qualities (ie. performance, bug fixes, etc.)
>> might not be worth the $150 upgrade price.  Any comments would be
>> appreciated.


>Yes, version 1.0 to 2.0 is well worth the $150.  Get a demonstration of the
>new version if you can.  The Drag-and-Drop moving/copying and toolbar is
>worth it right there.
>
>However, some people are saying version 3.0 will be available sometime in the
>summer.  One feature is TEAR-AWAY toolbars much like Excel 4.0 or AMI Pro.


The benefits of the upgrade are debatable.  I personally
find this drag-and-drop business to be a royal pain in the
rear.  I simply hate spending time trying to click-and-drag
to highlight text (as we have always done in Word) and getting
one character dragged around the screen instead of a highlight.
It is really an inconsequential feature for anyone who has
become accustomed and adept at word processing without it.  

The toolbar and drop down menus will likewise drive you mad
at first -- apparently MS doesn't mind at all if we have to
discover the new locations of features.  Tables now have their
drop down menu, but table borders are under the Format drop-
down menu.  You'll be a while discovering how to show the
internal and box lines of a table if you're used to W4W 1.x.

This is true for many things in the interface.  Again with
things like View modes, things have changed.  You have to
select the Normal view instead of it being the default.
It seems to me that changes like this are gratuitous at best,
and designed primarily to solicit praise for being 'more like
the Mac version'.  I can't quite grok why we PC users have to
take all this creeping featurism to our workplace.  On the other
hand, I guess there are other, more stable developers and 
environments ;>

Anyway, some further notes...


If you import graphics (TIFS is what I am working with here), you
have greater ability to embed them in the file -- with 1.0
anything bigger than a small graphic had to be available for
Word to find before it could be displayed or printed, and with
1.1 the size was a little bigger, now with 2.0 it is bigger
still, so suddenly a document that you used to be able to
fit on a floppy is multiple megs when saved.  Compression
(using PKZIP or some such) will alleviate the problem, but
Word alone will leave you high-and-dry if you need to take
your work home.

On the other hand, things that used to require glossaries and
macros are now available on the tooolbar.  You can simply
click a button to place a bullet, format as two columns, zoom
in (aw fer cryin' out loud, is this really necessary?), and
a rash of other common and not-so-common tasks.

One thing about W4W2.0 that still has me boggled is the ancillary
programs like the Equation Editor, MS Draw, etc etc.  MS has
bundled these and will install them in their own directories
under Windows.  Then, when you double click on a graphic to
select it for sizing, you will boot MSDRAW to edit it instead.
MSDRAW also seems to have alot to do with embedded graphics,
which you will realize when you 'show field codes' and see
some cryptic references to DRAW instead of a path to your
graphic file.

All things considered, I am fairly neutral to the upgrade,
after using it for a month.  I moved over to it after a
shaky week of chipping away at the necessary skills to get
back to my usual level of productiveness, and have now
stopped using 1.1 completely.  But I can't say the upgrade
has done that much for me.  It seems sort of inevitable, 'tho, 
because 1.0 and 1.1 can't handle native 2.0 files unless they
are specifically saved in 1.x format.  A few times through
this little hoop and you'll probably upgrade, if only for
this reason.


Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.apps