Grappling with Word 2003
Oct. 18th, 2009 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteI'm a "late adopter" of technology, for a variety of reasons. Some of it is simple discomfort with change, which is a normal human reaction to things that change so rapidly we feel we've lost control of the ability to keep up. Some of it is voluntary simplicity combined with pragmatism: if something works well enough to get the job done, why upgrade to something glitzy and with dozens of new features just to have access to the latest technology? Some of it is prudent caution, learned by watching the grief that others at the bleeding edge of technology experience when they upgrade before all the glitches have been worked out.
Only the first point really explains why I'm only now starting to use Word 2003 (about 6 years after most of the rest of the world did) to replace the increasingly frustrating Word X (which I'm still using nearly 8 years after its release). The Mac versions of Word after Word X were simply too buggy to tolerate (Word 2004) or lacked key features (Word 2008 didn't support macros), and it's only been in the last year or so that running Windows on my Mac was easy enough to become an acceptable solution. Now that I'm running Parallels 3.x and Windows XP alongside Mac OS X, I've begun using Word 2003. (Based on historical trends, I'll probably upgrade to Word 2007 by around 2013. I've heard that Parallels 4.x, which I also have, probably isn't stable enough yet to use as a full-time solution, so I haven't installed it. Contrary opinions welcome!)
On the whole, the upgrade process has gone well: Word 2003 is immensely more stable than Word X, runs at least as fast and possibly faster (haven't benchmarked the two versions), and it restores features I'd forgotten how much I missed. The best of these is the ability to use the Alt key plus the underlined letter in a menu name, followed by the underlined letter in a command name, something that's tremendously liberating to a keyboard fascist like me who resents having to move back and forth between keyboard and mouse. You can sort of use that feature on the Mac (press F10 to move the cursor control to the menus), but because Apple never adopted Microsoft's menu design guidelines, you have to scroll through the menus using the arrow keys—too slow and tedious for work. I imagine that with a lot of work, I could fake this effect using macros and keyboard customizations. Too much effort in my opinion.
It only took a couple hours to copy all my autotext entries from Word X to 2003, transfer or re-record macros, and recreate keyboard shortcuts. Things would have gone faster, except that on the Mac, I used the Control key (used heavily in Windows) for most of my custom shortcuts, and had to spend some time finding new keyboard shortcuts to replace those I couldn't afford to sacrifice in Word 2003. On the whole it's been a pleasant experience, and I'm glad I invested the effort—though it's frustrating trying to rewire fingers that have spent 8 years learning other shortcuts. Still, the more I switch between the two versions of Word, the easier it gets.
There are frustrations, of course. Autotext doesn't work in the Reviewing Pane, and since I rely so heavily on this feature for editorial comments, I've had to use comment balloons—which I dislike less intensely than I used to, but still don't love. (Useful tip, thanks to Jack Lyon of the Editorium: If you want to escape from a balloon when you're done revising its text, simply press the Esc key to return the cursor to the document window. That makes balloons almost pleasant to use.)
There are many other things that are more difficult to achieve in Word 2003 than they should be, largely because of some re-engineering of the interface and the plumbing, but on the whole, I can't see going back to Word X for my editing work. I'll still use Word X for writing so I don't have to load Windows each time I need Word, but on the whole, life with Word 2003 is much more pleasant than life with Word X. I've recommended Word 2003 as the best solution for anyone doing onscreen editing on the Mac, and I'll stick with that recommendation until I find time to play with Word 2007 and see whether it does the job better.
Only the first point really explains why I'm only now starting to use Word 2003 (about 6 years after most of the rest of the world did) to replace the increasingly frustrating Word X (which I'm still using nearly 8 years after its release). The Mac versions of Word after Word X were simply too buggy to tolerate (Word 2004) or lacked key features (Word 2008 didn't support macros), and it's only been in the last year or so that running Windows on my Mac was easy enough to become an acceptable solution. Now that I'm running Parallels 3.x and Windows XP alongside Mac OS X, I've begun using Word 2003. (Based on historical trends, I'll probably upgrade to Word 2007 by around 2013. I've heard that Parallels 4.x, which I also have, probably isn't stable enough yet to use as a full-time solution, so I haven't installed it. Contrary opinions welcome!)
On the whole, the upgrade process has gone well: Word 2003 is immensely more stable than Word X, runs at least as fast and possibly faster (haven't benchmarked the two versions), and it restores features I'd forgotten how much I missed. The best of these is the ability to use the Alt key plus the underlined letter in a menu name, followed by the underlined letter in a command name, something that's tremendously liberating to a keyboard fascist like me who resents having to move back and forth between keyboard and mouse. You can sort of use that feature on the Mac (press F10 to move the cursor control to the menus), but because Apple never adopted Microsoft's menu design guidelines, you have to scroll through the menus using the arrow keys—too slow and tedious for work. I imagine that with a lot of work, I could fake this effect using macros and keyboard customizations. Too much effort in my opinion.
It only took a couple hours to copy all my autotext entries from Word X to 2003, transfer or re-record macros, and recreate keyboard shortcuts. Things would have gone faster, except that on the Mac, I used the Control key (used heavily in Windows) for most of my custom shortcuts, and had to spend some time finding new keyboard shortcuts to replace those I couldn't afford to sacrifice in Word 2003. On the whole it's been a pleasant experience, and I'm glad I invested the effort—though it's frustrating trying to rewire fingers that have spent 8 years learning other shortcuts. Still, the more I switch between the two versions of Word, the easier it gets.
There are frustrations, of course. Autotext doesn't work in the Reviewing Pane, and since I rely so heavily on this feature for editorial comments, I've had to use comment balloons—which I dislike less intensely than I used to, but still don't love. (Useful tip, thanks to Jack Lyon of the Editorium: If you want to escape from a balloon when you're done revising its text, simply press the Esc key to return the cursor to the document window. That makes balloons almost pleasant to use.)
There are many other things that are more difficult to achieve in Word 2003 than they should be, largely because of some re-engineering of the interface and the plumbing, but on the whole, I can't see going back to Word X for my editing work. I'll still use Word X for writing so I don't have to load Windows each time I need Word, but on the whole, life with Word 2003 is much more pleasant than life with Word X. I've recommended Word 2003 as the best solution for anyone doing onscreen editing on the Mac, and I'll stick with that recommendation until I find time to play with Word 2007 and see whether it does the job better.