Author:
I warn everybody that Microsoft Office 365 is a dangerous and inferior system to earlier versions of Office.
I had just complete Sacculina 6 and I simply wanted to improve the line spacing for presentation purposes before posting it to BC. there is no proper, indicated button to simply alter the line spacing on the relevant page or pages. One has to go through a series of complicated with assorted boxes and choices that confuses the issue and pops up wrong options. It is seemingly not possible to alter line spacing without altering paragraph spacings simultaneously. When I looked for a way to alter line spacings only, I typed it into wahat appeared to be an instruction box but it was a file deleting box stretching accross the tool bar. I typed in reduce line spacings and it completely destroyed the whole file of Sacculina 6/
It is not on cloud because I cannot afford all the expensive office 'add-ons' so consequently Sacculina 6 has gone forever. I'll have to re-write it from memory and at seventy two my memory does not serve me well.
Well done microsoft for your crappy programme Office 365. Just another bad product sold at rip-off prices with no means to recover work!
Comments
Sorry for the issue
Did you check your wastbasket/trashcan for the missing files?
I had the misfortune to have to use Orifice 365 shortly before I retired. To be brutally honest, it is a POS when compared to Office 2003.
With every release, it goes more and more backwards. New features are loaded and stuff that worked in previous versions no longer works or does so in a totally different way.
This is Microsoft through and through I'm afraid. They are on the 'Do it our way or not at all... and by the way, it is our machine to do with what we want. It is not yours' sort of ego trip.
I use Office for Mac. It has none of this cloudy stuff and I would not use it even if it did. Microsoft seem to think that we all live in this utopia of always being connected to the internet. Real life is not like that.
When Office for Mac 2016 goes EOL then I'm off MS products for good.
There are alternatives to Orifice. LibreOffice is one. It is free so there is no financial penalty in trying it out. It also can read Word documents that the Microsoft product can't... That tells you something does it not?
There are other free or very cheap office suites that can do everything you want for writing a story/book.
I might come over as not liking Microsoft. After 20+ years of writing software for systems that run windows I really got to hate the roadblocks they put in my way. One change they made to Windows caused me to have to fly from the UK to India to sort out the day after I returned from Holiday. At the end of it all they'd say was 'opps'. That is not good enough. Their Quality control especially with recent windows 10 updates is nowhere near good enough (if it even exists)
When I retired I had great delight in deleting all my windows systems.
Samantha
my
Experience of Libre is that it's absolutely crap. Perhaps I demand too much but for example
It won't hold typefaces on simple cut and pastes
It is nightmare in getting images to lock in place despite a plethora of options
It is a complete failure at Grammar and spell checking
It overides my KB macros
Yes it's free but there is a lot wrong with it if you want more than basic text. I have to open my files on a machine running windows just to get a decent spell check and to complete my files ready for publication.
There must be a decent WP suite out there somewhere.
Mads
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Agreed
My big grip w/ Libra is time it takes to start
Microsoft spell check.
Hi Maddy, I have found Microsoft spell checker to be a parcel of americanised shite. It tries constantly to substitute 'Z' for 'S' in past participles because that's the way too many illiterate cross ponders do it. Even though I have got my 'puter' set up for ENGLISH UK dictionary the microsoft morons constantly try to correct stuff like color for colour. They are so far up their Californicated arses that they cannot even see accross their own country let alone America plus the Atlantic.
re: their Californicated arses
I seem to have tamed my copy of Word(2016 for Mac) to use British English but I really don't have a clue how I did it.
I agree that Microsoft is a real PITA but most people have to live with it but sometimes they really take the biscuit.
A mistake in what appeared to be a simple (sic) update threatened to take a major international airport out of action. They didn't even say 'sorry we goofed'.
They giveth and they taketh and we are mere pawns in their game of chess.
In my version of Word, Under Tools I go to Languages.
There I set the language as "English (UK)" and uncheck the box that says "do not check spelling or grammar" and check the box that says "Detect language automatically".
When I write, it hightlights spelling and grammar but does not change them
You can add any word into your own Custom Dictionary. I forget how to do this on Windows but on MacOS, you hit Control+click the touchpad and select add to dictionary. I think the same submenu can be found with a 'right click'.
Samantha
Simple word processor
If complications are troubling you, why not try a distraction-free word processor, such as Focus Writer? It's free and doesn't make you go through the hoops to adjust the spacing of your text. The option is there, but unless you click on the options, it's hidden away. Try it out maybe it's something useful for you.
It's certainly useful for me when I want to write without being distracted by anything. All I did are open youtube to my favourite ar tonelico and ar nosurge songs, lock the door and write on the Focus Writer. The click clack of the typewriter sounds eventually becomes hypnotic and you can keep writing and writing once you're in the zone brought about by the clicks and clacks of the typewriter sounds.
I've never used office 365, but I use libreoffice, so I probably can't say much about this.
And there's me thinking I was
And there's me thinking I was the dummy and going back and forth trying to adjust my line and more importantly, paragrpag spacing and all the time it was multi-national Microsoftly.
I can't remember why I started using word in the first place unless it has something to do with it being already set up when I installed DTP to the office I was working in and we ran on Mac. This was long before Windows ever appeared and upon which I learned about working with computers and even went as far as flitting about in Quark Express.
When I started writing on my first personal computer I worked on Open Office and that was fine but like so many idiots I changed to MS Office and like everybody else have been going mad trying to get it adjust my line and para spacing. With me, it was fine untill I reached the stuff I wrote after they auto installed their latest "improvements" a couple of weeks ago.
It's just as well kerning is overkill for book manuscripts, I'd hate to discover what Microsoftly have done to that.
Thanks for the tips on the other free word processing progs. I'll give them a try along with returning to Open Office and I've already decided to try Mac again when I replace my current Lenovo.
If I do decide to invade America I've changed my primary target from the White House to Microsoft's Headquarters. I'll dig a deep trench all around it and slice through every cable I find and re-route the sewer and connect that to their mainframe. Any volunteers who would like to assist would be welcome especially in the catering department cos I still get confused with french fries, chips, ham or beef burgers, prickly pears arses and asses.
Frances Penwiddy, GOC 1st Tranny Battalion, 3rd Fleet of Foot Division. AKA the Poodle Skirt Parachutists.
Frances
Open Office vs Libre Office
A lot of Open Office was written in Java and the whole thing belongs to Oracle who have sued Google for using their Java API's.
Libre Office was a fork of Open Office and has continued to be developed wheras OO seems to be sort of stuck in nearly there land.
I'd suggest that you give Libre Office a trial. It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS so moving back to a Mac would be pretty easy as the Office Software is the same.
Samantha
I'll second this. I went
I'll second this. I went from Word Perfect to Libre Office. It has a few quirks, but for free the quirks are forgettable.
As a long-time OpenOffice/LibreOffice convert
I fully back this suggestion. Even working electronics retail I would push this well before suggesting Office 360 to all our customers due to its value for cost, and if you're familiar with any of the older MS Office products (especially Word 97) then the entire interface is very easy to adapt to and not at all hard to get used to.
Melanie E.
Office 365
I am fine with Office 2013. To pay a fee to use a program like that is reprehensible. I buy software; I'll be darned if I'm going to pay a monthly fee to maintain it. Of course, Microsoft wil probably make it obsolete and refuse to support it. Then say my computer corrupted it. They did that to me before..
Portia
Technically you are paying to
Technically you are paying to keep it supported.
If software is written
If software is written correctly, there's no need to "keep it" supported. I have software written for Windows 95 that'll still run on windows 7, because it was written properly.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
100% right.
I developed one system that was in use in London. Over the five years that it was in use 24/7 there was just one issue reported and that was actually due to the incorrect configuration of one of the systems that fed data to it. The system that replaced it was far less reliable.(sic)
A lot of the problems we see today with computer sofware is down to
1) Marketing (we just gotta have this new feature), but very few people actually ever use...
2) to the lack of experience of the developers (pensioning off/laying off those with experience to save money or moving development to lower cost countries)
and
3) the almost total lack of testing before it is shoved out the door onto us poor unsuspecting users.
so glad that I retired when I did. 41 years as a professional software developer/architect/designer was more than enough.
Samantha
Argh
L hate the fact that the kids those under 35 years old only want the newest the latest the greatest or so it is called. my interns marvel at the ease of use and versatility of my engineering suite programs when they find it was written before 1980 with a few upgrades since they freakout and go catatonic for awhile I keep telling them commonsense and knowing your materials both kinds is important along with real life.
Have a good day and enjoy life.
Monthly fees to use software... NOT
When Microsoft refused to support Word 97, I bought Word 2010. Then they offered me a free upgrade to Word 2016. 30 days later I get a bill. Fortunately when I installed 2016, I didn't install it over top of 2010. I didn't pay the bill and reverted to 2010. I don't know what I'll do when Microsoft decides not to support 2016. Probably go with Open Office. I know several people who use it and love it. What's more the price is right.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Bad Software
I had an issue just last night. I've been using Apple Pages since my last OS update made my older Word unusable.
I tried to upload a job application to a website, and it wouldn't recognize the format. Ihad to cut and paste it into a text document. So, I guess it's Libre for me.
What I really miss is Wordperfect for the Mac. It's feature that would read back what you wrote for proofing purposes, worked extremely well and saved me many hours!
Liz
And here are some more options
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-more-fresh-free-online-word-...
Thankfully, most of the software we use these days does all the heavy lifting for us. I can remember doing a spec for a £100M system around 1992 using Tex/LaTex and putting in all the markup (formatting) using a simple text editor. Then producing a camera ready copy (for the printers) of the document would take at least two hours. Woe betide us if we found a mistake.
Often I ended up editing the Postscript file itself. Those were the days.
Samantha
Libre Office
I use Libre Office, I have experienced very few problems with it. I gave up MS office when they went to sas. Frankly sas gives me heartburn that seems to come from some dark pit that some believe is mythical. I think that pit lives wherever organizations get too large...
Anyway, as far as dictionaries and grammar checkers go.... I wouldn't entirely trust MS for what they offer. Frankly if you are worried about good spelling and usage, you still can't beat a proofreader. No one set of eyes is enough, so do get a team working on your writing if you can.
T
Lince Spacing -- It's all the same on BC.
For the record, you can't adjust the line spacing on BigCloset if you post it as HTML. If you are uploading a PDF or DOC to share, that's a different story. But when you paste in the code to upload it to BC as a normal story/chapter where you enter the html. we generally filter out the code that would allow you to adjust the line spacing so that most everything looks the same in that regard.
-Piper
Sorry about your loss,
hate losing work like that... Makes me glad i haven't upgraded since MSO 2007, and still have MSO 97 on my ancient portege 3010 laptop. Still, beats vi and edlin :). I just use notepad++ on the other boxen (pi and whatnot), and copy into wp's as needed
beats vi
VI is a very powerful editor, and very difficult to use. It has powerful search and replace features, but it is not a good choice as a word processor. Edlin was easier, but Notepad actually works pretty well, especially if you don't need fancy formatting. For editing html files, I prefer it, because it doesn't insert the gobbledygook which MS Word puts into html files it edits.
Try Notepad++ - it adds much
Try Notepad++ - it adds much of the power of VI to Notepad, and handles multiple tabs of documents.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Microsoft Word
I am lucky enough to own physical copies of Microsoft Works 2002 and 2003. Each contains a copy of Microsoft Word that is licensed to run on 2 computers each. There are a few minor issues with running them these days but mostly they are great. And no subscription fees.
I have used some of the more recent versions of Microsoft Office. It has a learning curve but I actually think the interface is pretty good. It has a lot of extra features. But if you don't use them then they are just extra bells and whistles that make things more complicated.
I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your file.
The 'Extra Features' are the
The 'Extra Features' are the problem. Microsoft, Adobe, AutoDesk, etc, they all sufferer from 'Feeping Creaturism'. (Creeping featureism). That is, letting your marketing people tell you what should be up and in front of all of your customers because EVERYONE WANTS IT. Instead of selling a basic product for a fair price, with the ability to add in the extras you might find useful for an extra fee, they jam everything in and charge a premium for it. Anyone else remember the Windows 95 "Plus Pack"?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Alternatives to word and other MS BS
Anyone's know if Corel Perfect Offir is as good as it used to be .MS sto!e the front end layout for Word back in the 90s then it was light years ahead of MS Office
Libre Office has my vote.
I started on Page Maker four, when I began writing, never found it's equal for formatting, image placement and more, but alas It was effing expensive!
Libre Office is free, has a community constantly working to improve it and their spell checking works fine in uk-English, French and German.
I have yet to find a grammar checker that works for all three, so I content myself with asking people who know how to do it after I have done my best. Libre office also offers to save in all kinds of weird formats, .doc and .docx included.
I have known Microsoft for over-valued, sloppily programmed software from before windows 1. Gates never was an able programmer, but he is a good saleman, especially for himself. I can only advise people to stay away from his software, even more so as soon as it is cloud based. It is pure rubbish with back doors and hooks to get caught and dependant. Can you believe that a microsoft employee at some point claimed in my presence, that apple had been copying windows withh their operating system? How deluded can peole get if they work for little Billy big pants?
So this is my grain of salt in the matter.
Hugs to you all,
Monique.
Monique S
My two cents on a Word alternative...
I don't use it anymore, because I don't write anymore. Long story and not a nice one and it doesn't belong here.
But... Scrivener is amazing, it's a (Mac originally, now supports Windows and even iOS) piece of writers' software that's won several awards. It's not free, but it's not super expensive either (under $50). Allows you to organize multiple documents in multiple folders that's all collectively in one project file. Each individual file in a Scrivener project has a Notecard and a Notes section allowing you to do a synopsis on the card which can be used in the corkboard function to arrange scenes/chapters and so on. An editor window that will let you have two files open in the same window in case you need to look in a different scene or chapter while you're working on another. Project outline tools, built in spelling/grammar checks, and a very customizable interface to help you focus. Also has a fullscreen mode where you can lock out other applications from interrupting your workflow. It uses the usual keyboard commands. There are tutorials available. Lots of things to help a new user get started. I'm really not doing it justice in terms of all the features and capability of Scrivener. It was originally started by a novelist in England who couldn't find an alternative to Word and such that he liked, so he made one.
It has a free trial. Scrivener's website is http://literatureandlatte.com
Ooh, before I forget to mention it, it also supports cloud saves with iCloud and Dropbox. I've been a fan of the software since its original release. They recently released version 3.0, but I didn't bother to upgrade (they offer discounts to purchasers of previous versions) since I don't use it anymore. The forums at their website are full of people who are pretty good at helping others with Scrivener.
I know I'm not well liked by a lot here, but I truly hope those who could get a lot out of Scrivener will see past that and give it a try.
~And so it goes...
Erica Jane.. you're not the only one that loves Scrivener....
I have a number of friends who are professional, commercially published authors that love Scrivener. It works well for someone who does large, complicated documents that need lots of references, or stories that need lots of notes in order to keep characters, settings, plots in a somewhat orderly fashion.
Dinosaur
I guess I'm a dinosaur.
For stories I post, I write it as plain text with a little home-grown markup and use a Perl script to convert it to HTML.
I also download stories as HTML and hack the HTML to get it to look the way I want.
I use MS Word at work for documentation, but I spend more time fighting with it than actually writing anything. And I just live with the ugliness of the product.
365
I know Beverly, I had it happen to me several times so I switched to Apache Open Office, besides, it's Free!
Changing line spacing in Office 365 is very easy...
Want to change the spacing somewhere in the middle of the document, highlight the area you want to change, right click, select PARAGRAPH and in the popup is a section called LINE SPACING (Single, 1.5, double, AT LEAST, EXACTLY). If you pick the last two, there is a box that provides a number for the line spacing you want.
Want to change the space for the whole document? Go to the ribbon, click on the DESIGN tab, all the way to the right, you will find PARAGRAPH SPACING, select it. It opens a drop down menu. Go to the bottom, select CUSTOM PARAGRAPH SPACING, click. That opens a different pop up and you select the line spacing like you did previously.
It's not that hard.
Just curious, would Open Office work better?
I enjoy many things about computers, most Microsoft products works okay in final beta forms. But their retail releases are often frequently disappointing over priced in final form, bulging with many problems. Microsoft success is more aggressive marketing and sales, not good product development. I did a lot testing of various software products, however for my personal choice usually eventually move past most Microsoft software for many open source revivals instead. Ubuntu Studio is suite programs including an operating system, and a collection of many other useful applications already to go. It can tested on a live DVD or USB memory stick, if you like it can the installed on the computer with or without Microsoft software remaining. If if you have an older unused computer this may breathe new life into it.
Aloha Deanna
Aloha. Sincerely Deanna