I'm still using Word97. It does columns, tables, textboxes and
watermarks. It can create an index, tables of contents, footnotes,
cross-references, and forms. It has an equation editor and that goofy
textart module that I never use.
What indispensible feature has Microsoft added to Word that makes Word97
obsolete?
It is, after all, only a word processor, not a desktop publishing program.
So, if you were a salesperson working for Microsoft on commission, how
would you persuade me to "upgrade?"
I have Word 97, and my wife has Word 2003.
From what I've seen of Word 2003, I prefer Word 97.
I opened a redlined document in my wife's 2003. Note that Microsoft, for no
other reason than to confuse users, apprently, chanes the rems for functions
in successive versions. "Redlining" became "track changed" in some versions
and "revision marking" in others. They do that to make sure that when you
upgrade and you can't find out how to do it in the new version you WON'T find
it in the help file. Inter "revision marking" in a version that calls it
"track changes", and you will find nothing.
Anyway, When I opened this redlined document in my wife's 2003, i could not
make head or tail of it, even when it was printed. It was full of all sorts of
incomprehensible junk, and no indication of how to get it back looking as it
would if a human being had edited on hard copy -- stuff that had been crossed
out in strike-through mode, and stuff that had been added underlined.
So I stick to 97 because I've got a fat book on it and know how it works, and
nowadays a similar fat book for another version would cost six to ten times as
much and i can't afford one.
But I had a funny experience the other day.
I foudn Microsoft Antispyware had stopped working, and apparently I needed to
upgrade. So I upgraded.
Then I opened a Word document, and opened another document in another window
that I was referring to, and when I switched back to Word, it froze.
I had to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and then there was the thing about "Report
this problem to Microsoft", so I pressed the OK to report it, and then got
back a message saying Microsoft no longer supports this version. At that point
I thought that perhaps Microsoft Antispyware was itself a spyware product and
had gone arounhd corrupting old versions of Word in order to get people to buy
new ones, because whenever I tried to open that document, it froze.
I tried saving it to RTF, and reimporting it, but Word would not recognise the
RTF file.
Eventually I opened the document with Open Office 2.0, saved it as RTF, and
Word recognised that and imported it, and I carried on working.
On second thoughts I don't think MS Antispyware destroyed the program, but the
document file got corrupted, but for a moment there I thought that this was a
really nasty marketing tactic, prompted by the notice that "Microsoft no
longer supports this product".
But I prefer not to upgrade becasuse I want to spend my time writing, not
learning a new program, and wasting hours or even days trying to find out how
to undo unwanted changes that the new version has made to my documents.
If it's bad with word processors, with databases it's even worse. Long before
you've learnt how to use a program there will be an "upgrade" which will make
everything you've learnt useless. Computers are supposed to free you to get on
with your work; but the police of planned obscolescence mean you never get
anything done because you have to keep going back to square 1 and learn how to
use the latest version.
