The American Frank

Microsoft’s Mr Bill Gates

And The Boy Who Cried Worp

Shockingly innovative is Microsoft’s Office 2007, and I’m convinced that its appearance is evidence that its rival, OpenOffice 2, is winning the game with its suite of application programs equivalent to those of Office 2003, which means that what is 4 years older is as good as new. Office 2007 with a unique user interface is in response to the redoubtable challenge of OpenOffice; Microsoft’s Gambit is: If the enemy is game, change the rules of the game. I’d say Microsoft has high IQ.

Having experimented with OpenOffice 2, I almost converted. OpenOffice 2 shipped last year, free; Office 2007 ships this month, but I’m not buying. I’m content with a test drive that Microsoft Office Online (MOO) (2007, office.microsoft.com/) offers me. This is because to me paying $500 for one DVD is out of sight. MOO, did you say test drive? Now, I know that that metaphor is out of place. Funny, but I don’t drive; I’m not driven. Much as I, user, would like to, I don’t drive software; it drives me, as Word 2007 does: It drives me crazy!

Is it insanity or is it genius? After studying Word 2007, let me count the ways:

One, MOO says the 2007 Microsoft Office System is ‘simplicity at your fingertips.’ I say it is definitely not; it is complexity at my fingertips, and I’m no novice at this. I’ve been using much Microsoft software for most of 20 years, especially Word for much of 2 decades.

Two, Microsoft cooks up a new menu and calls it The Ribbon – that’s bizarre. As the name of a bakeshop, The Ribbon may be appealing. The main menu of Word 2007 is unappealing, and it is this – so, what else is new?

[Home] [Insert] [Page Layout] [References] [Mailings] [Review] [View]

I don’t see any ribbon at all. The emperor has no clothes!

Three, I find that tab-menu eccentric if not zany; it is comical because of its incongruity. The Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View sub-menus relate to each other neither as identifiable members of one class, nor equivalent parts of a whole, which they should be. And they are an odd mixture of verbs (Insert, Review, View) and nouns (Home, Page Layout, References, Mailings). They provide a strange guide both to the beginner and the expert on what to do. In fact, that’s not surprising at all; the previous menu – [File] [Edit] [View] [Insert] [Format] [Tools] [Table] [Window] [Help] – was in the same quaint genre that nobody noticed!

Four, with Word 2007, you are beyond help: There is no Help. They must have realized it wasn’t any help at all. What they have now is a mini-toolbar when you select text (even when you simply right-click and not select text) – the mini-toolbar is icons and words, no explanations. If you hover the cursor over any icon on The Ribbon, there appears a brief note. Actually, Help is still there, hiding: press F1 and Help appears. But no more Clipit, the Office Assistant, no more running dog of Microsoft.

Five, there are more goofy things: Under Review is Research. And Translate. Also, Spelling & Grammar – you mean I have to wait till the manuscript is under review before I do the research, or translate, or check the spelling and the grammar? What happens if I don’t ask people to review my work? What happens to those who do not review even their work? You will be surprised at how many of them there are.

Six, there are other maddening things Microsoft did with Word 2007. No logic too. They couldn’t decide on how to combine commands under the old File and then they came up with the Microsoft Office Button, what I call the Belly Button. Decent, but not very smart.

Seven, an outlandish thing Microsoft has done is put Macros under View. You know macros of course; briefly, macros are shortcuts. If all I have to do is view macros, I’d rather be going.

Eight, they couldn’t decide how to re-present or re-name the Style sheet and they came up with Home. That’s a horrendous oversight, to say the least. This is the Home that doesn’t relate at all to the members! In computing, Home is where the hearth is, your starting point, where you can see where you want to go. With Word 2007, they are saying that Home is all style (formats), and that doesn’t make sense. Format Font (name, size, effects etc), Format Paragraph (indent, justify, align, space etc), Format Styles (automatic, programmable formats of fonts and paragraphs etc) – not home, by any stretch of a sorcerer’s imagination. Home, of all places. Why, does Microsoft think Home is where the Art is?

As if that is not enough, under Home there’s Editing (Find, Replace, Select, Select All). If that’s editing, then Editors are over-paid! Actually, all that is only clerical work; only correcting, and not even the whole of correcting. Perhaps Microsoft has forgotten that editing is finding fault with grammar, figures of speech, organization, finding fault even with the title; not forgetting the 4 Cs of communication: clarity, comprehensiveness, coherence, conciseness. Or perhaps, and this is worse, Microsoft doesn’t want to give credit to whom edit is due?

Kidding aside, Mr Gates, I think you and I both can learn about Home from writers, this time from those who lived in the dinosaur era of the typewriter, before the historic age of word processing. Surprise. Here’s one from GK Chesterton: ‘Home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.’ Clue: The world of rules and tasks, not just some rules and tasks, Mr Gates. That’s not irrational, is it? And from TS Eliot: ‘Home is where one starts from.’ Home is where you get directions, Sir; married or unmarried, you know what I mean. That’s not outrageous, is it?

That should set the three directions of this easy-essay; so now, let me expound on:

(a) Microsoft trying to advance the world of word processing

(b) You trying to advance in the world of word processing

(c) Me trying to be the man in the middle.

Now, let’s see how far we can get.

(A) Microsoft is trying to advance the world of word processing.

With Word 2007, for the first time, Microsoft is innovating software; not for the first time, I’m innovating terms. Thus: worp for word processor, worping for word processing, worper for worp user; worperer for worp creator, Worder for Microsoft Word user. (You shall see later that, alternately, this is the story of ‘Frank Hilario & The Worperer’s Stone’ – a gem, I hope.)

Worperer Mr Gates is trying to advance word processing by advancing his own word processor. Welcome! That’s good marketing strategy; in fact it’s excellent. We worpers may all benefit from such enterprise. Worping with a revolutionary worp? All I can say is that I remain a loyal Worder after all is said and done. Now, let me say it and be done.

Word History. Looking back into my 19-year love affair with Microsoft Word, and ogling now at my brand-new 17-inch MAG color monitor into the fresh, feminine-looking, ravishing Word 2007 (aka Microsoft Office Word 2007), I, worper, can see that Worperer Mr Gates has procreated a new tempting sweetheart of a software on display in shades of yellow and blue, the blue that OpenOffice has emulated. Much obliged, Mr Gates. This is a far cry from about 1987, when I first learned Word (Version 1) after a friend, Ms Bernie Quimpo gave me a tiny 1.4 MB diskette with the whole software in it and a Xerox copy of the thin manual, gratis et amore. I love friends. Learning and working with this worp, I have learned to love Mr Gates’ Word.

Over the years, as a loyal Worder, I have gone on from Word 1 (the one with the Alpha key), to Word 4, to Word 5 (if I remember right, the first version with the graphic user interface, GUI), to Word 97, to Word 2000 (I didn’t try it; I clung long to Word 97), to Word XP (released 2002), to Word 2003 (the one I’m using now to write this).

The Alpha key in Word 1 was silly. Word 5 was a welcome GUI, if still gooey. Already, starting Word 4, I began to love the mnemonic commands: Ctrl+J for Justify, Ctrl+I for Italics, Ctrl+P for Print Setup. For Microsoft to remove Ctrl+T for Hanging Indent was foolish. And to love other shortcuts: F4 to repeat a command or any sequence of commands; F8 to select a word, sentence, paragraph; Ctrl+Arrow to move the cursor fast etc. Then came Word XP, truly a high-end word processor.

Word XP is the one that enabled us at the Crop Science Society of the Philippines (us means the Executive Board, that would be them; and the Editor in Chief, that would be me), to claim an achievement worthy of a Guinness Book of World Records – however, we did not officially claim it. We did claim online on a blogsite I created (to check, google for “CROPScience Philippines”): The Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS) is the most advanced technical journal in the world.

In declaring that unequivocally, I justified it two ways. One, at the time we claimed that, May 2006, we were 1 year advanced in our published issues. Two, the PJCS was the only technical journal that was 100% digital in production, from encoding to camera-ready pages; no cut-and-paste at the office or at the printing press, and no blueprints to proofread.

Not to mention enabling people & processes, among other products, for PJCS it was Word XP that enabled me to be a one-man-band: editor, copyreader, proofreader, page designer, layout artist, publisher. With Word XP’s built-in features, I can drag illustrations (photos, graphs, GIFs, BMPs) across any page or number of pages; I can do exactly the same with tables. That’s simply magic! Thank you, Mr Gates.

Word History In The Making. Now, how much progress have we made with the latest Microsoft worp, Word 2007?

Paul Thurrott (4-23 May 2006, winsupersite.com/) calls the latest graphic user interface of Word, seen in Word 2007, ‘the most innovative user interface work that Microsoft has ever unleashed.’ While the mixed metaphor is a little queer (interface unleashed), I agree with the defining declaration. The user interface is ‘completely new,’ Paul says. It is.

Anil Dash (19 June 2006, dashes.com/) calls Office 2007 ‘the bravest upgrade ever’ and the GUI (The Ribbon) ‘the ballsiest feature in the history of computer software.’ That’s a sensible statement. He means that, first, Office 2007 is the biggest gamble Microsoft has ever made in the software game of upgrades – Microsoft gambles in many other software games – and, second, that as a manager, Mr Bill Gates has balls. Mr Dash is right both times.

But: Is Word 2007 any good? Or, which I prefer to ask: Is it any better? Let’s talk also about best.

MOO (2007, cited) claims that the new user interface (NUI) is meant ‘to make it easier for people to find and use the full range of features’ that the new worp provides. That’s ridiculous. With the Word 2007 and its NUI, I’m Bab, bothered and bewildered. I find it difficult to summon many of the commands & features myself, and I’m a 19-year veteran Worder! Those commands & features I discuss in more detail in the next section (C); here, suffice it to say that in OpenOffice Writer, it would be easier for me to find the commands I like to use, not to mention I need to use; therefore, if I had to choose between Writer and Word 2007, my choice is clear: Writer.

But I have another choice: Word XP. With only 57 commands, Mr Worperer, I assure you I can make your worp jump through hoops. Your Word 2007 looks great but not enough to make me jump through hoops.

I respect Paul Thurrott’s (2006, cited) lusty opinion of Microsoft – A little more, Paul, and you’ll make a convert out of me! I happen to have my own healthy opinion that differs with his. By way of introducing him and me, he says he has been ‘investigating Microsoft and its products for over a decade’ and has written ‘over a dozen books about Windows, Web and software development and other computing topics.’ He says he makes use of only a few basic functions in Word, and spends about 50% of his working time there. In contrast, being a writer, editor and publisher, I have been using Microsoft Word almost exclusively for almost 20 years; I use at least 342 of the advanced functions of Word XP and spend about 90% of my computer time with this software. So, the comparative advantage of experience is mine when it comes to this sweetheart of a software. Now, remember: Sweethearts are not perfect.

With that background, you understand why it drives me bats that most of the reviewers I have read are agreed that Microsoft has come up with another winner. Except Andre Da Costa (2006, activewin.com/). He says, ‘I only use 10% of the features; Office is bloated, and I don’t need Microsoft Office when I have OpenOffice, which is free.’ Andre, you probably know why Office is bloated: Microsoft programmers don’t use truly object-oriented programs (OOPs) like SmallTalk. With OOPs, Microsoft, IBM Lotus, Corel, Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org, Google would save millions of lines of codes, not to mention millions of dollars in TIME: time, initiative, money and energy. And we won’t have to pay ridiculous prices for software!

No, Microsoft Office does not win my heart, only my admiration. I give Microsoft A for Attempt to change the rules of high-end word processing. Nice try.

I have OpenOffice Writer myself; even so, I prefer Microsoft Office Word, even considering that Writer is free and Word comes with a price and that Word 2007 is not the top banana it’s touted to be. I probably use 30-40% of the 2000+ Word commands (including many, many shortcuts). Writer emulates the menus and commands of Word, but it lacks many of those I usually use, like F4 (Repeat), Shift+F3 (Change Case), Shift+F5 (Last Edit) – and its Customize is way below the standards set by Word for power, flexibility and ease of use. For instance, I can be a sorcerer myself and customize the menu of Word by itself in the blink of your eye – it’s that powerful, magical.

Simon Jones (2007, PC Pro, pcpro.co.uk/) sees ‘not many new features’ and says ‘but the new interface breathes fresh life into an already great product.’ Me, I like the already great product, not the fresh life.

Jerry Pournelle, that indefatigable talker and tester of hardware and software and writer of science fiction (2006, chaosmanorreviews.com/) says:

Word 2007 is entirely different. The tool bars are different. The menus are different (and mostly gone). The starting points are different. With Word 2007 Microsoft bit the bullet: they reorganized Word from the ground up, grouping features in a reasonably logical manner. There are not many new features in Word 2007, but it’s easier to find the ones that are there. ¶ That’s the theory, anyway. In practice it doesn’t work that well. Word 2007 is probably easier to learn for someone who never used Word before, but for long-time Word users like me, it can be sheer hell.

Me, I refuse to choose hell.

Dennis O’Reilly (4 January 2007, pcworld.idg.com.au/) says: ‘In Word 2007, the ribbon toolbar does enhance productivity once users figure out where its predecessor’s various commands have been relocated.’ That’s the whole problem, Dennis: Old user me, I can’t find them myself, and I’ve grown old along with Word, almost one-third of my life so far – would you believe 67?

Rick Scott, David DeJean & Serdar Yegulalp (20 November 2006, networkcomputing.com/) say: ‘With Word 2007, Microsoft has made the broadest and probably the most constructive set of changes to Word – and Office – since tear-off toolbars came along.’ Me, I like those old tear-off toolbars – I like what I can do with them, and I can do an unbelievable lot.

Jonathan Blum (5 January 2007, money.cnn.com/) says: ‘Now you get a long horizontal bar called The Ribbon that holds – no, hides – most Word commands.’ I told you so!

My namesake, Frank Dzedzy (2006, frankdzedzy.com) says: ‘My biggest problem is with the new interface.’ Same here.

The new interface: The Ribbon is the raison d’etre of Word 2007, I say. Paul Thurrott (2006, cited) says ‘The Ribbon has been designed … to expose the most commonly needed commands in a logical fashion.’ No Paul; I have yet to locate the logic of it all. The worper’s commonly needed commands are not only on fonts, paragraphs and styles; they include these: revise, copy, delete, paste, find & replace, go to page, break page, insert symbol, set up page, number page, check grammar & spelling, view layout, open new file, open old file, save file, search for file.

In truth, in attempting to describe the claimed success apart from the unclaimed failure of Word 2007, words fail me.

(B) You are trying to advance in the world of word processing.

Me, counting the last 10 years only, I’ve been using Microsoft Word for a minimum of  1,235 man-days, that is, 57 hours a week. (I calculated that using Word’s Math feature.) That’s very conservative. I’ve desktopped up to camera-ready at least 10 books and 18 issues of a technical journal; I have ghostwritten and edited innumerable papers and speeches; I have written countless articles published and unpublished, all using Microsoft Word, so much so that I know more of this software than the palm of my hand. I have quite a number of blogsites, with hundreds of blogposts, many of them several pages, almost all of them created first and formatted in Word. So I can tell you that Word XP is as good as they can get (Word 2003 is only slightly better).

So, if I were you, the target worper of Word 2007 (not to mention WordPerfect, Word Pro, Writer, Write, Writely), I would be smarter than Microsoft (not to mention Corel, IBM Lotus, Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org and Google) in word processing. I would demand that the language of the worp be mine, the worper, not the language of the Worperer as it is today.

As for me, I see that the latest incarnation of Microsoft’s latest worp, Word 2007, is only half as good as it is claimed to be.

My advice to Worperer Microsoft is: Think outside the box, outside yet another Microsoft box. My advice to you the worper is: Think outside the box of Microsoft; they do not have the monopoly of genius.

Inside Microsoft or outside, for you to advance in word processing, try and master the commands and features in the list that follows; at the same time, use them as a test of how good the software is. There are 57 in all; they are about half of the Word command and features I use most often. So here’s

Frank’s IQ Test For Word Processors

Based on usability and/or ease of use, here’s 57 word processing commands and features based on Microsoft Word; your task is to look for each command or feature in your word processor and time yourself. The results will tell you whether or not you have an intelligent worp. Assign 2 points for each item. Use this rating scale:

127 min – Trying Hard (Lowest IQ)
117 min – Neophyte (Low IQ)
097 min – Advanced (Fair IQ)
087 min – Professional (Average IQ)
077 min – Expert (High IQ)
067 min – Master (Higher IQ)
057 min – Genius (Highest IQ)

If you spend an average of 2 minutes looking for each command or feature, your worp is not user-friendly and therefore has unacceptable IQ.

01. Autocorrect
02. Autotext
03. Blue Background
04. Bold
05. Bookmark
06. Bullets & Numbering
07. Center
08. Copy
09. Create Backup Copy
10. Customize
11. Cut
12. Delete Outright (No Undelete)
13. End of File
14. End of Line
15. File Locations
16. Find
17. Find & Replace
18. Format Columns
19. Gallery
20. Go to Page
21. Grammar & Spelling
22. Insert Drawing Canvas
23. Insert Page Number
24. Insert Section Break Next Page
25. Insert Symbol
26. Insert Text Box
27. Italics
28. Justify
29. Last Edit
30. New File
31. New Window
32. Overwrite
33. Page Break
34. Page Setup
35. Paste
36. Paste & Replace
37. Print Layout
38. Print Setup
39. Redo
40. Repeat Search
41. Save
42. Save All
43. Save As
44. Soft Break
45. Sort
46. Space Before
47. Start of File
48. Start of Line
49. Styles & Formatting
50. Subscript
51. Track Changes
52. Underline
53. Undo / Undelete
54. View Header & Footer
55. View Normal
56. View Print Layout
57. Zoom

Know what? If you rate OpenOffice Writer against Microsoft Office Word 2007, the results will shock you. You will find that the Worperer’s Stone is only half the gem it seems. 

You can’t advance in word processing if your word processor is not advanced. So, you have the right to demand the best from the Worperers like Microsoft and OpenOffice.org. I did that with OpenOffice.org last year; I reminded them this year.

The fellows at Hewlett-Packard (HP) (2007, government.hp.com/) tell us that Office 2007 is ‘more than getting just a mere makeover;’ the HP people also say that the user interface is ‘now streamlined with less visual clutter.’ I’m staring at that user interface (The Ribbon) of Microsoft’s Word 2007 right now and I see there is much clutter to assault even an old hand like me. In fact, I see less elegance than in Word 2003 where the double rows of toolbars are nice to look at beneath the menu bar – even if in Word 2007 they subdued the colors (swaths of blues & some yellows). I still like deep blue, which I’m enjoying right now as the background to my Word Window, white against blue, the words in reverse; I enjoy the contrast: the readability is a sight for sore eyes.

Paul Thurrott (2006, cited) tells us about the new user interface of Word 2007:

The new UI does expose functionality far more effectively than previous Office versions. It’s so good, in fact, that I recommend that software development teams inside and outside Microsoft study it and determine how well their own applications can be moved to this UI.

Incorrect, Paul, and rather reckless. Word 2007 exposes the commands but hides their functionality by bewildering the user with the interface (The Ribbon) full of icons seen and lurking. Design is not one of the strong suits of Microsoft. There’s more chaos and less class.  

MOO (2007, cited) says Word 2007 is ‘a powerful authoring program that gives you the ability to create and share documents by combining a comprehensive set of writing tools with an easy-to-use interface.’ Okay, I concede that the writing tools are powerful, but the interface is very far from easy to use. Access is forbidding. Okay, I want to write a letter; where and how do I begin? I want to write a book; how do I design it? I want to edit this technical paper: how do I proceed? I want to send an email: how do I do it? I want to spell-check this document which is in Ilocano: what should I do?

I stare at the Word 2007 tab-menu and it stares back at me.

(C) I blink. Me, I’m trying to be the man in the middle of it all.

If you can’t beat them, don’t join them; instead, change the rules of the game. That’s what Worperer Microsoft did with Word 2007, Paul Thurrott (2006, cited) says. Yes. Anil Dash (2006, cited) says: ‘By radically changing the user interface in Office 2007, Microsoft made the riskiest bet in the history of commercial software. And I think they’re going to win the bet.’ Wanna bet?

So, here’s another idea, also from me: Go get a fresh tablet of stone and etch on it the idea of an entirely new word processor. Worperers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your worps!

To create that new, improved, intelligent, exciting worp, I hereby present a less unwise menu than that of the latest worp by Microsoft (with its Word 2007), OpenOffice (Writer), IBM Lotus (Word Pro), Sun StarOffice (Write), Corel (WordPerfect), Google (Writely), or Yahoo or Apple in case they’re interested; here’s my menu I call Seven Heaven:

[Help!] [File] [Revise] [Access] [Nicen] [KnowMore] [Surf]

Help! To include, first and foremost, in the form of submenus, short lists of commands grouped as for Basic, Professional, Advanced, Expert and Master levels of word processing. (Guru is really the highest level, but you learn that outside of worping.) For my original idea of Help! alone, this new word processor is worth its weight in gold.

File to include all file management commands: Open, Save, Save As, Close, Set Up Page, Set Up Print, Search; Information (such as word count), Sections, Columns, Page Number.

Revise to include Check Grammar & Spelling, Cut & Paste, Insert, Delete, Delete-Insert, Copy & Paste, Footnote, Repeat Format, Search & Replace Text, Search & Replace Format, Search & Replace Style, Sort, Track Changes, Do Bullets & Numbering, Compare Documents.

Access to include View Normal, View Outline, View Print Layout, View Header & Footer; Window, Zoom, Printer, Copier, Fax.

Nicen to include Bold, Italics, Underline, Drop Cap, Change Case, Format Font, Format Paragraph, Format Style. (To nicen is to make look nice; my coinage.)

KnowMore to include Options, Autocorrect, Autotext, Mail Merge, Table, Macros, Customize.

Surf to include Translation, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Internet.

You will have to agree with me that as a Worperer myself, my Seven Heaven menu is more logically arranged than the menu of Word 2007 or any other worp’s menu for that matter.

It took Microsoft 4 years to redesign Word 2003 into Word 2007 with The Ribbon; I think they went into too much trouble. Comparatively speaking, and in a much smaller scale, I can redesign Word 2003 into Seven Heaven Word 2007 within 4 weeks. Truth to tell, any nerd can probably do the same with or without any other inputs from me except my menu.

Meanwhile, I’m asking either Microsoft, Corel, IBM Lotus, Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org, Yahoo or Google to come up with a better worp than any we have now.

Now, as I anticipate that nobody is listening, I propose more than changing the rules of the game: The game now is to change the game. So, here’s the best idea of them all:

Create the world’s perfect word processor.

The idea is old to old me. About 15 years ago, I sent a letter to Mr Bill Gates at Redmond, Washington about my love-hate relationship with Word and suggested that Microsoft come up with a radically different word processor that is output-oriented, not merely results-oriented, which Word 2007 undoubtedly is. I sent it airmail; I did not receive any acknowledgement or reply. My wife remembers that letter very well.

Already at that time, I had the idea that an ideal worp would be one that a user, simply looking at the first screen, would know exactly what to do even if this was the first time he was using that program. What kind of software would that be? I had a definite idea then as I do now what that program would be. At this point in time, I can only describe it:

To be perfect, a word processor’s mission is to make word processing instinctive, spontaneous, fun. Here, curiosity does not kill the cat – he’s invited to come in and run after the mouse that is docile, yielding. The user interface shows a worp in sheep’s clothing – submissive, easily led. That is to say, one click on an icon, or one hover on a keyword, or one typing of a question, any question, or some other device, and with the feedback, a neophyte worper knows exactly what to do for what he wants to do it as if he were an expert. The worper doesn’t have to know the technical term or the name of the command to use that worp; he doesn’t have to read the detailed instructions; and he doesn’t have to remember any command at all to be able to work like an expert all the time.

Word 2003: It’s the best word processor today, bar none. Word 2007? This new vibrant worp of Worperer Microsoft doesn’t quite hack it. The Worperer’s Stone is blemished. The perfect word processor is a sorcerer’s dream. And Mr Bill Gates doesn’t have the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Copyright 13 January 2007 by Frank A Hilario. Image from Microsoft Publisher 2002; I call it the IQ Mouse.