On 7 Jun 2004 at 22:41, John Howell wrote: > At 2:07 PM -0400 6/7/04, David W. Fenton wrote: > >Don't you folks always explore the menus of programs when you start > >using them? With Microsoft programs on Windows, user controllable > >options are stored on the Tools menu, under OPTIONS. Word also has > >separate menu entries for Autocorrect. I don't if MS's Mac versions > >put it under EDIT | PREFERENCES, but the point is -- you should > >explore these menus and try out the settings. Read the help and check > >out what the settings do. > > > >A few minutes spent exploring can save hours of annoyance. > > Of course you're absolutely right. But my situation is this: our > university provides us with a new computer every 4 years. My music > department uses Macs exclusively. Our computers come pre-loaded with > the latest versions of the standard programs everyone on campus uses, > including MS Office. And we never get copies of the manuals.
Who said anything about manuals? > Therefore trying to figure out a new version of everything on the > computers is purely a matter of trial and error, and I am NOT a good > hacker. If MS moves a command to a new place, it may take me 2 years > to find it, or I may never find it at all! MS has left its menus on the Windows side basically unchanged for about 10 years. > For years I kept using Word 5.1a, because it's lean, it does what I > need it to do, and it doesn't get upity and try to tell me what to do. > I'm sure there are some useful things in subsequent versions, but > they aren't useful to ME and they just take up a bloated amount of > memory. Well, when we went to OS X I coudn't use 5.1a any more, so > I'm stuck with what I've got, and it's been driving me nuts! > > So yes, David, you're completely right, but I'm strictly a user, and > basically a conservative person who hates having to relearn something > new when I already have a way to do what I need to do, and that's why > I never spend the hours it would take to "explore" new versions of > programs. It doesn't take hours. It takes minutes. And it's something anyone should do the first time they use a new program that they know they are likely to be using for a long time. It gives you an overview, and even if you don't remember the specifics, you may remember the general outlines and then have enough information to know that what you are looking for is possible. Microsoft Word's help files are not the best MS has ever produced, but they are also not the worst (though since the switch to HTML Help, it's almost impossible to find things). You also may find that Google and the Microsoft Knowledge Base will solve problems for you more quickly than the Word help files. There's really no excuse to suffer in silence, complaining about how the program doesn't behave the way you want when you haven't made any efforts whatsoever to investigate your options. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
