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I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

newyorker.com

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Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#71

Post by toyg »

GlennS wrote: post #25
culturestate wrote: post #13

Maybe I'm the one misunderstanding this, but... This piece isn't about Word or nerd-shaming or the author's self-perceived mastery of desktop publishing. It reads like a take on the absurdity of people constantly adding inane things like "must be proficient in Microsoft Word" to job postings and, consequently, their appearance on the CV of every person who applies to be a corporate drone in the western world. On the…

I don't know how Microsoft could possibly make pivot tables easier. You can easily learn the basics in half an hour's experimental clicking. But, I've had a client explicitly request that a report in Excel shouldn't include pivot tables, because they're too difficult. Too difficult to even look at.

Half the problem is knowing what the word "pivot" means in the context of data. Had they picked a less-formal description, I reckon they would be more popular.

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#72

Post by zdw »

azalemeth wrote: post #58

I cannot tell you how un productive I am in Microsoft Word. I use LaTeX, often in overleaf, often natively in linux, often on MacOS. Naturally, the latter has a Word version available in it and as a scientist at the interface of physics and biology/medicine I (un)fortunately have plenty of experience in both. Some of my colleagues carte-blanch refuse to try TeX (interestingly, I've never had a doctor refuse to write…

The fundamental problem is that all of Office was designed for a different time, and irredeemably sucks at two things:

* True version control and useful change tracking of content

* Intercompatability of formats with other tools

If we could get away from v2,v3,v4 suffixes on files, and your data basically going into those Roach Motels of file formats, maybe it could become worthwhile someday.

For now, it's just a vomitous throwback to the bad old 90's software design mechanics.

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#73

Post by spdionis »

azalemeth wrote: post #58

I cannot tell you how un productive I am in Microsoft Word. I use LaTeX, often in overleaf, often natively in linux, often on MacOS. Naturally, the latter has a Word version available in it and as a scientist at the interface of physics and biology/medicine I (un)fortunately have plenty of experience in both. Some of my colleagues carte-blanch refuse to try TeX (interestingly, I've never had a doctor refuse to write…

I do not have in-depth experience using Microsoft Word or LaTeX for writing papers. Nevertheless I found this funny:

> LaTeX has literally none of these problems. Sure, it has a lot of other problems, but none of these ones

> Office is one of those areas where the Microsoft strangehold is strongest. And it's objectively a bad experience!

The rest of your comment does not logically conclude to "it's objectively a bad experience", although that might seem obvious to someone who has used both in-depth.

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#74

Post by egypturnash »

analog31 wrote: post #27

I realize the article was supposed to be humorous (it's in the humor section), but the amusing thing is that I'm seeing declining use of Word. Communication has gotten a lot more formal. People are happy to edit a report in the e-mail editor, using a screen capture utility to copy and paste bitmap graphics when needed. Or they use the editor in the cloud version and don't bother to learn where all of its features are…

The publishing industry runs on Word, according to my writer acquaintances. You may write your book in something better designed for big complex text projects such as Scrivener, but it’s gotta turn into Word when it goes to them, and stays Word through all the editing process.

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#75

Post by noitsnot »

3pt14159 wrote: post #21
version_five wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked adjacent to financial consultants who build excel models all day. There is such thing as an "expert" at excel. I've interviewed lots of people who say they "know" excel, but when you dig into it, it's the equivalent of saying they know a programming language because they know basic flow control syntax. With word, I'm not sure if you can go as deep expertise wise as excel, but there is still much more to i…

With Excel its: Do you know arrays, UDFs, Solver, lookups, mastery over chart design, and cell formatting. With word it's basically: Can you do a mail merge and a table of contents? Congrats. You're an expert.

Basically, you have an MBA.

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#76

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

Requirements: 5+ years italicizing text. 3+ years using Arial and Helvetica.

“I’ve used Tahoma for 7 years.”

“Sorry, that’s not really what we’re looking for. Now, please draw a capital ‘A’ in Times Roman on the whiteboard.”

“…” (applicant realizes they should’ve spent more time on LeetWord.com)

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#77

Post by seanccox »

culturestate wrote: post #13

Maybe I'm the one misunderstanding this, but... This piece isn't about Word or nerd-shaming or the author's self-perceived mastery of desktop publishing. It reads like a take on the absurdity of people constantly adding inane things like "must be proficient in Microsoft Word" to job postings and, consequently, their appearance on the CV of every person who applies to be a corporate drone in the western world. On the…

Yeah, it's satire in the 'humor' section of the New Yorker.

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#78

Post by unixhero »

egypturnash wrote: post #74
analog31 wrote: post #27

I realize the article was supposed to be humorous (it's in the humor section), but the amusing thing is that I'm seeing declining use of Word. Communication has gotten a lot more formal. People are happy to edit a report in the e-mail editor, using a screen capture utility to copy and paste bitmap graphics when needed. Or they use the editor in the cloud version and don't bother to learn where all of its features are…

The publishing industry runs on Word, according to my writer acquaintances. You may write your book in something better designed for big complex text projects such as Scrivener, but it’s gotta turn into Word when it goes to them, and stays Word through all the editing process.

What about LaTeX?

Re: I cannot begin to tell you how proficient I am in Microsoft Word

#79

Post by azalemeth »

zdw wrote: post #72
azalemeth wrote: post #58

I cannot tell you how un productive I am in Microsoft Word. I use LaTeX, often in overleaf, often natively in linux, often on MacOS. Naturally, the latter has a Word version available in it and as a scientist at the interface of physics and biology/medicine I (un)fortunately have plenty of experience in both. Some of my colleagues carte-blanch refuse to try TeX (interestingly, I've never had a doctor refuse to write…

The fundamental problem is that all of Office was designed for a different time, and irredeemably sucks at two things: * True version control and useful change tracking of content * Intercompatability of formats with other tools If we could get away from v2,v3,v4 suffixes on files, and your data basically going into those Roach Motels of file formats, maybe it could become worthwhile someday. For now, it's just a vom…

There is a lot of truth in this. The common argument for word is "track changes is good", but it actually sucks in many ways: try doing a three-way merge, for example (from co-authors A, B and C) or a diff. TeX can use all of the power of modern editors and this sort of thing just happens really nicely; with git it happens seamlessly.

I think another big problem is that Word is one monolithic thing that aims to do everything, and in reality does nothing well.

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