Maria's Guides | Word Books

Office 2008 Installer Needs Rosetta? Duh-oh!

Maria Langer — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:17:10 +0000

Just something idiotic I wanted to share.

I rolled off a book project with a tight deadline right into a video project with an even tighter deadline, so I don’t really have time to blog, share new articles here, or even tweet. But I did run across this the other day while I was installing Microsoft Office 2008 on my 13-inch iMac running Snow Leopard:

Yes, the Office 2008 installer requires Rosetta to run. Office 2008 doesn’t need Rosetta. Just the installer does.

Hello? Microsoft? You want to make your installer compatible with current hardware and software?

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Word 2004 Does Not Like Mac OS X 10.5.8

Maria Langer — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:16:21 +0000

It may be time to update Office.

I just started work on a new book revision. The project requires me to take relatively lengthy, style-laden Word documents, turn on the Track Changes feature, and edit like crazy. It wasn’t long before I was pulling my hair out.

You see, the other day, I updated my iMac from 10.5.7 to 10.5.8. I suspect that something in that update just didn’t sit well with Word 2004, which I was still running on that computer. After all, the iMac has an Intel dual core processor. Office 2004 was written for the old PowerPC processor that came in older Macs. Whether the problem was Mac OS X’s inability to run the old PowerPC application or Word’s inability to run on the 10.5.8 update is a mystery to me. All I know is what I experienced: text editing so slow that I could type faster than Word could display the characters.

At first I thought it might be the document itself. It’s 40 pages of text that utilizes about 20 styles and fields for automatically numbering figures and illustrations. The document was originally created about 10 years ago and has been revised and saved periodically for every edition of this book. It pops from my Mac to an editor’s PC and back at least five times during each revision process. I thought it might have some internal problems. So I used the Save As command to create a new version of the document. The new file was about 5% smaller in size, but had the same symptoms as the original.

Next I sent it over my network to my new 13-inch MacBook Pro. That computer’s processor isn’t as quick as my iMac’s and it has the same amount of RAM. The software on that computer was different, though. I had a developer preview version of Snow Leopard installed and, in preparation for a Microsoft Office 2008 project I’ll be starting in the fall, I’d installed Office 2008 with both major updates. I opened the file on that machine and it worked just fine. Great editing and scrolling speed. Exactly what I needed.

So I bit the bullet and installed Office 2008 on my iMac. And the two major updates. And two smaller updates that became available on August 5. It took hours — the updates totaled over 400 MB of downloads and I’m connected to the internet on a horrible 600-800 Kbps connection that likes to drop. (I’m living in a motel right now, traveling for my helicopter business.)

The result: All the performance issues are gone. Word is snappy yet again on my iMac.

You might ask why a person who writes about Microsoft Office applications had not yet upgraded to Office 2008. This all goes back to last year’s revision on this project. I actually did upgrade but then I downgraded. It was mostly because I needed the macro feature of Word, which wasn’t available on Word 2008. I’d upgraded my iMac last year, but when I decided to reformat my hard disk to ward off computer issues I was having (which were apparently caused by a bad logic board), I reinstalled Office 2004 instead of 2008. You see, I liked the old version better.

But it’s obvious to me now that I need to keep moving forward with the rest of my technology if I want it to perform as designed. Everything must be in sync. If I want to keep using Word 2004, I should use it on a computer that has the system software available during Word 2004’s lifespan. My old 12-inch PowerBook would be a good example. It has a G4 processor and runs Tiger. That’s as advanced as it will ever get. Office 2004 is a perfect match for it.

If there’s a moral to be taken away from this story, it’s simply that if you want your hardware and system software to be new or up-to-date, there will come a time when you’ll have to update the applications that run on it. Bite the bullet and do what you have to. It’ll be worth it.

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In Defense of Microsoft Word

Maria Langer — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:12:10 +0000

It does the whole job.

About a month ago, I was having trouble with my Mac and decided to head off any serious problems by reformatting my hard disk and reinstalling all my software from original program discs. In the old days, before we all had hard drives measured in gigabytes, I did this every single time there was a major system software update. Nowadays, it’s a lot of work and I avoid doing it if I can. My 24″ iMac is just over a year old and shouldn’t have been giving me problems, but I figured I’d try the reformat before bringing it to a genius. (Turns out, it was the swapping out of 2 GB of RAM for 4 GB of RAM that probably fixed the problem.)

For some reason, I didn’t do a typical install of Microsoft Office 2004. I thought I’d save disk space by omitting the proofing tools for the languages I don’t speak — which is every language except English. Word, which I use daily, worked fine — until I noticed that it wasn’t checking spelling as I type. Although my spelling is above average, I count on Word to put red squiggly underlines under my misspellings and typos. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get this feature to start working.

I sent an update to my Twitter account about this as I went about troubleshooting the problem. The result was an outpouring of suggestions from my Twitter friends for replacing Word or Office with other software, ranging from Open Source Word or Office replacements to Google Docs.

Whoa!

I fixed the problem by uninstalling and then reinstalling Word. Life went on. But it got me thinking about Office and Word and why so many people go out of their way to avoid both.

Word and Me

I should probably start off by saying that I have been using Microsoft Word since 1989 or 1990. Although I got Microsoft Works with my first Mac, I soon learned Word and began teaching it in a classroom setting. It was Word 4 for the Mac in those days; I don’t know what the corresponding version in Windows was because I didn’t use it or teach it. I’m not even sure if Microsoft Windows was a player back then.

I’ve used every version of Word for the Mac since then.

My first book about Microsoft Word was The Macintosh Bible Guide to Word 6. Word 6 sucked. It was a processor hog. I remember working with it in beta as I wrote my book about it. I remember whining to my editor, asking if he thought they’d fix the performance issues before the software went out. They did, but not very well. I disliked Word 6 and the way it handled outlines and “master documents.” Everything seemed to be “embedded.” It seemed as if they’d prettied up Word to look more Mac-like and had done the job by pouring maple syrup all over the inside of my computer, bogging things down.

Word 98 was a vast improvement. From then on, each version of Word was an improvement. The interface remained basically the same but features were added and solidified. Some of the features worked with Microsoft server software, which I didn’t have, didn’t want, and certainly didn’t need. All I cared about was that Word did what I needed it to do, using the same interface I knew from years of experience as a user.

The End of the World as We Know It: Office 2007

Then Office 2007 for Windows came out with its ridiculous “ribbon” interface. What the hell was Microsoft thinking? Take a standardized interface that your existing user base knows by heart and throw it out the window. Force them to learn a whole new interface. Keep telling them that it’s easier and maybe a handful of morons will believe you.

I had to use Office 2007 for two Excel books. The only good thing I can say about it is that the complete, radical interface change — I’m talking menus vs. ribbon here, not spreadsheet basics — made a book about the software necessary. How else would users figure out how to get the job done? Fortunately (for users, not authors) Office 2007 adoption is slow.

Woe is Me: Office 2008

Of course, I’m a Mac user and use the Mac version of Office. I held my breath when Office 2008 came out. Thank heaven they didn’t get rid of the menu bar — although I don’t understand how they could. Office 2008 retains much of the Office 2004 interface. It just adds what Microsoft calls “Element Galleries” and the usual collection of features that 1% of the computing world cares about. Fortunately, you can ignore them and continue using Office applications with the same old menus and shortcut keys we all know.

I would have switched to Office 2008 — I even had it installed on my MacBook Pro — except for two things:

Its default document formats are not compatible with versions of office prior to Office 2007. That means someone using Word 2003 for Windows or Word 2004 for Mac can’t open my documents unless I save them in an Office 2004-compatible format. This isn’t a huge deal, but it is something I’d have to remember every single time I saved a document. I’d also have to remember not to use any Office feature that only worked with Office 2007 or 2008.
It does not support Visual Basic Macros. One of my publishers makes me use a manuscript template that’s chock-full of these macros. Can’t access the macros, can’t use the template. Can’t use the template, can’t use Office 2008.

(I wrote about these frustrations extensively in a Maria’s Guides article.)

So I’m apparently stuck with Office 2004 — at least for a while.

But do you know what? I’m perfectly happy with it.

Why I Like Word

I like Word. I really do. It does everything I need it to do and it does it well.

Sure, it has a bunch of default options that are set stupidly. I wrote about how to set them more intelligently in an article for Informit.com. (Read “Three Ways Word Can Drive You Crazy[er] and What You Can Do About Them.”) It certainly includes far more features than the average writer needs or uses. And despite what Microsoft might tell you, it’s probably not the best tool for page layout (I prefer InDesign) or mail merge (I prefer FileMaker Pro). But it does these things if you need to.

I use all of the basic word processing features. I use the spelling checker — both as I type and to correct errors. I like smart cut and paste, although I have the ridiculous Paste Options button turned off. I like AutoComplete and love AutoCorrect (when set up properly). I use all kinds of formatting, including paragraph and character styles, tables, and bulleted lists. I rely on the outlining features when preparing to write a book or script for video training material. I use the thesaurus occasionally when I can’t get my mind around the exact word I’m looking for, although the word I want is usually not listed.

I’ve used some of the advanced features, such as table of contents generation, indexing, and cross-references. These are great document automation features. Trouble is, I don’t usually use Word to create documents that require these features. I use InDesign for laying out my books, which are usually illustrated. (And I admit that I’m looking forward to trying out the new cross-referencing feature in InDesign CS4 for my next book.)

I don’t jump on board with every new Word feature. I prefer the Formatting toolbar over the Formatting Palette. I write in Normal view rather than Page Layout view. I create my own templates but don’t use the ones that come with Word.

I don’t use the grammar checker; I think it’s a piece of crap designed for people who know neither grammar nor writing style. I don’t like URLs formatted as links. (Who the hell wants links underlined in printed documents?) I don’t use any of the Web publishing features; I’d rather code raw HTML than trust Word to do it for me. I very seldom insert images or objects or anything other than text in my documents. I have InDesign for serious layout work. I don’t use wizards. I think WordArt is ugly and amateurish. I keep the silly Office Assistant feature turned off.

I admit that I don’t use any of the project features that work with Entourage — although I’d like to. I decided a while back to switch to Apple’s e-mail, calendar, and contact management solutions (Mail, iCal, and Address Book respectively) because they’d synchronize with .Mac (now MobileMe) and my Treo. Entourage probably does this now, but I really don’t feel like switching again. Am still thinking about this.

The point is, I use a bunch of Word features and I completely ignore a bunch of others. The features are there if I need them but, in Word 2004, they’re not in your face, screaming for attention. (Wish I could say the same about Word 2008.)

iWork with Apple Computers

Lots of people think that just because I’m a Macintosh user — an enthusiast, in fact — I should be using Apple’s business productivity solution: iWork. For a while, I thought so, too.

I own iWork ‘08. I just bought iWork ‘09. I’ve tried Pages. I’ve really tried Pages. I wanted to use it. I wanted to break free of Microsoft Word.

But old habits are hard to break. No matter how much I tried to use Pages each time I needed to create a document, when I was rushed, I reached for Word. No learning curve — I already know it. After a while, I just stopped trying to use Pages.

Why Use a Bunch of One Trick Ponies?

I know a bunch of writers who swear by one software program or another for meeting their writing needs. They use special outliners to create outlines. They use special “writing software” that covers the entire screen with a blank writing surface so they’re not distracted by other things on their desktops. They use special software to brainstorm, footnote, and index.

I’ve tried these solutions and do you know what? They don’t make my life easier. Instead, they just give me another piece of software to learn and keep up to date and interface with other software. They make more work for me.

I’m not going to forget my Word skills and Word isn’t going to suddenly disappear off the face of the planet anytime soon. In fact, it’s far more likely for one of these one-trick ponies to disappear than a powerhouse with millions of users worldwide like Microsoft Office.

I remember ThoughtPattern, a program by Bananafish Software. I saw it demoed at a Macworld Expo in the early 1990s and thought it was the greatest thing in the world for organizing my thoughts and ideas. I was sure it would make me a better writer. I was so convinced, I bought it — and it wasn’t cheap. I used it for a while and rather liked it. Evidently, I was one of very few people who’d joined the ThoughtPattern revolution. In April 1993, it was discontinued. I was left with software that wouldn’t work with subsequent versions of the Macintosh system software. Worst of all, the documents I created with ThoughtPattern were in their own proprietary format. When the software stopped working, the contents of those documents were lost. (Do you think it was easy to find a screenshot from software that was discontinued 16 years ago?)

So perhaps you can understand my aversion to one-trick ponies that promise a better writing experience.

Will the same thing happen with Microsoft Word? I don’t think so.

I Don’t Compute in the Cloud

Google Docs was one of the solutions suggested to me by my Twitter friends. I guess they think it’s better to avoid the evil Microsoft empire in favor of the “we’re not evil” Google empire. Along the way, I should give up the interface and features I know from almost 20 years of experience with the software and rely on an online application that could change its interface daily. Oh, yeah — and keep my documents on someone else’s computer.

Yeah. Right. Good idea.

Not.

Until I’m part of a multinational corporation that requires its employees and consultants to keep all their documents on some remote server for collaboration purposes, I will not be computing in the cloud.

One of the things I like about keeping my documents on my own computer — rather than a remote server accessible by the Internet — is that the Internet is not always available. What do I do then? Stop working?

Security is an issue, too. While I don’t usually write much of a confidential nature, I don’t like the idea of not having control over my documents. Servers get hacked. I don’t want my work suddenly accessible to people who I don’t want seeing it.

I will admit that I use MobileMe’s iDisk feature to keep some documents on an Apple server. This makes it a tiny bit easier to access them from my laptop when I’m away from home. But I’ve recently moved to a new strategy. I bought a pocket hard drive that’s bigger than my computer’s Home folder. Before I hit the road with my laptop on a trip for business or pleasure, I sync this portable drive with my Home folder. I then have every single document on my computer with me when I’m away. The added benefit: complete offsite backup.

That’s My Case

That’s my defense of Microsoft Word. I rest my case.

Please understand that I’m not trying to convince a non-Word user to switch to Word. If you’re happy with something else, stick with it! That’s the precise reason I’m sticking with Word. I’m happy with it.

I guess the reason I wrote this post was to assure other people like me that there’s no reason to be ashamed of being a Word user. You do what’s right for you. There’s nothing really wrong with Word. If it makes your life easier, why switch?

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Office 2008 12.1.3 Update Now Available

Maria Langer — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:16:47 +0000

Information from Microsoft AutoUpdate.

The Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update contains several changes that improve security, stability, reliability, and performance. Additionally, this update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of a computer’s memory by using malicious code.

This is a critical update and is highly recommended for all Office 2008 users.

For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958267

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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.2 Update Now Avialable

Maria Langer — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:36:27 +0000

Information from Microsoft’s Web site.

The Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.2 Update contains several changes that improve stability and performance. In addition, this update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of a computer’s memory by using malicious code.

You can learn more at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956344.

Note: This update is huge: over 100 MB. If you’re updating on a laptop, make sure you have a good Internet connection and your power cable attached.

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Why I Downgraded to Word 2004

Maria Langer — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:14:50 +0000

I said I’d never upgrade to 2008 and I lied. Then I paid for it.

There’s nothing wrong with Office 2004 that’s fixed in Office 2008. It’s the same software with some Interface tweaks. After all, at this point, what can Microsoft do to change Office?

The answer, of course, is to create an abomination like Office 2007 for Windows. They said they made it more intuitive, but for who? People who have never seen a computer before? As a long-time Office user, the new “ribbon” interface drives me batty. I can’t find any of the commands I need.

I thank my lucky stars that they didn’t destroy the Mac version, too.

But although I didn’t need or want to update to Office 2008 for Macintosh, I soon realized that if I wanted to record videos about the software and write the occasional article or Maria’s Guides post about it, I should bite the bullet and put it on at least one of my computers. That lucky computer was my MacBook Pro, which I have with me in Washington State this summer.

The installer warned me that the sky would fall (or something equally horrible would happen) if I didn’t uninstall previous versions of Word. So, like a real sucker, I let the installer uninstall Office 2004. I’d learn Office 2008 with a thorough emersion.

Compatibility Woes

I began running into problems almost immediately. The first was compatibility. For some reason, the geniuses in Redmond decided that Office 2007 (Windows) and 2008 (Mac OS) should have a different file format. So when you save a document from Word 2008, by default, it saves in the .docx format. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my editors and other people I share files with did not upgrade to Office 2007 or 2008. These people couldn’t read the files without installing a special converter, which was not immediately available.

And if I happened to open a Word 2003 or 2004 file and save it, I got all kinds of worrisome warnings about document formatting possibly being lost.

The solution, of course, was to save in Word 97-2004 format. And so I didn’t have to deal with choosing a file type option every time I saved a document, I set that as the default file type. That would pretty much guarantee that my file could be read by anyone using any modern version of Word.

Macro Woes

Things got worse.

I began work on a book I revise each year. (I’m not allowed to say what it is because I’m under nondisclosure, but you can probably figure it out if you consult my Books list.) That book is written in Word, which my editors use. We make extensive use of the Track Changes feature. All of my editors are on Word 2003 (Windows). While I assume that the Track Changes feature works the same in both versions, I know the macro feature does not.

You see, the geniuses in Redmond decided to disable Word’s Visual Basic macro feature in Word 2008 for Macintosh. Sure, there’s a dialog full of predefined macros that are probably preprogrammed into the software. I haven’t fiddled with the feature yet, so I can’t say much more about it.

But I can tell you that if you try to open a Word document or template that contains macros with Word 2008, Word wants to strip them out. Yes, you can open the file without stripping out the macros, but you can’t use the macros.

While for most folks, this might not be such a big deal, it’s a huge deal for this book project. Each book file has to be based on a template that includes these macros. The macros automate several tasks and really do make my life easier. I want to use the macros.

While I do have my old 12-in PowerBook handy and it has Word 2004 on it, it doesn’t have Photoshop on it. I need Photoshop, which is on my MacBook Pro, to process the screenshots. My MacBook Pro also has my e-mail software so I can send out the finished chapter files and art.

I was looking at a workflow nightmare. My options were as follows:

Run the software I’m writing about on my Dell PC (it’s a Windows software program), write the book on my PowerBook, and edit the screenshots on my MacBook Pro. That meant having three laptops open while I worked and shuffling the files among all three computers before putting them on the MacBook Pro to send them out.
Reinstall Word 2004 on my MacBook Pro. Then run the software I’m writing about on my Dell laptop and do all the text and image editing, as well as e-mailing final files, from my MacBook Pro.

Which option would you choose?

So that’s why I’m downgrading to Word 2004 on my MacBook Pro.

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Microsoft Office 2008 12.1.1 Update Now Available

Maria Langer — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:28:55 +0000

Information from Microsoft’s updater.

This update contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance.

For detailed information about this update, visit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=119963.

Note that this is a huge update: 150+ megabytes! Be sure you have a fast connection and enough time to complete the download before beginning the update.

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Microsoft AutoUpdate 2.1.1 Now Available

Maria Langer — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:08:42 +0000

Information from Microsoft AutoUpdate.

This update to Microsoft AutoUpdate for Mac is part of Microsoft’s ongoing effort to provide the latest product updates to customers. To receive future Microsoft product updates, you must install this update.

For additional assistance, or to obtain a downloadable version of this update, visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac.

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January 12 Links

Maria Langer — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:29:05 +0000

Links worth following.

Here are the links of interest to readers of my books for the week ending January 12:

Your GTD System Isn’t the Problem

Excellent advice for people trying to implement GTD to be more productive — and not succeeding. On the Cranking Widgets blog.

(tags: productivity Advice gtd)
Making the Switch: Going From Partial to Full Feeds

Good article about switching from partial to full RSS feeds. On PlagiarismToday.com.

(tags: feed rss blogging)
A long list of modifier key tricks

For Mac OS X Tiger; should work in Leopard, too. On MacOSXHints.com.

(tags: Apple Mac reference tips MacOS)
Color Wheel Article

Link to EXCELLENT article, in PDF format, that explains exactly how colors work together. From Before & After magazine.

(tags: colors design tutorial reference)
An Interface of One’s Own

An anti-Word, pro Scrivener piece (of all things!) in the New York Times. By Virginia Heffernan. Thanks to @ev on Twitter for sharing the link.

(tags: Word Microsoft software Times)
Goodbye, cruel Word

Steven Poole no longer uses Microsoft Word. Here’s why.

(tags: Word microsoft writing journalism software productivity)
E-book the letter

Steven Poole lists the features an ebook reader SHOULD have. I think they sound rather familiar, don’t you?

(tags: Amazon Kindle funny ebooks books reading)
What to Expect at Macworld

More rumors of what might be in store for us at Macworld Expo next week. On ReadWriteWeb.

(tags: Apple MacworldExpo)
10 Ways Twitter Can Boost Your Social News Profile

Some tips for getting more followers on Twitter, which can boost your profile on other Social Networking sites. On ReadWriteWeb.

(tags: twitter Web2.0 socialnetworking tips)
Author Uses Amazon Kindle to Beta Test New Book

Interesting article about using Kindle to publish a book and entice readers to provide feedback to the author. On ReadWriteWeb.

(tags: Kindle writing publishing ebooks Amazon)
Twittering without access to Twitter.com

A how-to piece with suggestions on how you can participate in Twitter when you don’t have access to the Twitter.com Web site. On Twitter Facts.

(tags: twitter Web2.0 socialnetworking)
Mac OS X 10.5, iChat: Unable to participate in video conference

Workaround for problem using video chat feature of iChat with Mac OS X 10.5. On the Apple Support Web site.

(tags: Apple MacOS Leopard iChat)
My essential WordPress plugins

Great post by Miraz Jordan that summarizes her must-have WordPress plugins. I’ll have to do a similar post soon. On the WordPress Visual QuickStart Guide support web site.

(tags: WordPress plugin Webdesign)
Why It Wonâ€™t Work

John Scalzi’s take on why the Sony BMG plan to release non-DRM protected music won’t work. I tend to agree with him.

(tags: DRM sony music download itunes ipod)
Apples For The Army

According to this story on Forbes.com, the U.S. Army is adopting Macs to help thwart hackers. Not exactly good news for Mac users — we don’t need to give hackers a reason to go after us — but good for Apple.

(tags: Mac Macintosh military technology Apple security)
DUM

John Gruber’s take on the Kindle. On Daring Fireball.

(tags: Amazon Kindle publishing ebooks books)
Sony caves; DRM is dead, dead, dead

Sony drops DRM. On MacUser.com. Thanks to @dmoren on Twitter for the link.

(tags: drm music itunes sony)
iBed

Humorous photo of a recycled iMac. On I Can Has Cheezburger?

(tags: funny humor photo imac)
The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry

Excellent article about the secret history of iPhone development. On Wired.com.

(tags: wired Apple history iphone)
A Savvy Approach to Copyright Messaging

A great tip for helping to protect an image posted on a Web page from being stolen and used by others. By Derek Powazek.

(tags: copyright Photography photos)

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Removing Words from Word’s Custom Dictionary

Maria Langer — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:10:31 +0000

It’s a bit involved, but doable.

Yesterday, I explained how you can “unlearn” a word that you mistakenly added to Mac OS X’s user dictionary. Of course, applications other than those developed by Apple probably don’t use Apple’s dictionary.

Microsoft Word is a good example. It stores the words you add to it in a Custom dictionary file. To remove a word you added by mistake, you have to manually edit this dictionary. Here’s how you can do this in Word 2004 for Mac OS; the technique is similar in Word 2003 for Windows.

In Word, choose Microsoft Word > Preferences. (Note that a document window must be open to choose this command.)
In the Preferences dialog that appears, choose Spelling and Grammar.
Click the Dictionaries button.
In the Custom Dictionaries dialog that appears, select the name of the dictionary you want to edit.
Click the Edit button.
A dialog like the one shown next appears. Click OK.
A Word window named Custom Dictionary opens. It contains all the words in your dictionary, in alphabetical order. Make changes as desired in this file, adding or removing words as you see fit.
Choose File > Save to save the modified file.
If a dialog like the one shown next appears, click Yes.
Click the Custom Dictionary’s close button to dismiss it.
If you had Check spelling as you type turned on before you started this process, go back into the Spelling and Grammar preferences and turn it back on.

From that point forward, Word will recognize only the words in its main dictionary and the custom dictionary as you edited it.

Page References

Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide offers additional information related to this topic:

Enabling Automatic Spelling Checking, page 143
Checking Spelling as You Type, page 144
Setting Spelling and Grammar Preferences, pages 380-382

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One Way to Speed up Word’s Launch Time

Maria Langer — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:49:27 +0000

It works but it’s not for everyone.

Tired of waiting for Word to optimize its font menu each time it launches? Tell it not to. This will speed up the launch process — especially if you have many fonts installed — but it will also stop Word from displaying font names in their typefaces.

Give it a try and see if it’s worthwhile for you:

With any Word document open, choose Microsoft Word > Preferences.
In the Preferences dialog that appears, click the General option in the list of categories on the left side of the window.
Turn off the WYSIWYG font and style menus option.
Click OK.

Try this for a while and see if missing out on the WYSIWYG menus bothers you. If it does, you can always turn this feature back on.

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Site Topics Available as RSS Feeds and E-Mail Subscriptions

Maria Langer — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:06:02 +0000

Get content delivered to your RSS reader or e-mail box.

There is no easier or more convenient way to follow a blog-based Web site’s content than to subscribe to its RSS feed. Today’s Web browsers and other applications make it easy. For example, RSS feed reading capabilities are built into Safari and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’s Mail application. Firefox’s Live Bookmarks display new content from your favorite feeds. And there are numerous RSS feed reader applications — NetNewsWire and endo come to mind — that help you manage as many feeds as you have time to follow.

This site Includes both a full-site feed and category feeds. You can subscribe by clicking the RSS icon that appears in the header (for the entire site’s feed) or beside the name of a category under a blog post’s title (for a category feed). Or just use the links listed below.

Through the magic of FeedBurner, I can also offer e-mail subscriptions to site content. Subscriptions are guaranteed to be spam-free, and I don’t give or sell your e-mail address to anyone. Best of all, its easy to unsubscribe from any feed — each e-mail message includes an unsubscribe link that really does work. You’ll find forms for subscribing to topical feeds in the sidebar (when I get around to adding them; sorry!) or you can click the appropriate link below. Just remember to look for and respond to the confirmation e-mail you’ll get from FeedBurner. Your subscription won’t be turned on until you confirm that you want it. (This prevents unwanted subscriptions.)

All Content

Subscribing to this feed will get you all articles, downloads, and other material that appears on this site. I expect to average 5 to 10 posts per week, so it shouldn’t be too overwhelming to get it all. Keep in mind that if you subscribe to this feed, you probably won’t want to subscribe to any of the others listed below; doing so will get duplicate content.

Feed address:http://feeds.feedburner.com/MariasGuides

E-Mail Subscription Link:Subscribe to Maria’s Guides by Email

Mac OS Topics

This includes articles, downloads, and other content related to Mac OS and my Mac OS books.

Feed address:http://feeds.feedburner.com/macosquickstart

E-mail Subscription Link:Subscribe to Maria’s Guides | Mac OS Books by Email

WordPress Topics

This includes articles, downloads, and other content related to WordPress and the WordPress books I co-author with Miraz Jordan.

Feed address:http://feeds.feedburner.com/wordpressquickstart

E-mail Subscription Link:Subscribe to Maria’s Guides | WordPress Books by Email

And if you’re serious about blogging, you might also want to subscribe to blogging-related content on my personal site, An Eclectic Mind: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mariaonblogging

Excel Topics

This includes articles, downloads, and other content related to Excel and my Excel books for Mac OS and Windows.

Feed address:http://feeds.feedburner.com/MariasGuidesExcelBooks

E-Mail Subscription Link:Subscribe to Maria’s Guides | Excel Books by Email.

Word Topics

This includes articles, downloads, and other content related to Word and my Word books for Mac OS and Windows.

Feed address:http://feeds.feedburner.com/MariasGuidesWordBooks

E-Mail Subscription Link:Subscribe to Maria’s Guides | Word Books by Email.

Got Questions?

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Two Blogs? Again?

Maria Langer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:53:37 +0000

After over a year of soul-searching, I decide to spin off my book support topics to their own site.

I built my first Web site back in the mid 1990s. It was a simple site, created in HTML, that provided information about me and my books.

A [Very] Brief History of my Web Site(s)

The Internet was young back then — at least as far as the masses were concerned. Few people surfed. In fact, the whole idea of going online was so new and radical back then that my first book proposal, which was about telecommunications on a Mac, was turned down because publishers felt that there wouldn’t be enough people interested in it.

Anyway, as things heated up, I soon saw the benefits of putting more information on the Web. And then, in 2003, I discovered blogging. Surely my personal blog should be separate from what I write to support my books and articles, right? So I spun off a new site, LangerBooks.com, and published plain HTML Web pages with book promotional and support information.

Meanwhile, I fell in love with the whole blogging interface. There was no question in my mind: a blog was a perfect tool for presenting new content while automatically archiving old content. So I got LangerBooks.com into a blog format, with a separate blog for each title.

Back in those days (2003-2004), it wasn’t easy for me. I’d decided to blog with a program called iBlog that had a lot of promise. Unfortunately, its author wasn’t willing or able to keep up with technology. His software generated static HTML documents for each page of a blog. The more you wrote, the more cumbersome the whole blog updating process became. And, as those of you who read this blog regularly know, I can write an awful lot.

So in January 2005, I made the jump to WordPress. It was a big jump indeed, since I knew absolutely nothing about PHP or MySQL and very little about CSS. (What made it even bigger was that I was hosting my own blog on my own server.) I learned what I needed to know. One of the best things about WordPress is that you don’t need to know much to build a really professional looking site.

Around the same time, I decided that I didn’t want to maintain separate blogs for my books. So I brought all the books back under MariaLanger.com and came up with some creative ways to keep Book Support topics separate from the rest of the site. Creative, yes. Effective, perhaps.

One Blog to Rule them All?

Of course, the whole time I was doing this, I was reading from “pro bloggers” about how important it is to keep your blog on just one topic. These guys were blogging to make money, I argued to myself. They weren’t in it because of a need to blog or a desire to provide additional information to book readers. So I pretty much ignored them.

But their advice was eating away at my brain in the back of my mind. After much thought, I realized that having too many widespread topics in my blog was preventing the blog from being more popular. For example, people interested in my flying and lifestyle posts — which, according to a poll on my site, is about 30% of the site’s visitors — were probably bored silly with my Mac OS and Excel and WordPress posts. And people interested in getting book support (16% of visitors) weren’t interested in wading through the other content to get the bits of information that could help them. This was preventing me from getting more site subscribers and regular readers.

So about two weeks ago, I decided to make the split.

Drumroll, Please

The question of how I did it is something I can discuss as a WordPress-related post. Let’s just say that I’ve done the basic work and have enough content in the new blog to open it to the public.

So here’s the formal announcement:

Support for my books and articles can now be found at the Maria’s Guides Web site: http://www.mariasguides.com/.

If you’re reading this post there, you’ve already found it. Otherwise, if you’re interested in articles, tips, and downloads related to my books about Mac OS, Excel, Word, and WordPress, please go check it out.

And yes, occasionally there will be cross posts, like this one. But I’ll try to keep that to a minimum.

Why Maria’s Guides?

A few years back, I made a false start on a line of eBooks. I abandoned the project, primarily because I got busy with other things that were more interesting (and lucrative). I’m thinking of revisiting the idea with shorter eBooks covering a wider range of topics. Maria’s Guides was the working title of the series and I own the domain name, so why not?

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A Computer without Word?

Maria Langer — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:50:29 +0000

I try an experiment to see if I can stay productive without Microsoft Word.

Last week, in an effort to get my old 12″ PowerBook to run more efficiently, I decided to wipe the hard disk clean and reinstall Tiger with a clean install. After installing it, I got a little crazy and decided to upgrade to Leopard. So far, the machine works fine.

The computer does have a problem, however. Its aged and well-used CD-R/DVD drive has decided to be a bit picky about which CDs and DVDs it recognizes. It liked the Tiger and Leopard install discs, which are both DVDs. But it didn’t seem to like the Office 2004 disc, which is a CD.

(A real Apple fangirl might point out here that the computer has taste. But I wouldn’t dream of making such a statement.)

It’s a Bother

I can get Microsoft Office on the computer by other means. I can insert the disc in another computer and have the PowerBook access the CD via my AirPort network. Or I can create a disk image of the CD, transfer that to the PowerBook over the network, and install from that. Or I can put a disk image of the CD on an 80GB Firewire drive I have sitting around and attach that drive to the PowerBook to install. Any of these methods should work.

Or, if I want to get really radical, I can install the beta of Office 2008 on the PowerBook and let it become my official testing machine.

But let’s face it: it’s a bother. And this morning I began asking myself if it was worth it.

The PowerBook is in semi-retirement these days. It spends much of its time in my kitchen, where I use it to create my morning blog entry. I sometimes use it to look up something on the Internet when I’m doing things around the house. And, of course, I take it traveling with me, primarily because it’s relatively small and lightweight and old enough that I don’t have to feel too bad if it breaks.

But the real question is: Do I need Microsoft Office on it?

An Alternative to Word

I definitely need a Word processor. I’m a writer and I use the computer to write. (I use most of my computers to write.)

But Mac OS X comes with a perfectly good word processor: TextEdit.

Don’t laugh until you’ve tried it. The version of TextEdit that comes with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is a kick-butt little word processor. It supports all kinds of formatting, including basic text formatting, tabs, indentation, lists, and even named styles. It has built-in spelling check that can check spelling as you type and supports hyphenation. It can open and read all Word formats — including Word 2007 for Windows with its new file format (which Word 2004 for Mac can’t even do) — and can save to Word formats, Rich Text Format (RTF), and plain text format. That makes it possible to use TextEdit, even when the people you are sharing files with are using Word.

Clearly, this ain’t your father’s SimpleText.

Okay, so it doesn’t support cell tables and Word fields and its support for inserted graphics is rather limited. And there are some Word formatting options that TextEdit might simply choke on.

But do I really need all those Word features? Isn’t the ability to enter and edit text and apply simple text formatting what word processing is all about?

Do We Need All those Bells and Whistles?

And that brings up a point that’s been nagging at me for years — since Microsoft Office 6 for Macintosh came out, in fact.

My first Word book was the Macintosh Bible Guide to Word 6. The Macintosh Bible series of books was a short-lived seris of big fat books about specific software packages. I did one for Word, then did another for Excel.

I clearly remember installing and using the beta of Word 6. My first impression was: this sucks. Microsoft had decided to pack in a lot of new features. And, if I recall correctly, Microsoft had also decided not to use Apple’s built-in routines for drawing windows and dialogs. Instead, they decided to write their own routines to draw their own windows and dialogs. So not only did the computer have to deal with all the programming stuff for word processor operations, but it had to deal with all the extra Microsoft-brand programming for the interface — the same kind of programming that made early versions of Windows so sluggish to DOS fans.

The feature bloat and poor performance of Word 6 — at least in the beta stage; they managed to fix it up a bit for the release version — got me thinking about the features that should be in a word processor. Clearly, Microsoft had gone over the top. (And it continued to do so for most subsequent releases, although I do recall Office 2001 being a very good version.)

Today’s TextEdit is not too far off from Microsoft Word 4, which is the first version of Word I used (back in 1989). And frankly, it did everything I needed it to do to prepare my manuscripts.

And if you’re a Windows user reading this, you have WordPad (I think that’s what it’s called), don’t you? I’m pretty sure that these days that is Word 4.

Compatibility Issues

Today, things are different. Although I write all my Peachpit Press books in InDesign, Adobe’s page layout program, I still write each year’s edition of my Quicken for Windows book in Microsoft Word. My editors make extensive use of Word’s revisions feature, with each of them (and me) marking up the manuscript so it’s nearly impossible to read. I need to use Word to share files with these editors. There’s no way around it.

But that doesn’t mean that I need it on my little PowerBook. And it also doesn’t mean that you need it.

Other Alternatives for Mac Users

And then there’s the iWork suite of products. With the addition of Numbers, a good alternative to Excel, Mac users now have all the pieces they need to replace Office on their Macs. I have iWork around here somewhere, but I haven’t had time to experiment with it. I’d love to get feedback from users; use the Comments link or form below to share your thoughts.

Back to My Original Question

Do I need Microsoft Office on my semi-retired PowerBook?

At this point, I think the answer is no. Let’s see how long I can last without it.

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Peachpit Launches New Web Site

Maria Langer — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:05:09 +0000

And offers 40% discounts on books purchased online.

Just a quick note to pass along some info I got in e-mail from Peachpit Press, one of my publishers.

Over the last several months, you’ve been talking and now it’s our chance to show you that we’ve been listening. You told us you wanted better and faster searches for our books and content. You said you wanted more videos, better access to our authors, and more ways to get involved. After listening to everything you had to say, we’re proud to introduce the newly redesigned Peachpit.com.

They’ve added features to the site, including online video tutorials, access to blogs, and online reference guides. But the news that might interest you most is that they’re also offering a 40% discount on all books purchased on the site:

To thank you for your feedback and to celebrate our new site we would like to offer you a 40% discount on your purchases. Just order before September 15 and enter coupon code PPT-NEWSITE-EM01 during checkout!

Sounds like a good deal to me. I hope you’ll take advantage of it, perhaps to buy one or more of my books?

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