Switch from WordPerfect to Word? Oh no!

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Joyce Fetterman, after years of using WordPerfect, <<...received notice that
the company intends to standardize
EVERYONE on Word.>>

My sympathies. "They" did much the same to us, and I dreaded the change too.
The bad news? Yes, Word has some "features" that will drive you nuts
(autonumbering being one of them). The really bad news? After you've played
around with Word for long enough to use the keystrokes and menus as
efficiently as you use WordPerfect, you're going to find you like it. It's a
very productive tool, and I enjoy using it enough that I've bought a copy
for my Mac at home, relegating WordPerfect to only occasional use.

<<I have no idea how anyone can use it for long documents.>>

Carefully. <g> Based on 3 years of monitoring how techwhirlers use Word97
and later versions, I've come to several conclusions: First, don't even
think about using Master Documents. Second, break up large projects into
smaller chunks (e.g., one file per chapter). It may be worthwhile embedding
graphics by "reference" (linking to them) rather than dropping them directly
into the file. Third, be religious about making backups and keeping
"checkpoint" versions after each round of major changes, so you can return
to the older version if the current version dies an untimely death. Some
people never encounter a minute's trouble with Word, whereas others have
recurring problems that nobody can seem to explain. Since nobody's ever
satisfactorily explained to me why two people can use Word identically and
still have such radically different experiences, I can't recommend backups
highly enough. Oh yeah, one last thing: never start playing around with the
keyboard (e.g., Control-F4 to close the current document) while Word is busy
saving the document (look for the indicators at the bottom of the screen)--a
recipe for disaster. 

<<Writing without seeing the underlying codes is like trying to debug an
application by watching it run>>

I used to think that too, but I've only rarely found a situation where I
really, really wanted to see the codes, and a little thought revealed a good
workaround (e.g., selecting text and pressing Control-Spacebar to remove all
formatting).

<<Anyway, I need to offer a powerful argument if I am to avoid this
switch.>>

The one that works best for me is "You now have my 2 weeks notice. Good luck
finding my replacement on short notice!" <g> When we originally contemplated
moving to Word, I collected a huge body of commentary from techwhirlers
about why it wasn't such a great idea, along with testimonials that it
really wasn't so bad. I also included comments, pro and con, on WordPerfect.
For Word, the negatives outweighed the positives by a considerably greater
margin than for WordPerfect in my mind, but they made the change anyway. I'm
happy to say, with 20:20 hindsight, that I was being unduly alarmist. Word
97 (service release 2) has been a very productive, reliable tool.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"I don't necessarily believe everything I say."--Marshall McLuhan

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