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In Microsoft Word:
Auto-correcting specialized
ellipses (three periods in a row)
quotation marks (into "smart-quotes" - what a smug name THAT is!), and
longer hyphens
What a waste of time!
Default paragraph spacing of 1.15. 1.15????
Automatic double-spacing between paragraphs - probably done because some half-wit thought it would save time. What, are we doing speed trials?
Any others, maybe in other programs?
(N.B: I’m going to award 3 Bad Drag Queen Wigs to anyone who chimes in to say “you know, you can turn any of these features off by editing your preferences”)
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Posted: |
Mar 7, 2015 - 8:57 AM
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By: |
TomD
(Member)
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In Microsoft Word:
Auto-correcting specialized
ellipses (three periods in a row)
quotation marks (into "smart-quotes" - what a smug name THAT is!), and
longer hyphens
What a waste of time!
Default paragraph spacing of 1.15. 1.15????
My Microsoft gripe is that many features are on by default, leaving me to figure out what they are and what they do, and then what are they named, so I can find them in Help to turn them off.
I will recommend The PC Is Not a Typewriter by Robin Williams, which has nothing to do with Word, but does explain why you don't want to the typographical mistakes that Word is attempting to correct. One probably does need to worry about ellipses, proper quotation marks, or choice of dashes to post here or text, but if you want your resume to look professional...
I think that it is line spacing that defaults to 1.15 (%), not paragraph spacing. It's an OK choice for line spacing in body text, but not for design work, of course.
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Posted: |
Mar 9, 2015 - 7:52 AM
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By: |
Jehannum
(Member)
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Software development continues to get worse and worse. Especially from Apple which used to have the attitude "end user" control. Now it forces end users to do things their way or it makes assumptions for the end user. In general there's been one dumb idea after another that makes computer/software use more archaic, frustrating, less useful, and time consuming.
This is my grievance with the newer operating systems and software. I've been forced to use Win 8.1 and it's awful in so many, many ways. I've almost got it working how I want it now.
The secret was turning off every one of its features, permanently.
For example, the 'charms' bar popping up in the middle of programs, hampering mouse control. You need third party software to stop it properly.
Automatic echo removal and noise cancelling on the soundcard, which defaults to Skype-chat settings. It completely ruins any kind of sound recording.
Windows automatic updates. One update crashed the computer, so it restarted. The auto-update then downloaded again and crashed the machine again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This one took some serious fixing: Safemode, hitting the F8 button at exactly the correct hundredth of a second = 6 hours of lost lifetime.
That abominable apps coloured square interface that's completely unsuited to mouse / keyboard work.
Stupid 'enviromentally friendly' power options that make shutting down the computer a complete chore.
Not giving me, the owner and sole user, permission to view my own files transferred from another computer. I had to find an online tutorial to find out how to change the permissions on a folder I'd created!
Only my wife prevented me from using the laptop as a football.
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One probably does need to worry about ellipses, proper quotation marks, or choice of dashes to post here or text, but if you want your resume to look professional...
I'd agree with you if they corrected REAL discrepancies (single quotes versus double quotes, etc.). No, they've gotta do POINTLESS corrections.
Adding fifteen-one hundredths of a line? Would someone be measuring how wide my hyphens are? "Oh, look, his quotes don't curl!" Pointless.
I mean, it is as if someone's checking if I stirred my oatmeal clockwise or counter-clockwise.
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That's pretty much it! LOL I wish ppl would wake up and see how bad this is. Corporations are raising a bunch of spoon fed sheep and they think it's a good thing.
Thank you, Solly. I think this applies to what I brought up, too.
We ought to LEARN how to do these things, not just "slouch towards Bethlehem" (Joan Didion would be turning in her grave if she were dead) and let a computer do it.
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I will recommend The PC Is Not a Typewriter by Robin Williams, which has nothing to do with Word, but does explain why you don't want to the typographical mistakes that Word is attempting to correct.
While I find the idea questionable, I always appreciate a book recommendation on a topic on my mind. I've just requested this from interlibrary loan.
Thanks, T.
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Posted: |
Mar 10, 2015 - 10:19 PM
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By: |
TomD
(Member)
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I will recommend The PC Is Not a Typewriter by Robin Williams, which has nothing to do with Word, but does explain why you don't want to the typographical mistakes that Word is attempting to correct.
While I find the idea questionable, I always appreciate a book recommendation on a topic on my mind. I've just requested this from interlibrary loan.
Thanks, T.
Hi David,
I agree with your general idea, but your Word examples simply seem off the mark to me. They are Word attempts at "proper" typography. Three periods is not an ellipsis; that's just the best a typewriter could do. Likewise, the typewriter only gave us a hyphen, instead the subtract symbol, hyphen, en dash, and em dash. The different dashes have different meanings to users of typography, such as editors and self-publishers. Word (tries to) make some of these things easy to type correctly, not that we masses were ever anxious to be able to use them. Word is pitched to people who need to be able to produce large documents. That's why I don't consider them pointless features. Word has plenty of annoyances, to be sure, and the main one is surely the forcing of its own generic style on its users.
The book I mentioned is quite short and hardly more than the top ten typographical mistakes that one should unlearn from the typewriter era. I gather that typography is not one of the topics on your mind, but I hope that you find the book interesting.
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I'm on a Mac but it's increasingly getting frustrating.