Customer Reviews

Microsoft Word 2010

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

If the title was stripped from the software and I was asked to do a blind test on it, testing it, I would be convinced after giving it a full run this was a newly introduced software from all of the unresponsive and quirky behavior I experienced. It actually fights against your actions: you can try, and I say try, to copy and paste somethings and it will not do it, or it will jump your cursor some other place. And one of the persons responsible for it has a control-issue as this person wants to shove his/her idea of the perfect font, calibri/cambria, onto everyone, every single time, at the line spacing he/she wants. Every time you open up a new document, the font is Cambria/Calibri and set at 11. So if you like times new roman or Arial and 12 points, you have to each time reset it, you can't just start typing. This is a major time-consuming irritation.

In addition, another programmer had a wicked streak by making every document start with 10 points after each line and multiple lines setting, so you have to go in an reset the line spacing EACH time to single spacing if you want it, and the worse of it is, you can't just do several changes at once---it will jump you out of each change, so you have to go back several times to change line spacing or font attributes, making this a Productivity Stripper.

Now if after my blind test, I saw this was a 2010 version of Word, I would say Microsoft has accomplished to take a workable program and put it backwards by 2010 steps. Meanness? Arrogance? Greed to spit out something new for an excuse to get people to buy more? Whatever, it is worth stomping on the box, and the disc if you get it only, and keep on using your older Word programs. The only people who would shell out after using it, might be those who created important documents to them in the new .docx extension and can't get it to open in their older word programs. That is another thing, Microsoft has created an extension that can only be opened by the new one, as maybe a marketing ploy to force people to buy this buggy program in order to open some document given to them by someone else they want to read. Word of the wise: just tell those folks to resave it in .doc instead of .docx and you can save yourself a lot of grief using this pretty-looking but impractical, aggravating "newer" version of Word.

I had tried the Beta version but uninstalled that and went back to Word 2002, which I swore by. I decided to try the final release and was pleasantly surprised. I am working on a brand new book, and now I can find reference material with one mouse click. I have had no headaches at all with this fresh release. I am not impressed with the upgraded "find" feature but other than that once you learn how to navigate it is smooth sailing. Even changing template size on a document was easier than before. If there is any drawback to this latest version it is the new file format. Most publishers still ask for doc. files, which means using compatibility mode or saving as a doc file. They do suggest not saving old doc files in the new mode and they are correct. The formatting is ruined when you try that. There are also some new features that you cannot use while working in compatibility mode. I am finding Word 2010 to be quite an improvement over all. Two things I will share from experience. You have to entirely remove the Beta version to install from CD. It is also best to open Word first and then select your old doc file. Sometimes when you just click on a doc file it will open in read-only mode.

After Word 2003 the development of Word has been to please the graphic arts word processors. But how many of us are into the graphic arts. We do not have the time. We want clean and pure graphics for the presentation of reports and documents. In Word 2010 and in Word 2007, the graphic arts types at Microsoft have taken over. They must live in a bubble, without contact with the real world users of Word. The bottom line is that the graphics interfaces have been made so complicated and full of graphic arts possibilities, that the toolbars and ribbons interfere with fast and easy professional document production. This is unfortunate since I have invested in Microsoft stock. The stock should go down in value since Microsoft clearly is not considering the real and actual needs of the vast majority of its customers. Get Word 2003 and do not waste your time on Word 2010. Trying to learn the Word 2010 ribbons is both time consuming and cumbersome, just not worth the effort, since the new offerings do not benefit the vast majority of professional documents being produced today. This is what happens when a company is a monopoly and therefore immune from the rigors of the marketplace.

It is worse than Vista. Tasks that should be quick and easy are an incredible chore. The use of my mouse to cut and paste has become a major hassle. Right now, I am trying to work with two Word documents at once. One is saved, and one is not--because I don't want to. I have to close out the first document to access the second. The whole program is poorly thought out. Don't waste your money.

Worse than Vista; productivity destroyer of the year. If you have never used Word before this product would still be terrible because of the poor help. If you already know how to use Word, this product throws away your experience. Your muscle memory of where to click doesn't work because most things are in different locations and are organized differently. I am spending hours searching for features that I know how to use in previous versions. The product has terrible bugs that lock you out of files. Converting to docx files (or not) as you choose is clumsy. The help screens are an advertisement for the search engine Bing. Too often I can't find where they hid a feature in their help system and have to go to Google and find the answer from Joe public.

I find this program harder to use the Word 2007. The new "clean" design makes it take longer to identify buttons and to click on them.

Microsoft seems to have stripped most of the functionality out from previous versions of word and the help function is pointless.

This program is far inferior to any previous version. Not an upgrade at all.

I just test-drove Word 2010 and have to say that the development team at Microsoft has apparently learned very little from the mistakes of Word 2007. The horrendous user interface is still there! Forgive me if I sound harsh, but the project management staff which allowed this affront to productivity to come to fruition ought to be sent on to other career options. Don't waste your money on this product if you can find an alternative. Maybe Amazon still sells old copies of Word 2003. One can hope.

I purchased Word 2010 as part of Office 2010 suite. I have been using Word 2003 at home/work prior to that, although we use Outlook 2007 at work. I am used to the ribbon interface and don't mind it as I do think once you get used to it, it is an improvement over the previous interface. But my main gripe with Word 2010 and the entire Office 2010 suite (especially Outlook 2010) is that it is almost like beta software. It is full of bugs. I have had to reinstall Office 2010 at least 6 times. The software will be working, then all of a sudden every time you open the software, it tries to install it again. There seem to be a lot of conflicts running on a 64-bit operating system (I am on Win 7 64-bit).

Overall, when the software was usable, it was not terrible. But save yourself some headache. "If it ain't broke, don't upgrade..." because once you do, it will be broken.

I am tempted to uninstall the entire suite and roll back to Office 2003.

MS Word has gotten progressively worse over the years, and the 2007 and 2010 iterations are just abominable. Nothing is intuitive, and the infinite # of variations that ms has worked into every option makes this program absurdly complicated. Those variations have are also full of mistakes and dead ends. One example. Say you want to insert comments in a document. Okay, and say you want to print those comments as they appear on the page on the screen. Simple one would think. After all, you're in "print layout," which presumably means: what you see here is what you'll see when the document prints. Not quite. Comments don't appear, only the grey area where they would appear had they printed. You go back into the program and check everything. Still no dice. Then you type your problem into Google. Many, many people w/ the same problem. "Go into options," "make sure printer option includes "print markings," "Go into "Display" under "options," etc.... After two hours, I gave up. That's just one of four score problems I've found in the last two months of working with this program. I'm back to Word 2003.