Customer Reviews

Microsoft Word 2002 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

There is nothing redeeming about this new version of Word. Ok, sure, they have a few nice changes here and there, but overall, this is nothing but a cheap update that is not-so-cheap on the checkbook. I don't know how Microsoft can get away with charging that much for basically doing nothing but "patching" a previous version.

If you absolutely HAVE to have this product, I'd try to somehow obtain it through your employer's checkbook as a work-related write off. If you're unable to do that, just stick with Word 2000 or 1997. Most people don't notice the differences anyway, and most people just use it to write basic letters, memos, etc. If that's all you're doing, you don't need this. And unless you want to blow the price listed above, you don't need it either. You'll have much more fun and get much more satisfaction in taking those 3 Ben Franklin's and setting fire to them.

When I ordered my computer by phone, I specifically requested that it have Microsoft Word. It was included for the price of 24 bucks. It was not a bad investment. I use this program all of the time. I never use Microsoft Works (which was included for free). I knew I had to have SOME version of Word on my computer, since so many documents online are in Word format.

I managed to write a book using this thing. (Maybe one day I'll get it published.) There were only a few problems I ran into while undertaking the project.

Headers and footers - If you have specific things you want on specific headers and footers, your options are limited. I wanted a different header and footer for each page (even though that might sound stupid) and I wasn't able to figure out how to get this idea to work. The best I could do was get a different header and footer for even and odd pages, and the first page of the document.

Page numbers - This is kind of related to headers and footers. I wasn't allowed to decide what I wanted page one to be and how many page one's I wanted. I had to create new documents if I wanted multiple page numberings. I couldn't even decide where I wanted the page numbering to stop.

Word distribution - To make my literary submission look more professional, I tried the word distribution option to align the text on both ends. My gosh, did it look ugly. There was no way I could get it to work, so I just aligned it on the left end.

Template changes - It seems like about 7% of the time I close the program it asks me if I want to save the template change. I wasn't aware I changed any template. I have to click the no option several times to make the program finally close.

Despite these problems, there were some things I was rather pleased with.

Picture insertion - This feature worked perfectly. I could insert pictures of any size and they would be automatically scaled to fit the page. If I didn't like the size and wanted to make it smaller, I could do that too without it distorting the picture in any way. I think the only way you could have a problem with this feature is if you're trying to print a picture and make it big enough to cover several pages.

Pasting text - I never had a problem pasting text from an internet source, and formatting it to match the rest of the page.

Spellcheck - It makes life easy, especially the auto-correct feature. I don't always agree with the grammar check's suggestions though, even if I'm in the wrong for it.

Although I listed quite a few problems, I view these as minor. I don't consider different headers and footers to be all that essential. This is a good and necessary program that fulfills its purpose, and I use it a lot. In addition to that, I must say that this program contains what seems to be hundreds of fonts that I'll never use. I just wish that I could use the equation editor feature without paying extra.

They still can't get it right. You would think that a company as rich as Microsoft could figure out how to implement a word processor. But alas, it seems that after 10 years or so they still can't come up with industrial strength code. MS Word is fine if you want to type a three page memo or a letter to grandma but if you really want to write a lot of documentation it is a lot of trouble. Word tends to do what it wants with out explaining why or letting you get a word in edgewise. There have been many times when I have spent as much time getting the section numbering and formatting correct as I have in writing the document. For the most part the features are poorly implemented and confusing ... I don't have nearly enough space to list all of its problems but lets just say the only reason I'm using it is because it is the standard word processor for my company. I write large (200+ page) documents on a regular basis and have done so for many years. MS Word has always been painful to use and it never seems to get better.

And to top it off, my copy has crashed three times so far today (it is 9:30 am), all times when I wasn't even touching the keyboard or mouse. At least these days it doesn't take down the operating system with it. I guess that counts as a major improvement for Microsoft software.

Microsoft Word is a good word processor, but if you use to work with macros, I strongly advise against upgrade to Word 2002. This version of the most famous word processor seems to be a step back instead forward. At least my experience with it says so.

In older versions of Word you are able to record macros by performing a sequence of actions. In Word 2002 you can do the same, but with one important difference: macro does not remember font attributes like underline, italic, bold, style, font etc. If you're a PC guru you may probably be able to repair such incomplete macro by entering Visual Basic Editor, but if you aren't, you'll probably be helpless.

Word 2002 has also some other bad characteristics. One of them is the size of its files. A 34 Mb Word 97 file fattened to enormous 49Mb in Word 2002 and a 55 Kb file to 70 Kb.
Another is a fact that almost all of the Spelling&Grammar and Auto Text options are turned on by default. If you're not an English or an American, you need to do a lot of clicking before you can begin to work with Word normally. And poor you if you don't know what to turn off to make auto corrections and other disturbing features disappear. Try to imagine what happens if you write in Slovenian language with the English spell-checker turned on! Microsoft should bear in mind that only (small) part of the world is English speaking and writing.

There are also some troubles with cut and paste (Clipboard memory seems to be unreliable).

PS
I gave Word 2002 4 stars for its basic word processing features, but only 1 star for its macros and reliability, and again only 1 star for its price. Together it's 2 stars.

Word is adequate, bloated, has a decent interface, and is ludicrously expensive. All in all, thumbs down. Word 2002 is just another edition of the same thing. I've used Word on and off since 1991, avoiding it whenever possible, and am so happy I don't have to use it anymore.

Go to ... and download your office suite for free, or order StarOffice 6.0 here on Amazon. They both contain Writer, the Word equivalent that handles, and lets you create, Word files. (And programs that let you open and create Excel files and PowerPoint files.) Don't spend another penny on Word til you've tried OpenOffice.org or StarOffice.

This entire new generation of Microsoft Office products is still in the sub-beta stage. Instead of MS screwups just causing a crash, lockup or freeze, they want you to go into a problem reporting mode. What nerve, charge for this [garbage] then force us to work for them STAY WITH Office 2000 for another year or two, until the bugs are worked out of all XP garbage. I have unloaded them all and gone back to Office 2000.

I've been using Microsoft Word since 1985. I don't even remember the version(s) of DOS Word I used. For the most part, I found it worked in many areas better than anything else. It wasn't better than WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, but then again, neither was most any software ever written. But Word XP/2002 is trash and I refuse to use it anymore. As I have been a Microsoft defender for years, that should tell you something.

First, the outline numbering feature doesn't work. It hasn't worked since Word 97. If you want something in the form of I.A.1.a, etc., you better be prepared to do it by hand because while the outline styles will format correctly, the numbering will be off. You will have an a)1 and a)2, followed by a b)3 and b)4, as the number won't reset. I have been on the phone with Microsoft tech support at least 5 times over this one issue and none of the techs know 1/10th the Word I know. That in itself is frustrating, but the most frustrating part is 30 minutes into the conversation, they will say something like "well, you have to click on feature ____ under the _____ window." Of course, I had already done that and it didn't work, hence the call in the first place. And, yes, I've reinstalled, and the system is state of the art (and then some).

Now, Word likes to lock up on occassion. Not a real lockup like Windows locking up, but you can't use the keyboard or type in Word. For some reason, when I do a cut and paste or a c&p special, the document will lock up. If I wait, I can then type a letter or a few letters, then it will lock up again. I refuse to call MS tech support, and have posted this on a web site, but apparantly can't explain it well enough. The best way to describe it is the mouse pointer disappears, and no keyboard function works. I can move to a different application, and sometimes when returning to Word, it will start to work, but only for a few characters. I charge by the hour, but I can't bill clients for buggy software and time spent adapting to it. Until I find my copy of WordPerfect I had, I downloaded Open Office to do documents in.

When it does work, the windows that appears sometimes on cut and paste functions is terribly annoying. And I don't care to speak to the rest of the features in this program (read my review of Word 2000 if you want to see that) since I can't get even the basic features to work right. I say stay the heck away from this or other MS products until they write stuff worth a darn.

I don't know what's worse: the fact that MS released a new product as buggy as this or that they haven't fixed known bugs from a product released 2 cycles ago.

Microsoft Word 2002 is possibly one of the best and easiest to use word processors around. That being said, I don't find it THAT much better than it's previous incarnation Word 2000 and arguably even Word 97! I say that mainly because even though there are a few knick knacks that are kind of nice to have around, it doesn't justify for me anyway the new product activation procedures. They are not that inconvenient and I understand that Microsoft has the right to take steps to prevent pirating, but I find it downright creepy. Yup, that's right, you HAVE to contact Microsoft to activate this product! What happens years from now when they no longer support this? Who knows? If I get a new computer years from now and want to install Word 2002 on it, will I still be able too? Then again, I see no short term problems with activation-I just happen to think it's a bit creepy. I think I'll keep my Lotus WordPro Millenium edition (a perfectly capable Word Processor too-AND without product activation!) around just in case my computer crashes years from now and Microsoft won't reactivate my legitimate copy of Word because "THEY" believe it "MIGHT" be pirated. It's hard to like an otherwise outstanding Word Processor when the burden of proof is on YOU if you have a problem, thus the 4 stars.

I was trained on Microsoft products 15 years ago. I was very sensitive to the anger and ridicule friends and Mac users had for Microsoft. It's pretty hard for a company to go astray when they have brand allegiance from someone as naive as I used to be.
...unless you're Microsoft.

I still very much dislike Macs, but after years of working with superior, more thoughtful non-Microsoft software (Adobe, Maya, Vectorworks) Microsofts problems are abundantly clear.

For the first time in months I found myself needing to produce an all-text document last week, and I was really stunned. Now that I have more experience, my snooty Mac friends were right. Word really is a terrible product! As long as the only thing you need to do is place letters on a page one after another and want little control over any other aspect of producing a document, you'll be fine. Anything else is counterintuitive & headache inducing. It is inconceivable that Microsoft could have spent even a day on 'Clippy' the helpful (UNhelpful) talking paperclip annoyance, and still not have touched their assinine numbering and bullets tool. Or enhanced this piece of garbage so that you can actually position an image in a fixed place, with precise registration in a tight layout. But really the booby prize for the stupidest feature EVER designed into a piece of software is embedding the formatting of a paragraph into a hidden character at the end of some text. So WHATEVER YOU DO do not back over this invisible character, because a whole paragraph will instantaneously transform to a different format, perhaps even one you never put into the document in the first place.
Isn't that ingenious (stupid) and helpful (infuriating)?

I'm actually looking for a different word processor now and can't wait to delete this clunker from my system. The only company that cares less for how you use their product is (was) Polaroid, which deservedly filed for bankruptcy last year after sitting on their monopoly and producing truly awful products for 20 years.

I can't believe it. The XP team has done it again. Not only does it uphold the good "Word" reputation, but that have added new, comprehensive features, and phased out the old and annoying ones.

To elaborate, the old "Word thinks it's smarter than you" complaint about the auto-formatting doesn't cut it anymore. If Word utilizes it's auto-formatting, it displays a button that you can click if you are unhappy with its vigilant decision. When you click the button, you are given several options: "Change back [to how it was before it was auto-formatted], or "Never change again". This is extremely useful when you are formatting the page differently than usual or "copying and pasting".