The PasteBoard

So, Microsoft have had released for some time Office 2007 and Office 2008 (Mac version, of course) and in that time people have been either upgrading or buying as new with their computers.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with people deciding what software they want to buy. Zero difficulties.

However.

I remember encountering two problems in the past with this. First of all, I find it the height of bad manners when someone sends a file that they make sure the file they are sending can be opened by the person at the other end.

It is pretty bloody pointless sending someone a WordPerfect file these days, is it not? Who has WordPerfect??? Not a lot of people. So would you not be a tad on the annoyed side if someone sent you one and then asked what your problem was when you could not open it up?

Part of the problem here is that everyone expects you to have Microsoft Word (or Excel, or PowerPoint, or whatever) but did anyone actually bother to ask? Now, we know that most people have something that can open up the file in some shape or form but we would not send a Quark XPress file and expect everyone be able to open it up would we?

So, people are getting the latest version of Office and the constituent parts. The default file format in Office 2007 and 2008 is .docx, .xlsx and so on. Microsoft's new "open standard".

Open standard my arse. Quite a few times in work people are getting these things through in their emails and are perplexed that their version of Word does not open it up. How frickin' open standard is that? Most people do not know that Text Edit on the Mac cannot open it up. They want the formatting anyway and don't want to be bothered with another application. They just want the thing to open.

Second problem, is that it just reminds me back in the day when people downloaded an extension for Quark XPress called PasteBoardXT. It extended the size of the pasteboard around the XPress page which people wanted and liked from Aldus PageMaker. Problem was that it then required the PasteBoardXT extension to be installed on another machine if you copied the file or sent it to someone else. Before you knew it loads of people had to download the extension in order to open up the file. It was viral. You were forced to get the extension. And then to get around it people started download PasteBoard XTerminator so that they could open the file when they did not want PasteBoardXT. It was a completely crazy situation.

Now the answer is simple. You simply go in to Word preferences and set the default file format to Office 1997 - 2003 .doc and then the problem is solved. If you don't know how to do this, Google is your friend. Look it up. It's easy.

As far as I am concerned Microsoft is in a real sense forcing people to upgrade to the new version. Yes you can get around it but for the less technical savvy amongst us it screams "Upgrade me!!!!". I don't like it and it is uncalled for. For those who have the new version, do the right thing. Check if the person you are sending Word file to has the new version. If they don't then save it down a version.

Just because someone doesn't have the same version as you does not mean you have to force them to be the same as you.