Well, it turns out that there was one tiny little thing that I've forgotten to do with my book's manuscript. I totally overlooked the page numbers. To be perfectly honest I haven't needed them all this time. I'm so intimately familiar with my book, I can zero in on any part of the 140,000-some work. Page numbers seemed like an afterthought, at best.
Those are what I'm trying to implement. But I'm having a surprising amount of difficulty. What I need to happen is for the numbering to begin several pages in, after the dedication, at the start of part one.
But I can't do that straightforward. I doubt anyone can. Doing so requires some splitting the manuscript into sections and that is a task all its own. And then giving each section its own numbering.
I'm sure this lends itself toward boasting about Microsoft Word's prowess. Buuuuut...
There has to be a much simpler way of doing this. Come to think of it, there are quite a few things that Word could do better. Recently a friend was lamenting on how imprecise Word is when comes to placing images. Among other issues that I've heard of across the years.
It's enough to make me wonder: is Microsoft actively monitoring the issues that have arisen in Word? Or has the company rested too much on its laurels with arguably its flagship productivity software?
Because seriously, when was the last time that Microsoft really lauded serious innovation in Word? I can't think of much going all the way back to the arrival of Windows 95, thirty years ago last month. Oh sure, there have been numerous refinements of the program... but a serious examination under the hood for purpose of - gasp! - improving it?
I'll say it if nobody else will or can: Microsoft Word needs to be rebuilt. From the bottom-up and the inside-out. The company needs to make a comprehensive list of all the requests and concerns and take them into account and recreate their product. And then produce a Word that will set the platinum standard once again for word processing.
They can do this. We know that they can. We will absolutely appreciate it if they do. Well, this writer in particular certainly shall.
Come on Microsoft. I don't know if one humble blogger might have any sway with you. But I know that I'm not alone and I think you know it, too.
Reboot Word. You know you should. Microsoft's original mission was to put a computer on every desktop: a tool for letting its users achieve the impossible. Redesigning Word would be in keeping with that, and very much so.
1 comments:
As someone who lives and works in the world of Microsoft apps and services, I beg of you, for the love of everything in and beyond this world, do NOT encourage them to reboot Word or any of their apps.
I realize you may not have frequent need for it, but Outlook is a prime example of what *today's* Microsoft does to its apps when it goes to revisit them stem to stern.
Some background: Microsoft, as I know you're aware, supports much of its Office software across a broad array of operating systems and devices... Windows, of course, Android, iOS, MacOS, and even their web-based apps. I'm sure there are more. Because these systems often have a different cadence for updates, releases, and differing priorities for development on them, they've ended up with something nearing 30+ versions of supported Microsoft Outlook in the wild. Supported. Not even the versions being clung to from a decade or more ago.
So, understandably, they've been working to combine them into one, or at least fewer versions. What they decided to do is to leverage their "OWA" (Outlook Web Access) version from the website, and wrap it in an installable package to run locally.
The "New Outlook" left its "beta" phase in August 2024 and entered General Availability. Just this month, September 2025, it just became the default version being installed (aka forced) for users converting over from the "freebie" Office apps that install with Windows.
That's just over a year of the software being out of "beta" and fully considered a production release.
It still feels like it should be in alpha phase, and not even beta.
Every so often, I'll flip the switch on my Outlook to switch from the old "Classic" Outlook to the "New" version to see if there has been improvement. They're making progress... but it takes me roughly 10 minutes to realize it's not ready for me, and I flip it back. Earlier in the year, I stopped trying to count the missing features and functions I've relied on for nearly 30 years of using the software in the workplace. I also stopped sending the feedback to MS through the app. It's been abysmal, and my opinion has been matched by a great many on the interwebs.
It makes sense that it would be missing things, because they're building upon a web-based application, which is functionally lacking in many things because of limitations of how a web browser can interact with a physical computer and local files. And I'm betting they're hoping that most of us will forget about some of those features and rely on some of their other tools like Power Automate to hamstring things together to accomplish what once took a few clicks to accomplish, so they can shorten their feature list and development load.
But for someone that still has to interact with multiple mailboxes, mail merges, and the occasional macro in Outlook, it's been a painful progression.
And time is running out before they pull the plug and forcibly yank the old version out of my white-knuckled hands gripping it tight.
Ironic, since I'm one of a handful responsible for ensuring all of our company's computers are up-to-date.
So... before screaming into the ether for them to reboot MS Word, consider that it's taken a full year to get a semi-functional reboot of Outlook, and they can't seem to get through three consecutive months of Windows security updates without breaking something.
It seems that they consider "beta" to be their first stabs at development, and the general user population are the final testers to find the bugs when it goes into full production.
Trust me... If they reboot MS Word, and start banning the old versions, you'll be crying for WordPerfect 6.1 just for relief and basic functionality. ;-)
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