Bill Gates does like his little jokes, doesn’t he.

I am dying here as I try to adapt myself to Word 2010 after being a WordPerfect user for over 20 years. When my laptop hard drive died, my data files were safe on Mozy, but my software was gone. So I had to make a decision about what to install on the new machine. I chose to ‘bite the bullet’ and – for the sake of compatibility – left my beloved WordPerfect behind and got a full Office 2010 suite.

Before 2010, I was able to use 2003 when I had to and though I didn’t much like it, I could manage whatever needed doing. No more. If you’re upgrading, think twice.

Word 2010 was apparently designed by 500 monkeys who delighted in  complexity. Be gone intuitive functionality! Welcome multiplicity! If two keystrokes were needed before, there are four now – to do the same thing. If one pull down menu for tables or formatting worked well, why twenty of them must surely be better! And why use the same old words? Let’s rename everything. Who needs a task bar? Such a pedestrian word. Let there be a ‘ribbon’. Much better word (for the same thing). Choosing key words for searching “Help” is now an interesting (and mostly unsuccessful) exercise.

‘Help’ also assumes the user is trying to do the most complicated thing, not the simple thing. To find how to do a simple thing is like a kid’s game of tag. Look here, look there, look everywhere.

And of course there's this nonsense

There is no ‘format’ tab. Excuse me, no format ‘ribbon’. Things like fonts, margins, spacing, inset pix, even copy/paste are all located on different ‘ribbons’. If I am creating a document and want to perform a function within it, I must search the other ribbons and their attendant pull down menus – which are full of new words and phrases – in order to find what I need.

A simple example: remember choosing optional security settings? In 2010 it’ll take you a while – that happens now in the ‘Trust Center”, once you find that and figure out what the Elvis it means.

By the way, anyone know what a banded row is? I’ve been trying to create a very simple table – three columns, indeterminate number of rows, nothing fancy, plain old 12 point Ariel. Plain, plain, plain. This appears to be a very difficult thing to do. I’ve been at it for almost half an hour and have more questions than when I started.

What we have here is a tool designed to make the task more difficult. Well done Microsoft.