MS Word as Literate Programming Tool

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The key advantage of the MS Office -- common macro language for all applications in a suit, is the advantage that is still unmatched by rivals. Also the level of support of MS Office (books, training materials, add-ons, etc) is far superior to the alternatives. That mean that MS Office including its crown jewel MS Word still makes sense in the open world. But if only if :

You can afford it (not true for many business in Eastern Europe)
Know how to use outlining capabilities (this is a training issue). Paradoxically many users use MS Word like Word Perfect. In this case Word Perfect is a better alternative.
You can benefit from macro capabilities. Ms Word have very powerful macro capabilities and that makes it a class of its own. Just look at MS Word viruses ;-). But jokes aside this is one of the most programmable word processor around and you can make it to do amazing things with macros. See, for example, MS Word Macros. Again most organizations do not have enough IQ to benefit from it. If this is case then (outside of the USA) an attractiveness of MS Office in general and MS Word in particular is more problematic and simpler alternatives might make perfect sense.

The main problem with the Office is that until Office 2007 both MS Word and Excel documents formats were proprietary and generally undocumented. But for all earlier versions you still can export documents in Open formats including RTF and XHTML. The latter needs some postprocessing (see, for example demoroniser), if you want to publish it; raw Ms Word xhtml contains just too many Microsoft styles.

Still absence of the internal representation accessibility somewhat limits what you can do in MS Word (and complicate debugging). That's probably the most severe shortcoming of MS Word. and that why I personally often use FrontPage as an alternative to MS Word despite might weaker spellchecker and absence of many vital for word processing capabilities.

The absence of the internal representation view limits what you can do in MS Word and complicates debugging of complex documents

Contrary to the opinion of typical Linux zealots, I am convinced that Microsoft Word was and still is a very good program that was innovative at the time of introduction and positively influenced the field previously dominated by somewhat backward WordPerfect (which, paradoxically, has an access to the view of the internal representation of the document). I would agree that from the point of view of supporting open formats like HTML and XML, MS Word still have room to grow, but I am surprised how Adobe managed to monopolize the field of document viewers despite the fact that MS Word viewers would be clearly adequate (and somewhat superior due to the quality of MS Word as a tool for creating them) tool.

In the past (in the MS DOS environment) MS Word was always underdog to WordPerfect, but despite this second place that most PC magazines assigned to in in 1987-1994 (or may be due to it :-) it was always more innovative word processor than WordPerfect:

I remember that the first DOS version of Word that I used (Word 4, 1987?) already had outlining capabilities.
Word5 for DOS(1989?) introduced the use of style sheets in a way very similar to CCS, so to a certain extent it was 10 year ahead of its time. People were able to produce pretty complex books using Ms Word as poor man publishing system.

BTW it is funny that generally more conservative WordPerfect has "show the source" concept of showing raw source format similar to HTML editors of today and MS Word never had it. because in other areas MS Word was more innovative work processor. If you remember the days of character-based WordPerfect, you will remember the "reveal codes" feature, which shows an editable view of the current file with the internal formatting codes visible. This gave the user more control of the underlying text-processing than MS Word. That why lawyers always prefer WordPerfect and that's why many advanced users (including myself) for simple documents are now using FrontPage instead of MS Word (FrontPage is now part of Office Professional).

Inability of MS Word transparently show its internal format
always was one of the biggest shortcomings of this very powerful program

In addition to being rather expensive outside of North America, today's versions of Microsoft Office are huge and try to implement everything possible under the sun. The best original ideas are buried under the bloat of "me too" features. For example how many people use MS Word outlining capabilities, the really innovative feature of MS Word. My guestimate is that less then 1%. If you do not need all the capabilities you can probably use cheaper substitutes. What are the alternatives?

Microsoft Works 8.0 Paradoxically the best alternative for the MS Word are earlier versions of MS Word. ;-). For example Microsoft Works Suit is a cheap bungle of six pretty powerful programs including MS Word 2002. This collection of software is amazing for the price at which it is being offered. Accept no substitutes :-). The price is ~$20 which is really shareware price. And you can get Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional to run it for ~$35. Here is how Microsoft describes its content of Works Suit 2004:
- Word 2002 Use the same premier word processor featured in Microsoft Office XP. Word 2002 features—such as smart tags and task panes, and improved technology for formatting—make it easy to create professional-looking documents. Enhanced reliability ensures that you spend your time working, not re-creating the work you've completed. Read more about Word 2002.
- Works 7.0 Organize your household with spreadsheets, a calendar, an address book, a database, and more. Open and edit documents created with Microsoft Excel and exchange data with your Pocket PC or Palm-based device. Read more about Works 7.0.
- Picture It!Photo Premium 9.0 Use photos from digital cameras, scanners, photo CDs, and e-mail attachments. Organize your photos, correct common photo problems, create great photo projects, and share your photos online. Read more about Picture It! Photo Premium 9.0.
- Encarta^® Encyclopedia Standard 2004 Access more than 38,000 up-to-date articles, plus photos, illustrations, hundreds of videos, animations, and audio files. Encarta is the ideal multimedia encyclopedia for everyday use. Read more about Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2004.
- Money 2004 Standard Organize and manage your personal finances quickly and easily. If you're new to personal finance management software, Money Standard is a great way to get started. Read more about Money 2004 Standard.
- Streets & Trips 2004 Find maps, points of interest, routes, and driving directions without waiting for an Internet connection. Create and download maps to your Pocket PC.
You get MS Word 2002, Money 2004 standard edition, Street Finder, Encarta and Picture It! for 1/5 of a price of MS Office Standard Academic Edition.

Most people need MS Word which is a de facto standard in document processing, but an average user seldom needs Powerpoint or Excel. At home one can benefit from such useful programs as Money, Street Finder, and Picture It. The last is Microsoft's publishing photo program and it alone usually costs around $60. This makes MS Works suit a real bargain and the best alternative for MS Office, especially for family use or student use.

Notes:

Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be expected.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It cannot replace the best teachers and the best books.
The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a living tree... Some links on older pages are broken. Please try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link (see HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate if you can mail us a correct link.

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News

MS Word is notorious for containing private information in file headers, but not any longer. Microsoft has quietly released a tool to scrub leaky metadata from documents edited with its software. The Remove Hidden Data Add-In will permanently remove hidden and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint files. For Office XP/Office 2003 only, we should add.

WindowsDevCenter.com -- Batch-Running Word Macros from the DOS Command Line

When processing manuscripts for shiny new O'Reilly books, I often need to run a particular Word macro on a batch of files. While this is certainly possible using VBA directly, it becomes quite challenging when either the name of the specific macro to run (it may be one of dozens of utility macros), or the files to run it on, are constantly changing, as is usually the case.<

Spoiled by the large percentage of my day spent on a Unix command line, I started looking for a way to easily run any Word macro, on any number of files, right from the DOS command line. This article shows how to do just that, using three popular, free, and Windows-friendly scripting languages: Perl, Python, and Ruby. You'll need at least one of those installed on your Windows machine to use any of the code in this article. If you don't have one, see the sidebar, "Picking a Scripting Language."

Is One Note the new powerful paradigm ?

The key issue here is not whether some people will use tablet computers.
You and others find them useful. I have two laptops, neither are tablets. I
have no use for them. But, that's NOT the issue...

The issue is that OneNote in a new category of software for Microsoft that
is VERY useful on virtually ALL non-server platforms - workstations, laptops
(and tablets), standard PDAs, and cell-phone PDAs!!! It is (or can be) a
great tool for managing multi-dimensional, non-structured data.

... ... ...

In the early 90's, I was hired by a consulting company to do a complete
evaluation of Lotus Notes. I found Lotus Notes to be a very nice
multi-dimensional text database with an easy-to-use development/user front
end, and strong communcation and synchronization capabilities.

Lotus Notes was developed by a small company in Massachusetts. It was
subsequently purchased by Lotus. The devlopment company knew what they had.
The Lotus Notes customers knew what they had. BUT, the marketing
department at Lotus wasn't filled with the brightest bulbs around. They did
NOT understand Lotus Notes. They marketed it as a glorified e-mail system.
Completely BRAINDEAD marketing!!!

I and several others where I work use OneNote to capture and manage the
massive amount of detail associated with our job. For example, I'm working
on a small database ETL project that involves creating about 50-60 SQL Server
objects...

I have an outline of the project. I create a checkbox icon for each SQL
Server object and other steps that I'm developing. If I decide a new object
or step is required, I just add a new one. When I complete development and
unit test on an object, I check off the checkbox icon. When my manager wants
a status, I e-mail the project page to him. He deletes the old page in his
OneNote pages and snaps in my new page. Simple and easy!!!

And, do NOT tell me the we should use project management software. I've
used project management software since 1987, and that includes EVERY version
of Microsoft Project. It's a great tool for a project manager on big
projects. My ETL project is actually a sub-project of a larger project.
Our project manager uses to manage the overall project. My sub-project is
two bullets and a milestone on his project. But MS Project is way too
complex and difficult to use for smaller projects or sub-projects like my
piece. Managing my little ETL project with Microsoft Project is like using
the proverbial 10 Lb sledgehammer to swat a fly.

My feedback about OneNote is related to enhancements needed to better
capture and manage textual, non-structured data. I don't want a "Pen" to
draw pictures and write; I want the ability to add simple arrows and lines!
I don't want rulers and paragraph formatting to make it pretty; I want those
improvements to make the data more readable! I don't want more voice input;
I want to sync it with a PDA. (Right now, there is NO reason for me to
switch from my Palm PDA to a Pocket PC. If Microsoft developed a two-way
sync PocketPC version of OneNote, I'd switch in an instant!)

So, am I frustrated? Yes! Microsoft needs to get their heads out of the
trees and see the forest! OneNote is a new category of app and not simply a
tablet data entry tool!!!

OK, flame off!

Regards,

Dan.

"Ben M. Schorr - MVP" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:07:03 -1000, Dan Clark
> <DanClark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>
> Well, my grandfather once said "We can't all like the same things,
> otherwise everybody'd be after your grandma."
>
> That said, I use a Tablet PC as my primary work machine and I find it to
> be a very powerful tool. It's not for everybody, to be certain, but I use
> (and see them used) it quite extensively and find it to be tremendous.
>
> And I get a lot of amazed looks when people see me standing in an
> elevator, in tablet mode, reading and replying to e-mail or taking notes
> on a meeting I just had or...
>
> As they continue to get more powerful and lighter their utility will
> continue to grow.
>
> --
> -Ben-
> Ben M. Schorr, MVP-OneNote/Outlook
> Operations Coordinator
> Stockholm/KSG - Honolulu
> Microsoft OneNote FAQ:
> [url]http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr/computers/onenotefaq.htm[/url]
>[/vbcol]

Ben M. Schorr - MVP
2005-07-28, 7:22 pm

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 05:57:04 -1000, Dan Clark
<DanClark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> My frustration with Microsoft is that they treat my feedback as "dumb
> user needs help". I can't stand marketing pablum. It indicates that
> they 1) are not listening or 2) don't have the capacity to see the
> opportunity that is presented - for every tablet user, there are
> probably 10-20 non-tablet users who would use OneNote if it is marketed
> correctly!!![/vbcol]

I'm not sure where you're getting that from, Dan. All I said was that
Tablet PCs are very useful for some people. Lots of users run OneNote on
non-Tablet machines, of course. The OneNote team is very happy to get
feedback and user feedback is the #1 driver of the direction of the
development of the new version.
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I and several others where I work use OneNote to capture and manage the
> massive amount of detail associated with our job.[/vbcol]

Yes, so do I. :-)
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I have an outline of the project. I create a checkbox icon for each SQL
> Server object and other steps that I'm developing. If I decide a new
> object or step is required, I just add a new one. When I complete
> development and unit test on an object, I check off the checkbox icon.
> When my manager wants a status, I e-mail the project page to him. He
> deletes the old page in his OneNote pages and snaps in my new page.
> Simple and easy!!![/vbcol]

O.K., so what's the problem?
[vbcol=seagreen]
> My feedback about OneNote is related to enhancements needed to better
> capture and manage textual, non-structured data. I don't want a "Pen"
> to draw pictures and write; I want the ability to add simple arrows and
> lines![/vbcol]

It's on the wish list and may well make it into the next version.
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I don't want rulers and paragraph formatting to make it pretty; I want
> those improvements to make the data more readable! I don't want more
> voice input; I want to sync it with a PDA.[/vbcol]

Also on the wish list.
[vbcol=seagreen]
> (Right now, there is NO reason for me to switch from my Palm PDA to a
> Pocket PC.[/vbcol]

There are sync utilities for OneNote with Palm -- though I haven't tried
any of them.
[vbcol=seagreen]
> If Microsoft developed a two-way sync PocketPC version of OneNote, I'd
> switch in aninstant!)[/vbcol]

Well, sometime late next year you may have to go shopping for a new PDA
then. :-)

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP-OneNote/Outlook
Operations Coordinator
Stockholm/KSG - Honolulu
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: [url]http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm[/url]

Chris H.
2005-07-28, 7:22 pm

Dan, you're barking at the wrong trees here. Ben and the other MVPs who try
to assist users in this public newsgroup are not, repeat NOT,
spokesmen/women for Microsoft. We are only volunteers to assist peers in
this and other newsgroups.

We are not employed by Microsoft, and Microsoft does not tell us what to
post. I post a lot about Tablet PCs because I have three, enjoy the usage
and my computer life has taken on a new sense of freedom in using them. I
also have two Media Center Edition computers in our home, and only spend
enough time with them usually to program in what my wife or three daughters
want recorded off the satellite TV service.

With my Tablets, I spent even less time on my other desktops than I did
three years ago. Why should I sit at a desk when I can be in a recliner in
the living room, watch ESPN, recorded TV shows (Xbox as an Extender to the
MCE machines) or on the back deck enjoying fresh air. I can do everything
on my Tablets that I used to be strapped to my computer desk to accomplish.

OneNote isn't "just" for Tablet PCs. We who post in this newsgroup know
that. The majority of users of OneNote are non-Tablet PC owners, but that
doesn't make us bad. 8-) Perhaps we're ahead of the curve a bit. Perhaps
we're jaded because we do have Tablets. But at least we're here trying to
sort out issues, for free. Volunteering to dig into problems and find
solutions.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - [url]http://nicecreations.us/[/url]
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - [url]www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone[/url]

"Dan Clark" <DanClark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0125D7E6-EEAE-4B7B-AEA1-4D70673311F8@microsoft.com...[vbcol=seagreen]
> Ben,
>
> The key issue here is not whether some people will use tablet computers.
> You and others find them useful. I have two laptops, neither are tablets.
> I
> have no use for them. But, that's NOT the issue...
>
> The issue is that OneNote in a new category of software for Microsoft that
> is VERY useful on virtually ALL non-server platforms - workstations,
> laptops
> (and tablets), standard PDAs, and cell-phone PDAs!!! It is (or can be) a
> great tool for managing multi-dimensional, non-structured data.
>
> My frustration with Microsoft is that they treat my feedback as "dumb user
> needs help". I can't stand marketing pablum. It indicates that they 1)
> are
> not listening or 2) don't have the capacity to see the opportunity that is
> presented - for every tablet user, there are probably 10-20 non-tablet
> users
> who would use OneNote if it is marketed correctly!!!
>
> I've been working in the analytical space for 26 years. This includes all
> aspects - development, support, marketing and sales, AND as a user. For
> example...
>
> In the early 90's, I was hired by a consulting company to do a complete
> evaluation of Lotus Notes. I found Lotus Notes to be a very nice
> multi-dimensional text database with an easy-to-use development/user front
> end, and strong communcation and synchronization capabilities.
>
> Lotus Notes was developed by a small company in Massachusetts. It was
> subsequently purchased by Lotus. The devlopment company knew what they
> had.
> The Lotus Notes customers knew what they had. BUT, the marketing
> department at Lotus wasn't filled with the brightest bulbs around. They
> did
> NOT understand Lotus Notes. They marketed it as a glorified e-mail
> system.
> Completely BRAINDEAD marketing!!!
>
> I and several others where I work use OneNote to capture and manage the
> massive amount of detail associated with our job. For example, I'm
> working
> on a small database ETL project that involves creating about 50-60 SQL
> Server
> objects...
>
> I have an outline of the project. I create a checkbox icon for each SQL
> Server object and other steps that I'm developing. If I decide a new
> object
> or step is required, I just add a new one. When I complete development
> and
> unit test on an object, I check off the checkbox icon. When my manager
> wants
> a status, I e-mail the project page to him. He deletes the old page in
> his
> OneNote pages and snaps in my new page. Simple and easy!!!
>
> And, do NOT tell me the we should use project management software. I've
> used project management software since 1987, and that includes EVERY
> version
> of Microsoft Project. It's a great tool for a project manager on big
> projects. My ETL project is actually a sub-project of a larger project.
> Our project manager uses to manage the overall project. My sub-project
> is
> two bullets and a milestone on his project. But MS Project is way too
> complex and difficult to use for smaller projects or sub-projects like my
> piece. Managing my little ETL project with Microsoft Project is like
> using
> the proverbial 10 Lb sledgehammer to swat a fly.
>
> My feedback about OneNote is related to enhancements needed to better
> capture and manage textual, non-structured data. I don't want a "Pen" to
> draw pictures and write; I want the ability to add simple arrows and
> lines!
> I don't want rulers and paragraph formatting to make it pretty; I want
> those
> improvements to make the data more readable! I don't want more voice
> input;
> I want to sync it with a PDA. (Right now, there is NO reason for me to
> switch from my Palm PDA to a Pocket PC. If Microsoft developed a two-way
> sync PocketPC version of OneNote, I'd switch in an instant!)
>
> So, am I frustrated? Yes! Microsoft needs to get their heads out of the
> trees and see the forest! OneNote is a new category of app and not simply
> a
> tablet data entry tool!!!
>
> OK, flame off!
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan.
>
> "Ben M. Schorr - MVP" wrote:
>

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MS Word as Literate Programming Tool

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