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"Version fatique"?





Glenn Harlan Reynolds (aka, Instapundit) over at Tech Central Station:



TCS: Tech - 'Version Fatigue'



I'm tired of learning how to do new things. Well, not really. But I've noticed that my tolerance for reading the manual and familiarizing myself with all the aspects of a new product or piece of software is much, much lower than it used to be.
I find I've adopted the same attitude. At the moment, it's caused me to jump off the upgrade cycle. I'm relatively happy with Windows 2000, M$ Office 2000, and Corel WordPerfect Office 2000. All the XP and 2002 versions can just...wait.



What I fail to understand is when a company adds a feature, maintains support for that feature, but won't let you use it anymore. For example, in previous versions of WordPerfect, I let the software number chapters in a manuscript. I could move an entire chapter to a different place, and the software would re-order all the numbers. (Neat little trick I learned from sci-fi writer Robert J. Sawyer, who was using Word Star for crying out loud, but that's another story.)



Since version 8 of WP, I can't figure out how to do that any more. Old file update without problem, and maintain the feature, but if I want to do this in a new file, I have to copy and paste the "old code" into the new document. So thank God for WP's "reveal codes" mode.



Then there's the manner in which WP imports Word documents. In Word, the margin you set for text and the margin you set for headers are different (and can lead to some interesting formatting). When you import a Word doc and convert it to a WP wpd file, it inserts this little bit of code that allows WP to mimic that feature. However, try as I might I cannot find how to just type that code and setting into WP from the get-go. Frustrating.



I suppose I can't stay off cycle forever, and I'm about to go through a new round of "version fatigue," as where I work is dumping Windows/Office 95 (eek, my feet suddenly got cold, is hell freezing?) and jumping to Windows/Office XP. Argh!

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