In its place, Word 2. Apple. Script and Automator. Those replacements don’t offer the recording or other features that made it pretty simple to automate and customize Word 2. If you’re accustomed to Word 2. Word 2. 00. 8. It sits at the top of your document window, rather than being tied to the menu bar.
In previous versions, Word’s toolbars could fill up most of the top of your screen. They were too easy to accidentally rearrange and contained way more buttons than most people used. Winavi Video Converter 9 Keygen Generator. Word 2. 00. 8’s simpler toolbar includes all of what you need to effectively open, create, and save documents, undo and redo changes, and add tables and columns. If there’s a button you don’t want or one that you think is missing, it’s easy to change the toolbar. Unfortunately, Word still doesn’t use the typical Mac toolbar customization sheet; Microsoft says those sheets couldn’t manage all the options Microsoft wanted to offer.
The Document Elements button, for example, lets you quickly add or modify cover pages, headers and footers, or a table of contents. Some users may find it annoying that they can’t remove this Gallery; I think more will be grateful for its presence. From it, you can quickly access formatting options, insertable symbols, clip art, your i. Photo library, reference tools, and Office’s Scrapbook and Project Center.
In previous versions, those tools were scattered among menus, toolbars, and floating palettes; they’re now all in one place. By adding articles, Web sites, books, and other materials to this database, you can easily add them to your document.
Word will then automatically create a bibliography or citation page (in APA, Chicago, MLA, or Turabian format). Previous editions of Word had limited versions of this feature, but it was not this obvious or easy to use. For example, depending on what was selected in my document and which disclosure triangles were opened, the Formatting palette sometimes outgrew my screen—even when I was working on a 2.
Mac. Closing those disclosure triangles took care of this problem, but it would be nice if Word worked more like Pages, which uses a tabbed format for document options and which allows you to open more than one floating palette at a time. I was also frustrated by the fact that my scroll wheel didn’t work on scrollbars in the formatting palette but did work on other scrollbars in the Toolbox. Previous versions simply haven’t been designed to perform that kind of page layout magic. Word 2. 00. 8’s new Publishing Layout view changes that dramatically. Like Pages, Word 2. You can also link text boxes so text overflows from one to another. While it is possible to add masks and transparency and make minor adjustments to images in your document, the program is nowhere near as adept at it as Pages.
Another thing I noticed: the longer I worked in Publishing Layout mode, the slower Word seemed to get when manipulating images or moving text boxes around on the page. That format makes Word 2.
Word for Windows. Unfortunately, those documents can’t be opened in older versions of Word without the downloadable . Microsoft. To bypass this problem, Word 2. Compatibility Mode. In its stead, Word includes an Apple. Script library. Unfortunately, according to Microsoft, Word’s Apple.
Script library isn’t nearly as complete as the VBA library was. In addition, while there are 3. Automator actions for Word, they aren’t that useful. Neither Apple. Script nor Automator will let you record a string of events in Word and save them as a reusable script. But, unlike Pages, Word can’t merge data from Apple’s Address Book app.
I’d prefer a program that can merge data from any source. But, given the choice, I’d take Word’s missing Address Book merge to Pages’ missing everything else. You’ll be able to create and format documents the way you want to, print them, and get them out the door.
But the new user interface is cleaner; thanks to some great design decisions at Microsoft, there’s virtually no learning curve. Yes, it’s a pain that you can’t hide the Elements Gallery, but it never got in my way and it definitely put some previously hard- to- find features at my fingertips.
That said, you can get better page layout tools for less money (without losing Office file compatibility) from i. Work’s Pages. The Automator scripts that come with Word 2. Apple. Script. If you need automation, Word 2. The elimination of VBA and weak support for Apple. Script and Automator make the program far less versatile and valuable for users who really need automation. But the program’s streamlined interface and the addition of the new Publishing Layout view make it a compelling choice, especially if you want to stretch Word beyond its current capabilities. You can read his blog at jeffbattersby.