Solved: Help in 2003

[TonyJollans]

Am I missing a trick? Or is the Help in Word 2003 (and all Office 2003) crap?

I don't use it that much and can find my way around when I need to (and have a permanent, if slow, internet connection). But trying to show it to someone else who needs it and isn't on the web much, I found myself a bit stuck. I know in theory you can have it locally but it still seems to be a step backward in usability from what it was before. So is it just me? It usually is.

[sandam]

I find that there isn't enough information available in the help myself and the examples never relate to why I would want to use that function I'm searching on So yes, i agree, it is a pain in the behind. As for the internet connection - What provider do you use? Most of my family use Zen for broadband (apporx ?30 a month). The service levels are worth it and they have very little downtime which you are usually informed of in advance (about two hours in the last 6 months).

[TonyJollans]

Thanks, Andrew. It isn't so much the content (although you're right that it is often lacking) more the usability. It seems so much harder than in 2K - maybe I just have some setting wrong but I'm running it as it came out of the box.

As for ISP, July 1st is when we get broadband available here so I shall be investigating providers in a month or two. At present I have an AOL dialup (24/7 on a dedicated phone line) which is virtually 100% reliable. One of the wierdest things AOL have done to me (and it's not obvious till you do some checking) is to block access to the local college (www.ccn.ac.uk) - for no obvious reason. They also sometimes interfere with e-mail sent over their connection via a standard e-mail client. I had CompuServe about ten years ago and it got merged into AOL and there I've stayed. I have looked at alternatives but on price and reliability they're as good as any - and now they provide a dialler so you don't need to use their bloated software.

[sandam]

We'll thats a plus. I've heard a few horro stories about people who just can't seem to get rid of AOL after they've installed it, talk about a captive audience . The biggest reason for not going with them would have to download caps. I use the net quite intensively as I'm an online gamer an this requires a lot of interaction with a server. I'm not sure but I think AOL has about a 3 gig cap per month, afterwards they usally switch you to a 64K ISDN line till your monthly cap renew. But like I said, not sure so don't quote me on this

As for the help, yeah, it is very unhelpful most of the time. I think Microsoft has decided to rely on the fact that the majority connects to internet in some way or another and so for 2003, they have the taskpane that arrives when you use the help. That then si supposed to replace the Search/Index etc of 2K and XP. A little naf to be honest. I agree, the previous versions of help were more user-friendly.

[Killian]

It's not you... There's always been something flakey about MSOffice help. I used to spend a lot of time making help files for off97 addins most of which was spent watching the MS help file creator crashing. But I agree, it's got much worse - to the point now where I don't use it. My main problem with it is the time it takes to display help, especially the first time it's fired up - record on my P4 2.4GHz laptop: over 5Mins! and still slow on my shiny new dell at work.
I think, if it's quicker to Google for a list of vbconstants that you can't remember than use the locally installed help system, it's not a very good help system...

[Anne Troy]

So is it just me? It usually is.

Not THIS time, Tony!


It's CRAPOLA; SUCKY.

[mdmackillop]

I'm on Wanadoo at ?18 per month and had extremely few connection failures. Other than here, I don't do a lot of downloading

[TonyJollans]

Thanks, All, for the replies.

Some times you see something that is so obviously wrong you KNOW you must be missing the obvious .. and then there's Microsoft. Oh, well!