SPAM random annoying things

[dysfunction]

You must have a crappy laptop!!

 

[TdC]

heh, I frankly doubt it's the laptop. thing is, I've noticed that I don't really do anything special with Word but that things magically start to go wrong after some prolonged use. mostly the things Word organizes by itself, like the table of contents, automatic image and table numbering, references, that kind of thing.

last night, Word decided to change my TOC by itself, to the extent that it's somehow changed in the built-in template for it. a while ago in a different document I magically lost all my references, which was *really* shit, and some other things just keep happening that I really don't like.

what I've decided is to do everything in text editor as a working copy, and just stick it in word for purely the markup, save that, and immediately save as a PDF. I'm not a fan of word, oh no.

 

[Moriath]

heh, I frankly doubt it's the laptop. thing is, I've noticed that I don't really do anything special with Word but that things magically start to go wrong after some prolonged use. mostly the things Word organizes by itself, like the table of contents, automatic image and table numbering, references, that kind of thing.

last night, Word decided to change my TOC by itself, to the extent that it's somehow changed in the built-in template for it. a while ago in a different document I magically lost all my references, which was *really* shit, and some other things just keep happening that I really don't like.

what I've decided is to do everything in text editor as a working copy, and just stick it in word for purely the markup, save that, and immediately save as a PDF. I'm not a fan of word, oh no.

I used to have issues with excel taking up 100% of my processing power after a couple hours of a spreadsheet being open. Was weird. I agree. These office products are too complex for their own good some times.

 

[Ormorof]

heh, I frankly doubt it's the laptop. thing is, I've noticed that I don't really do anything special with Word but that things magically start to go wrong after some prolonged use. mostly the things Word organizes by itself, like the table of contents, automatic image and table numbering, references, that kind of thing.

last night, Word decided to change my TOC by itself, to the extent that it's somehow changed in the built-in template for it. a while ago in a different document I magically lost all my references, which was *really* shit, and some other things just keep happening that I really don't like.

what I've decided is to do everything in text editor as a working copy, and just stick it in word for purely the markup, save that, and immediately save as a PDF. I'm not a fan of word, oh no.

Im doing my entire thesis like that, small seperate docs on google docs for each section then im gonna wallup it all into the official template later

 

[MYstIC G]

I fixed it, pff, handy things, backups. Note to self: when an MS Office product suddenly makes your laptop fan blow while you're doing nothing special, then it's very likely destroying your document. A fan I am not.

How do you fuck up word so often? Are you typing in that foreign again?

 

[mooSe_]

I wrote my MSc dissertation using LaTeX; I don't think I could've handled the stress of using MS Word for a document that long.

 

[CorNokZ]

I wrote my MSc dissertation using LaTeX; I don't think I could've handled the stress of using MS Word for a document that long.

I just Google'd that latex thing.. Will Google again, thanks!

 

[TdC]

How do you fuck up word so often? Are you typing in that foreign again?

wellp back in the day I would have said : using dissimilar versions of office. nothing kills an Office document faster than editing with more than one version of the product.

I've done away with that though, and only use one version. So, couple of things: using track-changes in large documents, cutting/pasting from other documents in to a working copy, having the TOC, References, image and table numbering all automated.

I found a tonne of people on the interpipes claiming track-changes killed their TOC's exactly like mine, however the fixes they came up with don't work for me -.-

Cutting and pasting from other sources also seems especially deadly to word / the TOC, because the TOC formats itself based on applied style. somehow word doesn't delete all markup when you select / hit the eraser thus this can affect the way the TOC is laid out. For some insane reason, the template that the TOC is built from has been fundamentally changed, which is NOT something you can do as a user (ie you can create a custom layout for a TOC, but you may not change a predefined one). I have no idea what is wrong tbh. I had a similar issue last year where I ended up having to find/delete every NORMAL.DOT I could get my hands on, which saddled me with a tonne of work and only fixed some of the problems.

I'm at the stage where I would rather spend some time teaching myself LaTeX markup and using my trusty programmers notepad or sublime to type the whole thing before parsing it through TeX or whatever. I only have problems with Word; non of the other Office products give me grief.

 

[mooSe_]

I just Google'd that latex thing.. Will Google again, thanks!

No problem. It's really useful I think. There's loads of good templates online so you don't have to worry about formatting at all and can just focus on writing text. It also has a pretty good system for keeping track of your references (BibTeX) and can automatically sort out your bibliography and stuff too.

 

[MYstIC G]

wellp back in the day I would have said : using dissimilar versions of office. nothing kills an Office document faster than editing with more than one version of the product.

I've done away with that though, and only use one version. So, couple of things: using track-changes in large documents, cutting/pasting from other documents in to a working copy, having the TOC, References, image and table numbering all automated.

I found a tonne of people on the interpipes claiming track-changes killed their TOC's exactly like mine, however the fixes they came up with don't work for me -.-

Cutting and pasting from other sources also seems especially deadly to word / the TOC, because the TOC formats itself based on applied style. somehow word doesn't delete all markup when you select / hit the eraser thus this can affect the way the TOC is laid out. For some insane reason, the template that the TOC is built from has been fundamentally changed, which is NOT something you can do as a user (ie you can create a custom layout for a TOC, but you may not change a predefined one). I have no idea what is wrong tbh. I had a similar issue last year where I ended up having to find/delete every NORMAL.DOT I could get my hands on, which saddled me with a tonne of work and only fixed some of the problems.

I'm at the stage where I would rather spend some time teaching myself LaTeX markup and using my trusty programmers notepad or sublime to type the whole thing before parsing it through TeX or whatever. I only have problems with Word; non of the other Office products give me grief.

Use "Paste Special" to remove all formatting when crossing documents. This will cure 99.9% of your woes. Back in the way back when with WordPress you were able to see busted formatting and scrub it to prevent this sort of shit (kinda like looking at the HTML for a web page). Word doesn't have anything that useful so the best play is to keep formatting the heck away from your precious stuff.

 

[CorNokZ]

No problem. It's really useful I think. There's loads of good templates online so you don't have to worry about formatting at all and can just focus on writing text. It also has a pretty good system for keeping track of your references (BibTeX) and can automatically sort out your bibliography and stuff too.

Not really sure what you're on about mate, I went straight to the picture page after seeing the thumbnails on the main page..

 

[caLLous]

Use "Paste Special" to remove all formatting when crossing documents. This will cure 99.9% of your woes. Back in the way back when with WordPress you were able to see busted formatting and scrub it to prevent this sort of shit (kinda like looking at the HTML for a web page). Word doesn't have anything that useful so the best play is to keep formatting the heck away from your precious stuff.

I just pass everything through Notepad to strip all formatting bollocks.

 

[DaGaffer]

I just pass everything through Notepad to strip all formatting bollocks.

Overkill really. Paste Special works fine. So long as you remember to do it all the time. It only takes one little badly formatted object to fuck up the rest of the doc. I do loathe Word, whereas I'm actually quite impressed with the latest version of Excel.

 

[dysfunction]

It does amaze me that MS can make an awesome product like Excel but really fuck it up when it comes to Word.

 

[Ormorof]

i looked into latex as my uni has a template that we can use if we want but the template is garbage

a friend of mine (a mac & graphics design person) ended up doing his whole thesis in InDesign as he liked the way he could control everything easily

 

[Syri]

wellp back in the day I would have said : using dissimilar versions of office. nothing kills an Office document faster than editing with more than one version of the product.

I've done away with that though, and only use one version. So, couple of things: using track-changes in large documents, cutting/pasting from other documents in to a working copy, having the TOC, References, image and table numbering all automated.

If the TOC is the main thing messing it up, remove it and just generate one when you need to save a "final" version. As long as you set the headings right, it should generate it fine. If you use that to jump around the document, just use the navigation panel instead for that. Just a thought for something to try...

 

[old.Tohtori]

How do you fuck up word so often? Are you typing in that foreign again?

This. At work i use it daily and i've probably lost one paragraph in 10 years(if that).

 

[TdC]

If the TOC is the main thing messing it up, remove it and just generate one when you need to save a "final" version. As long as you set the headings right, it should generate it fine. If you use that to jump around the document, just use the navigation panel instead for that. Just a thought for something to try...

done that a million times mate, even to the point of removing the entire section, generating a TOC, typing and formatting the header from scratch and regenerating. the TOC itself is fucked somehow.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Really good dreams cut short. Was having a great time with a female unit(not the sexy kind) and then morning ruined everything.

 

[Syri]

done that a million times mate, even to the point of removing the entire section, generating a TOC, typing and formatting the header from scratch and regenerating. the TOC itself is fucked somehow.

I'm afraid your only other option then is to cleanse it... with fire. It's the only way...

 

[TdC]

I'll reinstall it. Bit scared now

 

[TdC]

IT WORKED ZOMG!

 

[Gwadien]

People who think they deserve favours.

 

[caLLous]

Just mow their fucking lawn already. Bloody hell.

 

[Gwadien]

Just mow their fucking lawn already. Bloody hell.

Housemates waking me up to ask for things, then intentionally do things around the house just to wake me up, and expect me to still give them stuff.

Nope.

 

[old.Tohtori]

People who think they deserve favours.

That's an interesting concept in itself. A favour ofcourse is something that's done without expecting a reward, you know, because x likes y, or because it's the right thing to do. You don't really deserve it since it would defeat the meaning of it being a favour.

But....some people(family, friends, etc) would be in a position that would make them privvy to more favours, in other words more deserving.

In your example though; yeah, f*ck those people. My housemates learned real quick that they don't wake me unless there's a fire, a visitor for me, or bacon.

 

[old.Tohtori]

On a related note, was going to the bathroom and roomie goes "Could you be quick?" and i was like "M...alright...yeah sure." thinking she needed to go too. After i was done....she went into the shower.

One of those emergency showers i guess.

 

[Gwadien]

On a related note, was going to the bathroom and roomie goes "Could you be quick?" and i was like "M...alright...yeah sure." thinking she needed to go too. After i was done....she went into the shower.

One of those emergency showers i guess.

Maybe she was late for something?

I never ever ever hurry people up, but I ALWAYS get harassed in the shower etc, every time I get harassed I automatically add another 5 minutes to my time, even if it makes everyone late.

Fuck people who make other people rush.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Maybe she was late for something?

Guess she was, just left, so only 45 minutes before she had to run

 

[CorNokZ]

I took a shower 10 minute longer than usual this morning, which meant i was 20 minutes late for school. Just because... Was nice