EveryJoe » Microsoft Word

Did you Know that Microsoft Word is Banned in the US?

Milo Riano — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:04:19 +0000

Did you know that Microsoft Word is banned in the US? I was surprised when I first read the title but it is indeed true and an East Texas District Court Judge was the one who ordered Microsoft to stop selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that has the ability to open .xml, .docx or .docm files (these are basically XML files) which contain custom XMI.

This decision is based on the results of a complaint filed by i4i which is based in Toronto on alleging that Microsoft violated its 1998 patent (Number 5,787,449) on how XML is read.

Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz said their are disappointed with the court ruling and they believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that they do not infringe on the patent of i4i. Microsoft is expected to appeal this verdict.

Also, Microsoft would pay i4i $ 240 million dollars in damages including all the court fees and interests. The amount Microsoft is paying all in all reaches to around $ 290 million dollars.

Ok, Microsoft would appeal the verdict but in any case they would have to pay the fine should they lose. They would not however stop selling Microsoft Word, instead they would change the algorithm on how XML is read so they can sell their application without infringing on i4i’s patent.

Image from Microsoft.

Post from: EveryJoe

Did you Know that Microsoft Word is Banned in the US?

Generate Random Paragraphs and Sentences in Microsoft Word

Jason Bean — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Here’s a tip that I’m sure will come in handy for many of you that work on document newsletters and brochures and are using Microsoft Word to accomplish those tasks. Sometimes while creating a document, you may need to get an idea for how text is going to flow around in the design, but you don’t have the final copy written yet for the document.

Many people are probably familiar with using Lorem ipsum text to place some dummy text into a document, but did you know that Microsoft Word has a built in function to generate any amount of text you may need?

All you have to do is type =rand(P#,S#) into your document. Replace "P#" with the number of paragraphs of dummy text you need and "S#" with the number of sentences you want in each paragraph. Then just hit enter and voila! Filler text to your heart’s content.

Source: Microsoft Tips & Tricks website

Post from: EveryJoe

Generate Random Paragraphs and Sentences in Microsoft Word

How To Get Use Microsoft Word Faster and More Efficiently

Jason Bean — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:56:00 +0000

Microsoft Word is one of those applications that we’ve probably all used at some point in our lives. If you’re in the business world, odds are you’re probably using it on an almost daily basis. Being in business, having a way to get more work done in either the same or less amount of time is an underlying goals many of us probably shoot for in our work. That leads us to the question then.

Are you being as efficient at using Microsoft Word as you can be? Do you know many of the keyboard shortcuts you can take advantage of so you don’t have to move your hands off the keyboard and onto the mouse? It surprises me how many times I work with individuals and when I do even the simplest keyboard shortcuts I hear "How’d you do that?!"

The Internet4Classrooms.com website has some common Microsoft Word shortcuts that are the standards for use that you’ll probably find yourself using at least once almost every document you create.

There are shortcuts for quickly formatting your text, moving around your document, editing text and finding areas of text to reuse in other sections of your Word document.

It’s not just about keyboard shortcuts either. Do you find yourself always changing the default spacing, font, margins or other settings in your document before you really get started? Do you always insert a header/footer design or perhaps a company logo?

All of these things can be saved as preferences or automated to some degree. What would you like to know how to do? Let me know in the comments and I can work on putting together some tutorial posts to help you and share with the rest of our readers.

Image: Custom graphic by Jason Bean

Post from: EveryJoe

How To Get Use Microsoft Word Faster and More Efficiently

Fix Microsoft Outlook’s Broken HTML Rendering

Jason Bean — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:37:00 +0000

Not sure if you’ve noticed it or not, but Outlook isn’t the most reliable engine for rendering accurate HTML display in your emails. Microsoft Outlook uses the Microsoft Word rendering engine to both create and display HTML in your emails. It’s for this reason that many people believe that Outlook is seriously broken and they’ve started a campaign to fix it.

If you’ve ever done any web development, you’ve probably realized that HTML that’s created by Microsoft Word and the old Microsoft Frontpage application was loaded with a lot of junk.

The folks behind fixoutlook.org are hoping that Microsoft will take the opportunity coming with Office 2010 to step away from the Microsoft Word rendering engine from being used for HTML rendering in Outlook.

Microsoft has stated that they don’t believe Outlook is broken and they will continue to use Word because there are no agreeable standards in how HTML code is to be rendered for email.

What do you think? Is HTML in Outlook broken?

Post from: EveryJoe

Fix Microsoft Outlook’s Broken HTML Rendering