I'm trying to use Microsoft Word 2008 (Mac Edition) over here to do some homework, and every time I try to move or otherwise adjust an "AutoShape" object that's in a "TextBox," my entire document goes out of whack, and I lose the placement of just about everything I'd been trying ever so carefully to line up. It's even better when in the process of randomly shifting things around on "paper," Word decides to plop the object down in the middle of a table.
Yeah. That's exactly where I wanted that.
It's not like I actually should've expected an application that claims that it can create diagrams to be able to, I dunno... create diagrams or anything, should I?
Argh!
Let this be a reminder to future me that I should always obey Microsoft Rule of Thumb #1: New Features Are Pain.
Update: It isn't anywhere near as flashy–looking, but OmniGraffle was able to tackle this relatively simple state diagram in under 5 minutes. At the low, low price of $99—Low, at least, when compared to Microsoft Office 2008's hefty $399.95 price tag, which does not include Visio, Microsoft's equivalent of OmniGraffle. That Windows-only mess of a product will set you back another $200.
Yeah. Keep telling me that Microsoft makes your office more cost-effective.
Update: Fingers drum on table. Okay, so now I'm trying to align the chart in a particular space on the page, nestled comfortably in a nice, caring section of paragraphs. Do you think Microsoft Word would make a word processing task like this easy? Heh, guess again—
Pain.
See that little plus sign up by the table? That's what you have to click to drag the table around on your page.
Notice that it's actually resting in the gutter between pages, after Word decided (at random) to bump the table to the top of the page. Know what that means?
If you guessed, "Brian stands absolutely zero chance of clicking on that little plus sign successfully," you nailed it.
Where's Howard Dean when I need him?
My Macs kept the old version of Office, after hearing all the horror stories. Too bad Adobe doesn't republish FrameMaker for the Mac.
I hate fragile software. That's why I don't use Microsoft.