Dear Microsoft Word, I hate your stinkin' guts

@brhfl Whoa, that was intense! Yeah, that's an issue too. A lot of our problems come from the fact that 4 of us wrote the original material in wildly various formats, using both Google Docs and Word -- combining the two is a pain when there's that much detailed material.

@luvche21 Yup, that's a problem here too. Crap gets haphazardly merged from multiple authors all the time and everything just... breaks down. Improved collaborative tools in Office 365 are a big help, and a big step in the right direction… but they're still clearly a work in progress, and a lot of people seem (rightfully, I suppose) afraid of them.

@brhfl Yeah, I'm afraid of them. Especially when I do most of my work in Google Drive, then only ever export it to something better if I need to publish/print it.

@brhfl I figured out how to make an easy (at least for me) envelope format. Bottom of page alignment, adjust margin on one side, I have almost never found preset formats to be helpful

@brhfl You should send them over to http://practicaltypography.com/, it tells them why what they're doing is wrong - firmly yet politely

@brhfl Agree 100%; however, styles could use a better, more inviting UI. They are difficult to work with and predict the results when someone has been using styles inconsistently and has lots of nested styles with exceptions/changes to each one.

@JerseyFrank Absolutely. I get that it's nearly instinctual to do things the wrong way, which is why I made sure to mention that I don't blame the users - I just really wish some effort would go into training people how to use it better. People vaguely-but-not-really understanding the styles palette causes me no end of frustration - they assign a Header level to something, then strip the formatting for their next paragraph (instead of switching to Normal), and I end up with a PDF full of paragraphs in tags. Certainly MS doesn't help matters by (as you said) making it so uninviting, nor by constantly changing their UI.

@brhfl I'm with you. On the other hand, Microsoft doesn't make it easy. And the ways that ostensibly make it easy, often make it harder and mostly just give users better ways to fuck things up.

@joelmw Yep. Yep yep yep.

@brhfl let's not forget proper use of header and footer tools. stuff like same as previous can get really powerful and really tricky as well

@Strannahans I was going to post that too! Just discovered it last week. It finally broke me of two spaces between sentences, a habit I've had for close to 25 years.

@brhfl Oh gosh, in college we all had to take a class on how to write college papers as Freshmen. I'd been at a good high school and knew how to write, and I'd been using Word for over a decade at that point so I was pretty proficient there, too. But some students... we would help edit each other's papers, so commenting and tracking changes were scary for a lot of kids. But one student I got was using Word like a typewriter (and this was mid-2000s so if they'd been regularly using a typewriter in their life I'm concerned about how they were raised). I turn on the invisibles and saw they'd hit enter at the end of every line, and when it was time to reach a new page they hit enter a whole bunch of times to get to a new page instead of letting Word do all the work. Make one change and the whole thing reflowed very badly. I spent the whole edit period giving that student a remedial crash course in word processors, and I still don't know if it stuck.

@walarney Ooh, this too! Especially when it thinks that you want to do a number list, but you don't!

@walarney What issues do you have with numbering?

The stupid lack of dialog boxes in the latest dumb ribbon system makes it super difficult to come up with file names based on document titles and the like. I often need to see the document as I'm saving it, and... that just isn't happening anymore.

@luvche21 Any time it tries to kick you into list mode (or really any sort of 'smart' formatting) and you don't want to, just wack ctrl-z. It'll abandon its cruel plans for you.

@luvche21 and @walarney Turn off the Automatic bulleted lists under Options > Proofing tab > AutoCorrect Options button > AutoFormat tab.

@brhfl Yeah, that's what I normally do, but there was something silly it didn't work for today. There was just no way around it. I ended up having to copy/paste something else to copy the formatting. Even so, it's still extra work to tell it it's wrong.

@medz You sir, have just saved the day! I knew it was barried in there somewhere... But how do I turn off auto numbering?

@luvche21 It should be in the same basic place, under 'Apply as you type' or something… then something akin to 'Automatic numbered lists'. Apologies for assuming you might not know about ctrl-z on auto formatting, I tend to see even quite experienced users going into panic mode because they don't. Agree that's it's an extra step when lists aren't really the norm for you, so I generally keep most of that stuff off as well.

@brhfl Wow, I missed that the first time around, and I even looked for it too! Thanks! That page has a lot of text on it. And no worries -- that's what we're here for, right? To offer potentially helpful things!

@luvche21 You can use the format painter (the paint brush) to copy formatting from one place to another.

@Del When I first saw/read the name of/saw how to interact with the format painter (grr, mouse), I thought it was just so laughable and terrible. Then I used it and immediately realize that it is basically made of pure magic. Granted, all that should be handled with styles anyway, and probably further dissuades people from doing so, but… yeah, it's nice.

@Del Yes, I used that all day yesterday. In the example above, the format painter didn't work either (for whatever reason), even though it normally does. With the document that I was working on, the problem with the format painter is that there are bolded words throughout a sentence in many cases. So when I use the format painter, I can't use it on an entire section, but rather one sentence at a time, or part of one sentence at a time. It's a beast. Yesterday was a 14 hour day.

@luvche21 what about having the original document open in another session of Word. Copy the formatting on the entire paragraph and then just apply bold formatting to those words (Ctrl-b). Also, Word stores paragraph formatting at the end of the paragraph. So if you are wanting to copy paragraph formatting, be sure to select just past the end of the last characterin the paragraph.

@luvche21 Also, triple-click in the paragraph to select the entire paragraph.

@luvche21 I think that's under Options > Proofing tab > AutoCorrect Options button > AutoFormat as you Type tab. Uncheck the Automatic numbered lists under the Apply as you type section.

@medz I found it in the end, thanks! And of course, it was right there on the same page and I didn't see it even though I looked.

@luvche21 That sounds like that might've been a good opportunity to copy the paragraph, then paste it again as plain text. Hit the little drop down under the paste icon on the home tab, then click Paste Special... then select unformatted text or unformatted unicode text. I think I set up a keyboard shortcut once to make Ctrl+Shift+V do that, but don't remember if that was actually a default or something I did myself.

@mikibell I'm an IT Engineer, don't get me started. (You think Word is bad, get into Excel and macros. Or even worse, dealing with SQL)

@mikibell Yep, go for it! As long as you agree that Word is dumb.

@The_Baron I tend to like Excel (Google Sheets) a lot, but I don't use macros very much. When I have, things tend to break.

@The_Baron same here..have to do vba macros quite often... Sigh..

@luvche21 totally agree! And the fact that you can't do the same funtions across the suite of products the same way..grrrrrrrr

@The_Baron I learned this all too well when trying to build a find & replace script for Word documents - so many places to search!

@mikibell Even Adobe has different keyboard shortcuts between Photoshop and Illustrator -- that drives me nuts too.

@luvche21 I understood it when they acquired software products, but enough time has passed where they could have standardized this stuff :) I don't know if that is the same issue with Adobe.. Sigh..for the good ole days of word perfect!

@mikibell I know right? And for Adobe, they're in Creative Suite 6, so I'm assuming at least 5 earlier renditions. Plus now that I'm leaving my affiliation with IU (...once I get a real job) I have to return those programs. And they want $2K or so just for Illustrator, or $40/month for forever.

@luvche21 If all you need is Illustrator, it'd be $20/mo. I hate the subscription model, but I think we're stuck with it… I'm just going to keep running CS3 until it breaks down! As for inconsistencies… AI is on version 17, PS 15, InDesign was acquired, but still 10 versions in… yeah, you'd think they could have gotten that (and so many other things) right by now. Adobe's priorities are really screwed up, they know they're the only game in town. I hate Adobe with the passion most reserve for MS…

@brhfl Yeah, I guess you're right it's only $20/month, but I still don't like it. I sure don't have $20/month for the rest of eternity to pay them. I just want to buy a program and be done with it.

@luvche21 I have no idea what you use Illustrator for, but have you taken a look at Inkscape? http://www.inkscape.org I know it can't do everything Illustrator does (but then it's not trying to), but it's worth at least a look to see how much of your Illustrator workflow can be done in it.

@dashcloud This looks fantastic! I was actually looking for Illustrator substitutes just last week. I definitely don't use the full potential of Illustrator, so I don't need all the features. I use it for logo design and misc marketing materials. Do you use Inkscape? What for? And do you like it? (I'd download it right away, but my 7 year old laptop is dying, and I don't have much room for more programs. If you say it's worth it, I'll give it a shot though!)

@luvche21 I completely agree, the subscription model sucks. Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the tiering. I can say a few things about Inkscape, as I have used it quite a bit to get started on projects. For what you're describing, you could probably get away with using it. Of course, AI is the industry standard, and printers (and clients) want Adobe formats. How much of an issue that will be will depend on the level of work you're doing. The UI will frustrate you if you're coming from AI, but it's not terrible. Text rendering is not as good, prepare to tweak text more than in AI. You lose a lot of conveniences and things that will make your workflow smoother, but again how much this matters depends on your usage style. Ultimately, it's nowhere near as feature-filled as AI, but it is a very capable tool. Everything necessary for some pretty sophisticated design work is there. It's a pretty mature piece of software, and worth trying to see if it fits how you do your work.

@brhfl I was so disappointed when Adobe bought Macromedia. That largely ended the competition in the design space. If anything, I wish Macromedia had bought Adobe. I liked their products better, they seemed generally lighter-weight, and their customer service was excellent. Also, their prices were a bit more reasonable. And don't get me started on Adobe killing Fireworks...

@jqubed Agreed on all accounts. At least Apple got FCP before the buyout, having that killed or As much as I never liked Quark, it's also a shame they dropped the ball so hard, further solidifying Adobe's air of unbeatability. What a mess.

@brhfl Everything I've heard from people I respect as editors is that FCP X is junk. I actually like a lot of what Premiere has become, though. It's what my current station uses for editing.

@jqubed FCP X isn't junk, but it was certainly a step backward, and it's largely just a new paradigm to get used to (which is not a great thing to spring on pros…). Most of the really huge missing features that left it unsuitable for pro work have been addressed. I haven't used the most recent version of Premiere, but back when my job was editing and I had to use FCP (pre-X), Premiere, and Avid on a regular basis… Premiere was my least favorite by far.

@brhfl Yeah, old Premiere was way behind the others. We used to have a guy here who was a FCP guru, but he reached the point where he liked Premiere CC better. He never thought he would but it had enough innovations that made him faster and more efficient that he converted to it at home, too.

@jaybird That was a winning feature of WP back in the day, and still is. The MS approach is likely a huge reason that nobody understands how to properly structure their documents, etc.

@jaybird If you're talking about showing tab characters, paragraph marks and so on, you can turn those on in Word too. This is under Options > Display.

@medz That's helpful, but it's not the same.

@jaybird My uncle used to work for Word Perfect, and programmed the original Save box sequence that basically every program ever uses now. I think I'm pretty cool.

@medz I always have that on so I don't really even "see" the marks. But it freaks some poeple out when I forget to turn them off before a presentation or WebEx.

@luvche21 No, that means he is pretty cool; you're just, meh!

@medz as @brhfl said, it's not really the same. Think about seeing the actual html code for a webpage at the bottom of every page. You see all formatting, letters, spaces, bold, italics, indents and so forth. My understanding is that WP copyrighted it or it is protected intellectual property and they've never shared.

@jaybird I thought I was pretty cool for being his nephew though. At least I tried!

@jaybird Reveal codes is what made WordPerfect 5.1 the star back in the days, as a user could format/layout pages, even with graphics, on computers without graphic capabilities. Alas, 20+ years later, I've since forgotten most of the keyboard shortcuts.

@jaybird I also still use WordPerfect when the bosses aren't looking. It lets you write and create without getting in the way. And it was multi platform. Word just never measured up for all its features and fidgets and gadgets and multi-hundreds-of-megabytes of slow code...

@walarney Caryn, is that you? I work with a BSC who keeps it on as well, and it drives me batty as she does all of our minutes and documents during screen sharing sessions. I don't think it adds value to her.

@jaybird and @brhfl Oh, I see. Yeah, I don't know of a way to do that other than save a copy of the Word file as a webpage (html format) Then, open that file in textpad or notepad for editing. When done, open it back up in word and save as a normal Word doc..

@medz @jaybird There's no way because Word just was never created to work that way. It wasn't built on the same model as other word processors of the time. It was built by cobbling together the existing model with a far superior style-based model, leaving us with the polished turd we're still wishing we didn't have to touch today. That the file formats are insane mish-mashed streams doesn't help either - memory dumps pointing to obscure descriptors and flags pointing to other memory dumps… Word was not designed for structure, it was designed for speed and usability. There was a time when it worked, but it's a very fragile house of cards to keep building on, especially when in present-day, so much is dependent upon semantics and proper structure.
Fun reading here and here.

@walarney Ctrl+Shift+8 is the shortcut key to toggle those hidden characters on/off

@jaybird @brhfl @medz @duodec There used to be a way to do that in Word; I think it was the Microsoft Script Editor but it looks like it was removed after Word 2007. I remember finding it by accident and being shocked to discover it looked like HTML underlying the document, and was more shocked to discover how many empty and extraneous formatting tags would get leftover when things were changed, so sometimes I'd go clean up others' documents or occasionally my own if I was getting crazy with stuff.

@jqubed That thing wasn't much more useful than simply saving the document as HTML and looking at what poorly-constructed nonsense it spit out… because that's essentially what it was doing. Again, Word documents just aren't structured in the same way. But at some point, someone decided it'd be useful to have VBA events fire off of formatting, so that thing was cobbled together. It's not HTML underlying the document, it's a conversion for the sake of having something that resembles real structure. It had its purpose, but couldn't really compare to the Reveal Codes feature in WP.

@jqubed We used to have to deal with people "designing" web pages in MS Word and outputting as HTML. Most horrific, nasty, messy, bloated HTML messes I've ever seen.

@duodec I inherited a mass (cough grave cough) of web pages from clueless contractors before me, and from clueless… who-knows-whats before them. After years in this position, I'm still finding pages that were vomited up by Word (or the equally bad at HTML-generation WordPerfect). It is the worst. I'm sure MS thinks it's hilarious, but it is just mind-boggling how these 'pages' have been constructed. It's so bad, Dreamweaver includes a tool for stripping out all of Word's bullshit. But, worse, it's so bad that no matter how much effort Macromedia/Adobe labored over on that front… it still just doesn't work. So. Much. Hate.

@dashcloud Whoa, that is magic! I'm used wildcards, but nothing that intense. Cool!

@dashcloud This may be the best thing I learn all day! I love regular expressions. Reminds me of my days in Unix. Do you, perchance, use Textpad? Great text editor regular expression support and style sheets for various file types.

@joelmw Vim or bust. ;)

@joelmw notepad++ on windows, usually kwrite, kate, or nano on Linux.

@dashcloud

@joelmw I was starting to think I was Textpad's only user; I haven't heard anyone mention that in over a decade.

@dashcloud vim on windows, usually vim, vi, or ed on Linux. ;)

@brhfl Isn't ed the most primitive editor available? What kind of environment only has ed available?

@jqubed Likewise. I feel like we need a secret handshake. :-) It's perfect for what I do, which is mostly straight text editing, prepping for Excel, Access or some other database, and just searching, sorting and digesting sometimes largish chunks of data. I've actually only used it a little for coding, because I haven't done much of that in a few years.

@dashcloud Lightweight embedded systems, as well as ancient UNIXes. POSIX standards require vi nowadays, so that's helpful. But even on a nice, comfortable, vim-filled environment, if I'm making quick changes to known line numbers, sometimes I'd just as soon step into ed regardless.

@brhfl agree: vim windows, vi unix in a

@unixrab zsh for me (with vi keybindings, naturally), but hey… can't agree on everything, right?

@brhfl it's all gud I got love for zsh ;-)

@SSteve I learned WordPerfect on Vax. That was around the same era, I believe. Ther is something magical about a non-gui interface......

@Pamtha I learned WordPerfect on the IBM PS/2s in my middle school. We thought we were something with those new 386s back then. Amazingly enough, it was often easier to make the words do what you wanted on those systems.

@Pamtha Yay for VAX/VMS!

@brhfl VMS - Best general purpose OS ever, unappreciated into near oblivion by micro-encephalic microsoft-lackey HP 'management'. Sigh.

@Headly Fuck. I am not even kidding. I've been on the phone with Microsoft for 2 solid hours. And counting...

@Headly I feel for you- I had a similar experience with my firewall's vendor- 1.5 hours at home on a call that was pointless. My Microsoft experiences have been fine- best $250 I spend.

@dashcloud you know theres a problem when theh have you spool up powershell and start doing things that cant be done from the ui...

@Headly I have a 27 day old Office 365 ticket open regarding email delivery. Over 10 hours of my own time giving them tests and logs and on an on. I have them stumped, I think.

@thismyusername How does it measure up to OpenOffice? OpenOffice used to be all the rage, but I've been hearing more of this LibreOffice lately.

@medz TL;DR LibreOffice is the future of OpenOffice.

Through mergers and acquisitions, Oracle gained control of the OpenOffice trademarks. The software is open source, so Oracle never controlled that. Oracle was choking the life out of OpenOffice, so the developers created LibreOffice from the OpenOffice source and continue to work on it. Eventually, Oracle released its deathgrip on OpenOffice, so there are people working on it again, but LibreOffice is the good stuff.

@medz @hamjudo summed it up perfectly. LibreOffice is currently the win.

@hamjudo Didn't Oracle finally give OpenOffice to Apache?

@jqubed Yes, Oracle released its deathgrip and gave the shriveled husk of OpenOffice to Apache. The Apache team is trying to keep up with the LibreOffice team, but LibreOffice had quite a head start at that point.

@thismyusername agreed - LibreOffice = epic win. Uninstalled all instances of Office in front of the auditor when he gave me shit about one instance of a laptop and desktop sharing the same key within our organization. Began installing LibreOffice while he stood there stammering. I told him I wasn't taking his shit and Microsoft could suck it. He called for weeks trying to get us back. Not gonna happen. And as soon as I can find a way to efficiently run Photoshop and other programs within our existing architecture, Windows is gone too. Screw 'em. Predatory sheep-fuckers - that's what all MS auditors are IMHO.

@Pavlov

@Pavlov MacOS won't do the trick for you?

@jqubed We have a mix of Apple product and Windows PC throughout the office, I'd like to get to the point where I chuck MS all-together, doing that isn't presently feasible.

@Michaelforman Donald Knuth is my hero.

@editorkid Die! Die clippy die!

@luvche21 http://www.hulu.com/watch/744929 (sorry cant find it on Youtube yet)

@JerseyFrank I've heard horror stories about Visual Source Safe- is it still bad?

@dashcloud nah, TFS is fine for version control. The issue is integrating your AD accounts, source control, and disparate ALM practices of an organization into VSO. Apparently the company I work for is a pioneer as far as large-ish software companies go... or so we're told. Less bold / smarter(?) shops seem to be favoring on-prem solutions still. Thankfully, it's not my mess to cleanup, but have to be creative when things don't work as they should.

@joelmw thank you. i remember hearing that the first time around, butit was just as awesome the 2, third, and fourth time just now <3

@brhfl to be fair at least Publisher is kind of layouting software. From the sounds of things @luvche21 and their team tried to get fancy which is the root of the headache here, probably should have been done in inDesign or similar.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@vampje
Could this be fixed by using something other than an MS product?

@MSmeltedBrain welcome to meh?

@MSmeltedBrain
I moved to OpenOffice a long time ago because of MS. I own MS Office (came w machine) and never opened the program.

PS you can use Fuck and Shit and other 4 letter words here. Just use them humorously, or to complain about corporate behemoths or evil insects or hideous weather and the like. Nothing personal, nothing political.

The distilled rule:
Don’t be a dick.

@f00l Or,
DON’T. BE. A. DICK.

@f00l fuck you and your use of zeroes in places of the letter O, who the fuck do you think you are?

@jbartus

@f00l.

@f00l

@cranky1950 To be fair, real men use Word too, it just depends on the purpose.

Word

1. Writing a Letter
2. Writing an Essay
3. Writing a Paper
4. Creating a Basic CV/Resume

InDesign

1. Laying out a Manual
2. Creating a notable CV/Resume
3. Creating a Greeting Card
4. Creating an Event Flyer
5. Creating Business Cards
6. Creating a Poster
7. Creating Letterhead / Stationary
8. Creating… well, you get the idea.

For anything more complicated than a letter or involving graphical elements in any way, Word is the wrong tool. ^^

@jbartus

What about a book, with table of contents and footnotes/index/appendices?

Or same, with some graphic elements such as diagrams or illustrations or charts?

@f00l Actually word works well it’s just finicky and you have to know what you’re doing and most people don’t. But word works well with graphics if you know how to do it, I usta make 500 page parts manuals with word. If your deliverable is a computer viewed pdf or raster printed document, word works fine. Because of that, MBAish individuals try to use it for commercial printing with humorous results.

@cranky1950
Some of us weren’t taught this in school because it didn’t exist, unless one did the graphics for the student publications. And I have never learned word, nor layout stuff, nor image/visual stuff.

You are, among other skillsets, a tech writer? I envy your skills - with formatting/presentation and with language/clarity, with making the thread of a concept into something comprehensible. Spoze I have no excuse for not making some effort to learn that stuff myself.

@f00l anything meant for actual printing or which you want to do anything more complicated than stick some pictures in with limited control of layout and positioning should be done in appropriate software, of which Word is not.

@f00l actually I thought of a more clear way of explaining it. If you want something printed professionally most printers would far prefer you bring them actual printed photographs (on photo paper) laid out on graph paper with text printouts taped on in the appropriate places and a notepad file containing the source text so that they can reproduce what you want with their scanner and layout software than receive Microsoft Word files.

@f00l School? you mean the Ingersoll Rand training dept course in 1994 or the executrain class I took in 1996?

@jbartus Good Lord this is 2016 not 1990 most printers are fully digital now (a lot of places are using an indesign front end), giving them camera ready art instead of Adobe files just gets you a big make up fee and slow turn around. The secret is word don’t do no CMYK. Word converts everything to wysiwyg raster at 72dpi.

@f00l The reality is if you rummage around on the web for a couple of days anyone can learn enough electronic pre-press to know what a commercial printer needs, and why word doesn’t cut it. It’s much easier to laugh at the quotes and say something like I’m not paying that for something I can knock out in few hours in word.

@jbartus It depends on how you’re going to reproduce the document. You can do great layouts in word. It just needs to be a screen doc or RGB raster printed. 1400dpi raster laser print on good paper looks very close to offset printing.

@cranky1950 my point was a lot of printers I know would far prefer to get old school stuff than Word ‘art’

@jbartus Yeah, depends how much money they figure they can separate from the client.

@cranky1950
Re continuing ed:

I’m “Old School”.
You want me to go “Back To School”?

“I’m a not a fighter, I’m a lover!”

@cranky1950 eh, most of them are going to charge a document setup anyhow for making sense of the word document unless the customer is adamant about not paying in which case they click print and wait for the lulz.

@jbartus Yeah really. Wish I had a dime for every entry level mgr sort that’s come to me and saId we’re gonna rite the manual all you have to do is get it printed. I usually laugh and say “no my yob.”

@cranky1950 the people who want to create sales collateral in Word make me laugh, the irony is that they’re shooting themselves in the foot by not paying to have it professionally done because the collateral reflects negatively upon their business.

@dashcloud This is a problem that you will encounter with any complex document that does not have a formal style sheet. All desktop software gets stupid if the mucking around is not consistent. It shows up more in word because of the way word assembles a document.

@dashcloud Using styles as much as possible is a definite best practice. We’re slowly convincing people to do this at my office, and the turnaround time for getting documents to be section 508 compliant is shrinking accordingly. The folks we have trained to style their documents in this way are seeing efficiency boosts as well - things just look the way they should instead of constant finagling. Visually, we’re receiving far more consistent documents as well. Win/wins all around.

We end up manually editing TOCs a lot. It’s perfectly doable, but should absolutely be the final step.

@brhfl How did you train the people? A trainer, some online/course or book, or something else?

@dashcloud They don’t anymore, the expect new hires to have had training in school.

@dashcloud We have training classes (webinars) (hate that word) at the agency level, fortunately. My office attended first to see what exactly was being taught, then pieced together a ‘quick tips’ sort of document with some of the highest priority instructions as well as some things that we felt were overlooked in the training. We tried to briefly hit on both how it makes things faster on our end as well as any direct benefits to the user.

@moondrake
For a little while I was good on a Selectric. Nowmy typing is garbage. You can buy modded Selectrics on EBay to use as computer keyboards if you really love them.

Also loved those tiny portable typewriters that reporters used to use.

Yeah white-out. And carbons. And mimeographs! Those things could be fun to watch, and some of them stunk.

Are you using LibreOffice now, or have you quit the “appropriate for business presentation” world altogether?

@f00l @moondrake The Selectric is still high on my list of favorite devices. If I can ever find space for a little writing nook, that’s what will live there. A restored Selectric Ⅰ in pink, ideally. I found a Selectric Ⅱ on the sidewalk once. It was a bit heavy to carry home.

@brhfl Amazing how many college offices used to keep their typewriters on the sidewalk.

@moondrake I remember the days in the late 70s we had a Lanier the executive secretary got sent to Lanier school. She was a minor god. Then PCs happened.

@rockblossom
Ever use a Wang?

(Am skipping the easy joke)

@f00l Yup. I even know it rhymes with “wrong” and had an 8" floppy. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard all of the jokes.

@rockblossom I vote Compute commodore edition! as the best mag.