Word must DIE.
Dec. 2nd, 2004 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kickahaOh. My. GOD. How in the hell do people put up with this piece of crap?? WHY in the hell do people put up with this piece of crap? WHY in the hell do people put up with this crap and try and fill in the gaps with approaches that make MY life HELL?
I have a patent filing due Monday. I send attorney about 60-ish pages in PDF after he asks me to send 'whatever I have'. Does he say in what form? No. Does he say it has to be editable? No. Just 'whatever you have'. Fine. Off it goes.
And I wait.
And I wait.
I call him, and it turns out that because it has to be reformatted, THEY'RE TYPING IT ALL IN, INCLUDING EQUATIONS AND DRAWING NEW FIGURES.
In Word.
WTFUCK?
Okay, strike 1 in my not so humble opinion. "Why didn't you call and ask for the raw text?!?" "Well, because we need it in Word." Strike 2. "Well, you know, I can cut and paste *text* and get you the *text* so you don't have to retype it..." "Well, yeah, but we need it in Word." Strike 3. I boil over. "Look, you're billing us for this, right?" "Well, yeah." "Don't. I'm sending you text. Cut and paste it in." "Well, ooookaaaaay, but it's gotta be in Word format for us to do anything with it, and... oh wow, I just got something from you." "Yes. In Word." "How did you do that?" Strikes 4-7 ensue.
But wait, it gets better.
I send him all the figures, in PDF. I mean come on, a figure is a figure, right? Drag, drop, done.
Nuh-uh. Word fucks up PDF imports. How the FUCK can you FUCK UP a **PDF** import for FUCK'S SAKE??? PDF! PostScript! Been around for 20 years! Open published format! LEARN YOU DAMNED MONKEYS!
So they're having a *DRAFTSMAN REDRAW ALL 37 FIGURES*. Can we say $$$$?
Did he call back and ask from them in TIFF, which Word actually can *usually* handle without becoming utterly braindead, and that the USPTO actually *REQUIRES* all images to be in? No. Did he call back and ask if I could send it in *ANY* other format? No. Draftsman. Right. Picture me with steam coming out my ears.
So finally, he gets me the draft this morning - two days late.
I can't see any of the equations.
I'm using Word, on a Mac, and I can't see any of the equations made in Word, on a PC. What. The. FUCK. (The first person that says it's because it's a Mac gets my foot up their ass. Sideways.)
I mail back attorney. "We have a problem, I can't see any of the equations." "Oh, that's because you have to have MathType installed." "Whaaaaaaaa...."
See, MathType is just essentially Equation Editor Pro. It's made by the same people. They can read each other's files. So what the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU REDMOND MONKEYS!?!? Jesus H. CHRIST you people drive me insane. What the FUCK did you do to fuck this up so badly??? HOW the fuck COULD you fuck this up so badly that Equation Editor can't read a MathType file?!? My god. You people suck.
But wait, it gets better.
See, when the attorney heard I couldn't read the equations, he decided to be 'helpful'. In the same way that a MS Wizard is 'helpful', or the way Clippy the Fuckwad is 'helpful'. He made a PDF of it for me to see.
By printing it out, and manually scanning in 100 pages so that they could make a PDF.
I repeat. WHAT. THE. FUCK?!? What is *wrong* with these people??? Acrobat Distiller, click, boom. Right? Nope - Word + MathType doesn't play well with Acrobat Distiller I hear. Fuckwits. Hint to MS: PDF works. Use it. Adopt it. Fucking break down and offer a Print to PDF button in the print panel. Oh wait, no, that won't work because the print graphics engine and the screen graphics engine are *DIFFERENT*, and give *DIFFERENT RESULTS*. Fuckheads.
The mail with the PDF arrived 10 seconds after my advisor opened the same damned .doc file on his PC in Word, (with equations intact, the cocksuckers), and printed out all 100 pages.
So now I'm reading 142 pages of typo-ridden, badly formatted text that I have a perfect copy of in LaTeX sitting on my drive. And by badly formatted, I don't mean that it looks bad... I mean that section numbers aren't sequential and such. Nope, they didn't use any autonumbering. Why? "We don't trust it." Glowing recommendation for the product there. Oh, and you know how in professional documents the equations are numbered, say, right justified? Nope, THEY USED SPACES.
I am stunned. Just... stunned.
MS, your product is a piece of shit. Period. Always has been, always will be, as far as I can tell. You haven't the brains to program your way out of your own asses, and it shows. Format lock-in is your only saving grace at this point, and you asshats know it. Well, fuck you.
To the law firm: you're not helping.
Back to work.
FUCK YOU, BILL.
Oh yes, and the equations are wrong. And I can't edit them. Ditto for the figures. Fuckers.
At least I'm not bitter or anything.
I have a patent filing due Monday. I send attorney about 60-ish pages in PDF after he asks me to send 'whatever I have'. Does he say in what form? No. Does he say it has to be editable? No. Just 'whatever you have'. Fine. Off it goes.
And I wait.
And I wait.
I call him, and it turns out that because it has to be reformatted, THEY'RE TYPING IT ALL IN, INCLUDING EQUATIONS AND DRAWING NEW FIGURES.
In Word.
WTFUCK?
Okay, strike 1 in my not so humble opinion. "Why didn't you call and ask for the raw text?!?" "Well, because we need it in Word." Strike 2. "Well, you know, I can cut and paste *text* and get you the *text* so you don't have to retype it..." "Well, yeah, but we need it in Word." Strike 3. I boil over. "Look, you're billing us for this, right?" "Well, yeah." "Don't. I'm sending you text. Cut and paste it in." "Well, ooookaaaaay, but it's gotta be in Word format for us to do anything with it, and... oh wow, I just got something from you." "Yes. In Word." "How did you do that?" Strikes 4-7 ensue.
But wait, it gets better.
I send him all the figures, in PDF. I mean come on, a figure is a figure, right? Drag, drop, done.
Nuh-uh. Word fucks up PDF imports. How the FUCK can you FUCK UP a **PDF** import for FUCK'S SAKE??? PDF! PostScript! Been around for 20 years! Open published format! LEARN YOU DAMNED MONKEYS!
So they're having a *DRAFTSMAN REDRAW ALL 37 FIGURES*. Can we say $$$$?
Did he call back and ask from them in TIFF, which Word actually can *usually* handle without becoming utterly braindead, and that the USPTO actually *REQUIRES* all images to be in? No. Did he call back and ask if I could send it in *ANY* other format? No. Draftsman. Right. Picture me with steam coming out my ears.
So finally, he gets me the draft this morning - two days late.
I can't see any of the equations.
I'm using Word, on a Mac, and I can't see any of the equations made in Word, on a PC. What. The. FUCK. (The first person that says it's because it's a Mac gets my foot up their ass. Sideways.)
I mail back attorney. "We have a problem, I can't see any of the equations." "Oh, that's because you have to have MathType installed." "Whaaaaaaaa...."
See, MathType is just essentially Equation Editor Pro. It's made by the same people. They can read each other's files. So what the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU REDMOND MONKEYS!?!? Jesus H. CHRIST you people drive me insane. What the FUCK did you do to fuck this up so badly??? HOW the fuck COULD you fuck this up so badly that Equation Editor can't read a MathType file?!? My god. You people suck.
But wait, it gets better.
See, when the attorney heard I couldn't read the equations, he decided to be 'helpful'. In the same way that a MS Wizard is 'helpful', or the way Clippy the Fuckwad is 'helpful'. He made a PDF of it for me to see.
By printing it out, and manually scanning in 100 pages so that they could make a PDF.
I repeat. WHAT. THE. FUCK?!? What is *wrong* with these people??? Acrobat Distiller, click, boom. Right? Nope - Word + MathType doesn't play well with Acrobat Distiller I hear. Fuckwits. Hint to MS: PDF works. Use it. Adopt it. Fucking break down and offer a Print to PDF button in the print panel. Oh wait, no, that won't work because the print graphics engine and the screen graphics engine are *DIFFERENT*, and give *DIFFERENT RESULTS*. Fuckheads.
The mail with the PDF arrived 10 seconds after my advisor opened the same damned .doc file on his PC in Word, (with equations intact, the cocksuckers), and printed out all 100 pages.
So now I'm reading 142 pages of typo-ridden, badly formatted text that I have a perfect copy of in LaTeX sitting on my drive. And by badly formatted, I don't mean that it looks bad... I mean that section numbers aren't sequential and such. Nope, they didn't use any autonumbering. Why? "We don't trust it." Glowing recommendation for the product there. Oh, and you know how in professional documents the equations are numbered, say, right justified? Nope, THEY USED SPACES.
I am stunned. Just... stunned.
MS, your product is a piece of shit. Period. Always has been, always will be, as far as I can tell. You haven't the brains to program your way out of your own asses, and it shows. Format lock-in is your only saving grace at this point, and you asshats know it. Well, fuck you.
To the law firm: you're not helping.
Back to work.
FUCK YOU, BILL.
Oh yes, and the equations are wrong. And I can't edit them. Ditto for the figures. Fuckers.
At least I'm not bitter or anything.
