Adobe: Worse Help Files than Freaking Microsoft
As one might conclude from my post yesterday, my now top priority project is to redo our documentation for Dreamweaver and Photoshop, which Photoshop on the top of the pile, since I have to teach that sooner.
Not only have there been major changes between Photoshop CS and Photoshop CS3, I am now reminded why I hate help files and product documentation so much.
IF YOU CAN’T NAME AN ITEM CONSISTENTLY THROUGHOUT YOUR DOCUMENTATION, HOW ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO USED YOUR DAMNED HELP FILES?
I kid you not. My first task is always to label the parts of the window, so I can put up a picture to refer to as I write. Except that Photoshop seems to have multiple names for several objects, so now I have to guess what names to use.
No wonder people never read the gorram documentation.
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January 30th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Adobe isn’t my favorite company anyway. Here I blather about it a bit.
Ironically, I get complaints about Photoshop Elements 4 Help Files. Apparently they “sometimes” install, and “sometimes” don’t. It’s not an option, mind you. Just black magic related to the moon phase or something… Grr…
January 30th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Somebody gave me the entire family of Adobe stuff and I can’t make head nor tail of which program is for what or how they work. I took me 1/2 hour just to figure out how to decrease the file size of a picture.
I’ve since, gotten a free download of a program called Seashore. I’m still no whiz, but its a lot more intuitive.
Speaking of hard to figure out, I downloaded I-Blog yesterday thinking it might be the solution to my problems. Brick Wall. 60M.P.H. I got as far as the part where I could import a banner and it would only browse for folders. Who’s got a banner that’s an entire folder?
January 30th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I’m such an idealist. I feel the average UI for the typical end-user application should be 1) so intuitive that it requires little to no documentation, and 2) well documented anyway.
I’ve been battling with some really spotty system-level documentation lately on some of our IP phone stuff - it omits entire screens of functionality - and makes me want to scream.
Has anyone tried Open Office? I’m thinking of testing it as an alternative to MS Office for Mac, because I don’t like Microsoft and do like open source. Plus, my son’s office install has started to act up.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Nathan,
Getting the entire Adobe suite to do minor manipulations of photographs is like going out and purchasing your own laundromat because you want clean clothes.
Jeri,
I completely and totally agree with you. We have two reference management programs. Endnote which is easy and intuitive to use (with a few quirks admittedly), and Reference Manager, which half the time the librarian who insisted we purchase the program can’t even get to work right.
As far as the documentation, that’s part of my job description right now, and I actually make multiple users of different levels go through my documentation before I put it out for users. What good is “documentation” that only confuses the user?
And I feel your pain with the VOIP phones. When we switched to VOIP phones a couple years ago, we had the thankless job of writing useful information and then teaching the entire building how to use the things.
I would rather eat lint than teach another phone class.
And I played around with Open Office a couple years ago, and at point it didn’t do everything I needed, so I didn’t spend much time with it. But I know people that swear bu it (as opposed to swear at it.)
And have you tried the repair function for Office? It often clears up a lot of wonky Office issues. If that doesn’t work, describe the problem and I can tell you right off the bat if I’ve come across that problem before. If I have, the I probably know the solution. (I spend so much time in office that I can tell you how to perform a mail merge or create a table of contents without having to open the program. NOw I’m sure you’re *really* glad you aren’t me!)
January 31st, 2008 at 8:26 am
Jeri — You’ll want “NeoOffice” for the mac, it’s a port specifically for OSX that doesn’t require X11.
I’m pretty happy with Open/Neo-offices, especially in circumstances that are just looking for replacements for the beginner to intermediate features of MS Office. The more complex stuff, OO will usually do, but it’s not “done” the same way, so the learning curve for an MS Office user is tougher.
But heck, try it. It’s free. :)
(The Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac has always been a little quirky for me too — and I have hundreds of installations of it. I dunno if the new 2008 version will be better or not, but at least it’s a Universal binary…)
January 31st, 2008 at 10:17 am
I didn’t say I paid for the stuff. Someone gave it to me. You wouldn’t turn down a free laundromat, would you?
January 31st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Well… actually? I don’t use pirated software. I also don’t pirate DVDs or music. I just feel that it’s wrong.
I know. I’m a mutant.
January 31st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Its not wrong if you don’t know how to use it.
(God, I’m pathetic)
January 31st, 2008 at 1:33 pm
(laugh)
That’s an interesting justification there Nathan.
January 31st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Michelle, whenever we launch the program, the message window pops up “Installing MS Office” - or something similar to that. I know most good techies prefer exact error messages, it’s more helpful.
The next step I would take would be a complete uninstall/reinstall, but I bought the computer used, without disks. And - I’m not entirely positive it was licensed, given the source, but I didn’t ask questions. Caveat emptor.
So, rather than ask those embarrassing questions or buy an overpriced license, I’d rather switch to something that I know is legal… open source is a plus.
January 31st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Well, I can tell you that’s probably not a fatal issue. I’m running both Office 2007 and Office 2003, and when I switch from one to the other, I get that same message. My boss says there’s a fix, but I use 2003 infrequently enough that I can ignore it.
I believe it happens when you install something that mucks about with the Word dll. In my experience as long as you don’t mind waiting patiently, it shouldn’t do any harm.
But then again, it’s always a good idea to have back-ups. ;)