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Raphy Mendoza's avatar

Whoop! Glad you were able to pay for your Microsoft ransom through poetry.

Curious... why do you let Microsoft rob you? Google Suite = FREE! Is there something Microsoft offers that I've been too righteously biased to see? (I hate Microsoft).

R x

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Jason McBride's avatar

I use Google Suite a lot, but I stick with Office for a few reasons. I do think Word is worst word processor except for all the other ones. Lol. I grew up learning to use Word in high school and am very comfortable with it and can get it to do pretty much whatever I want.

I also use Office because when I was a copywriter, it was (and still is at bigger companies) the industry standard. The track changes function works much better than what Google has on offer. Also, Word is easier for me to work with when I send stuff to an editor. Word interfaces with the other tools I use for publishing pretty seamlessly.

Lastly, I have over 3,000 poems in an Excel spreadsheet that I don’t want to lose. 🤣

My kids all use Google Suite and I was getting started today, I probably would too. But I’m old

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Raphy Mendoza's avatar

Poems in Excel?!? That’s amazing. I’d love to feature that - there’s a story there somewhere.

I was recently a programme organiser for a transformational programme called The Meaning of Money. We gave the participants some homework and gave them some Excel templates to use.

One of them emailed me to point out there was a formula error on one of the cells. When I welcomed him to the event, I thanked him for his email and admitted that I had no idea what he was talking about, but that I would have someone look at it for future programmes

We talked about that I’m a designer, different brains etc. and I said Microsoft Excel is my least favourite app of all time.

He responded to say ‘Oh Excel is just magical.’ With the most sincere and joyous smile - like the kind you’d see on a groom on his wedding day.

It was amazing.

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Jason McBride's avatar

I started using Excel to store my poems because it much easier to keep them organized and to search and count them in different useful ways. When I get stuck, I sometimes write poems in Excel because using a different interface somehow frees me up

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Marc Brimble's avatar

it's so easy and so liberating when you just tell the truth.

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Justin Deming's avatar

What an amazing moment, Jason! I’m so excited for you. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

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Jenise Cook's avatar

So happy for you, Jason!

I've thought of offering custom haiku in the past.

If you'd like to be free from MS and MS Office, look into Linux and either LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

Cheers, and keep on keeping on!

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