Word 2013

A little bit of a rant

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Saturday was ‘Medication Review’ day. This in my opinion, is a bit of a waste of time. I’m currently on three types of medication: an anti-acid for my stomach reflux, an anti-coagulant for my heart valve and a beta-blocker to help my heart. Now the doctor has told me, and I have no reason to disbelieve him, that these are lifelong medications and it is something I accepted when they were prescribed. So why, every twelve months or so do I need to have a medication review? I suppose it is good that I get to see my doctor and he can see that I’m doing okay, but if a medication is lifelong…

My doctors’ surgery is in Tadcaster and many people will be aware of the events of Boxing Day 2015, when the ancient bridge was damaged in the flood. This is the only bridge in the town over the Tadcaster bridgeriver Wharfe and it has literally cut the place in two. It is going to be rebuilt but is estimated to take at least 12 months to complete.

We live, in a nearby village which is on one side of the river, and the doctors’ surgery is on the opposite side. So at the moment, what used to be a 9 mile round trip is now 17 miles , and what used to be at maximum a 26 minute round journey, is now a 42 minute one. It is worse some many of the inhabitants. I know of one person that lives very very close to the bridge that works very close to the other side of the bridge. What used to be a 3 minute walk across the bridge now is now a 20 minute bus journey.

On a more positive note, work has commenced on building a, what I understand is a temporary footbridge close to the main bridge. This will go a long way to reuniting the two halves of the town.

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I’m still struggling to find the best posting method for me. This post is being written in Word and I then intend to ‘copy & paste’ it into the WordPress desktop app. I like the desktop app, but would like it better if it had a spell checker. That was one of the better features of the old online editor which seems to be missing from the ‘newer’ online editor that WordPress tries to get me to adopt.

I suppose, at the end of the day, the best posting method is the one that suits the poster best. I still like the Word 2013 Blog Post template, but then again I really liked the Windows Live Essential Writer program (anyone remember when ‘apps’ used to be programmes?). The best thing that WordPress can do next, is to update the new editor to include some proofing tools. So if anyone at WordPress reads this … please

Let’s give it a go!

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Now usually I use a Microsoft Word template to write a post. However, I have decided to install the new WordPress app for Windows. I have tried a number of methods of writing posts since I started this blog. If I remember correctly I first used Windows Live Writer, which I was told was an ideal blogging tool built into Windows. I think there were some problems with that when I upgraded to Win 7.

I then had a go with the WordPress online editor, but did not like the old interface used at the time.

I then began to use Word 2013. We had got a great deal through work, that allowd me to purchase Office 2013 Premium at a much much cheaper cost. I was just using it to compose and then I would cut and paste the text straight into the WordPress editor. It was a bit of a bind, but I was using software I knew (and it has a much needed spell checker.) After a while, I discovered that Word 2013 had it’s own Blog Post template. One try and I was hooked. It was so easy to set-up and use and i have used it eversince with the occasional venture back to the online editor if my laptop was not available.

Back to where I started. I downloaded the app at the beginning of the week and was impressed with the speed of its loading. “Must give this a try!” I said to myself. Well I didn’t actually say anything, but the thought was in my head. For the first attempt, again I am very impressesed. Its simple and clean interface is quite refreshing and the only things I am missing at the moment is a spell checker, and a way to insert a Tab (always like to indent the first line of a paragraph …. old school.) I’ve not attempted an image yet. That is for the next Weekly Photo Challenge.

Odd experience – Blogging with Word 2013

/ Tony / 1 Comment

This is a bit of an odd one.

I usually use Word 2013 as my content editor. As I understand it there has been a Blog Post template since Word 2007, but it was only when I started using Office 2013, that I realised. It works very well. One of the down sides is that whilst it allows you to post Categories, tags are not handled. You can get around this by posting as draft and adding them from the WordPress (WP) editor.

Back to my ‘odd experience’. I sat up last night until just after 11:30, writing a blog post about the team building away day. Everything went well until I came to add the category and I got an error message basically telling me that Word could not get the category list from WordPress. Not a problem I thought, must be a glitch somewhere, I’ll post as draft anyway. But that failed with another error message telling me that Word could not register my account at WordPress. “That’s a bit stupid” I thought, my account is registered. Time for Google!!. There were lots of messages out with the same errors that I was getting. None of them very helpful but ranged from “reinstall Office” down to “use Blogger instead. After about 45 minutes, I gave up and resolved to try again today.

I was up around 8am and tried again. Same errors! “This is not good” I thought, “I’ll try Windows Live Writer (WLW)”. That worked, but as you cannot post draft from WLW, I had to be quick to check how the post looked.

As a last resort I rechecked Google for help and hidden amongst** the “reinstall everything” posts, there was one, that I had not seen the night before, that explained a fix that might work. This was:

  1. Open the Blogpost template
  2. Click on ‘Manage Accounts’ from the Blog Post tab
  3. Select the WordPress account and remove it
  4. Close down Word and reopen it
  5. Open the Blogpost template and you will be asked to set up a blog account
  6. Enter your WP details then restart Word

Ta Dah!! Everything back to normal and I’m happy again.

** Another one for you grammar hawks … ‘among’ or ‘amongst’ … which is more correct? I prefer ‘amongst’ as you can see!