Word 2007 to Feature Built-in Blogging

Vitaly Friedman writes "Microsoft has revealed a surprising new feature for Word 2007: built-in blog publishing. The big surprise is this: the HTML that is generated is actually not that bad. 'Joe Friend, a lead program manager (Microsoft's term for a person who creates the specifications for software that programmers implement) has posted an entry on his blog regarding an interesting new feature being implemented for Word 2007: direct publishing of blogs to the web from within the program.'"

Comments

Spelling the cause?

[Rosyna]

You know... if Microsoft integrated a spell checker that shows squiggly lines in Internet Explorer, the main reason I've seen for wanting to use word to blog goes away.

Gotta love Safari for that, I guess...?

Re:Spelling the cause?

[Oscar_Wilde]

And Firefox 2 will have spell checking

I'm sick of saying this: spell checking is the responsibility of the GUI toolkit not the application. Why does every damn application need to implement its own spell checker? Why does no-one other than Apple and the KDE team seem to realise that this kind of basic functionality should be available in every text box, anywhere in the GUI (but with the option for developers to disable it for fields at design time).

If Firefox 2 has a built in spell checker then it damn well better have an option to disable it and use the standard MacOS spell-checker (the one I already use for every single other application on my system) instead.

Don't even get me started on web-sites that implement a spell checker...

It's Microsoft.

[ComradeSnarky]

Obviously they would claim the HTML produced is "not bad". What do you expect them to say? "Our program is terrible, don't bother using it."

Not bad

[JanneM]

You know, when people are saying that the quality of the generated data is "actually not that bad", with a surprised and delighted tilt in their voices, you know your customers aren't exactly expecting greatness anymore.

Your right it IS Microsoft.

[CSMastermind]

You know what, since nobody else seems to want to do it, I'll go out on a limb here and defend M$ this time. I'm impressed they claimed that the HTML isn't bad. I think it's good of them to man up. Because in saying that the new stuff isn't bad, they're admitting the old HTML code in word was.....and they're taking steps to fix the problem. If you actually looked at the source from the article (which was generated using word), it looked clean and readable. Nothing like the HTML we used to see from Word. On /. everytime Word is mentioned you get the same old responces, "I haven't touched a new verison of word since 97", "they haven't added any new features that are worthwhile", and "I don't even use the program, it's M$ they suck". Fair enough. But can you really complain about them not adding new features, then bitch when they obviously start thinking and try to? Do you think the people who post here are Word's targeted consumers? The majority of people don't really understand that much about computers, nor do they want to. They like to check email, surf the web, chat online, write in their blog, and upload their pictures for everyone to see. So the fact that the new Word might have a blog publishing feature is a big deal for most people who use the lastest versions of Word.

Re:Needless

[Steinfiend]

How do you know its not wanted? There are a large number of less technical people out there who don't know HTML from a hole in the ground. For them creating their blog from within Word would be perfect. They already know how to create a document in Word so their time to create something would be shorter and as such more rewarding. The key thing to remember is most blogs aren't created for the reader, they are created for the blogger.

Two Words

[rueger]

Microsoft Frontpage

Need I say more?

The beauty of e-mails generated by Word, the strict adherence to HTML standards demonstrated by Frontpage and IE....

And of course the literary values beloved by blogger everywhere...

What's the big fucking deal with anti-blogging?

[Infonaut]

If you don't like blogs, don't read 'em.

I understand why you wouldn't want to read the "Why I like the color pink" blog, or the "I just took a dump" blog.

But you're bashing on an entire medium. Hell, even television has a lot of good content hidden among the chaff. When you discount blogging out of hand, you're lumping sites like Daring Fireball, The Technology Liberation Front and IP Democracy in with the navel-gazers.

Sure, there are a lot of useless blogs. There are also a lot of useless magazines and books. Personally I prefer a world where there are more mediums of expression, not fewer. Slashdot is an excellent example of this. It could easily be considered a group blog, filled with useless opinions, but it is obviously more than that. Get all your information and all of your opininions from Big Media if you want. I like having more options.