MS WORD - Complex scripts/Style models

Two features of MS Word that were added after 2000 really bug me.

One is the complex scripts. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing or why it happens, but every so often, I'll be typing along and suddenly my font changes, even without changing the particular formatting style I am in. The reason is that I have somehow triggered the complex scripts in that style.

I don't foresee ever needing to use Arabic or other right-to-left scripts, so why is this a default that cannot be banished to Hades where it belongs? Why is this something that comes back, even after one has made the complex script default the same type font as the regular one?

And along with this is this insane complexity in the styles menu. Why every time I italicize, bold, add a color or make any other minor adjustment to my document does it have to be registered as an entirely new style? Then when I go searching for a style, I have to scroll through eight million versions of each style, including of course all the various complex script options.

And why can I not find any discussion of these issues on the Internet? Is everybody OK with this idiocy?

QUOTE(Jagat @ May 26 2005, 02:40 PM)

I don't foresee ever needing to use Arabic or other right-to-left scripts, so why is this a default that cannot be banished to Hades where it belongs? Why is this something that comes back, even after one has made the complex script default the same type font as the regular one?

Go to Control Panel > Add & Remove Programs. There, MS Word (or Office), "Change". You should be able to switch off support for Arabic and the such when you browse through the menus.

For the future, you may want to always go for Custom Install instead of Default when you install such programs so you can turn them off at the very beginning.

QUOTE

And why can I not find any discussion of these issues on the Internet? Is everybody OK with this idiocy?

For some Microsoft-related annoyances, see http://www.annoyances.org/ . http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/MS-Word/1 may offer something of interest. With finding discussion on issues that need some explanation (e.g. where you can't just copy-paste an error message as a query), googling is still a bit of a needle in the haystack business.

QUOTE(Jagat @ May 26 2005, 09:40 AM)

Two features of MS Word that were added after 2000 really bug me.

One is the complex scripts. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing or why it happens, but every so often, I'll be typing along and suddenly my font changes, even without changing the particular formatting style I am in. The reason is that I have somehow triggered the complex scripts in that style.

I don't foresee ever needing to use Arabic or other right-to-left scripts, so why is this a default that cannot be banished to Hades where it belongs? Why is this something that comes back, even after one has made the complex script default the same type font as the regular one?

And along with this is this insane complexity in the styles menu. Why every time I italicize, bold, add a color or make any other minor adjustment to my document does it have to be registered as an entirely new style? Then when I go searching for a style, I have to scroll through eight million versions of each style, including of course all the various complex script options.

And why can I not find any discussion of these issues on the Internet? Is everybody OK with this idiocy?

This might also be the 'Language Toolbar' and foreign language input. Changes in input languages are triggered by the 'Alt + Shift' key combination.

Jagat is in Windows ME, I don't think there's a langage bar feature there.