Microsoft Word Woes

I often wonder why many programs can’t be written for the layman. I have spent most of my evening trying to figure out how to format the collection of short stories I’m working on with headers. Simple enough with Microsoft Word, right? Wrong!

Oh, to put in one header, that’s easy. No problem. To put in two alternative headers, one

Enough to make me scream. Image from GIPHY. Copyright NBC’s The Office. 

even header, one odd, I eventually figured that out with some online tutorials. But to keep my headers from going onto the title page, the content page, and the dedication page is another matter entirely. To give me more grief is that I can’t figure out how to give each of my short stories a different title for the header. In other words, on every odd or even page, I have the same title from my same short story covering my other short stories.

I look at the tutorials on Youtube. They mention putting in page breaks. Here’s the kicker. It still doesn’t fix my header problems. I am still stuck with the same headers.

I ask myself, am I just stupid? But then I see other people online ranting on Youtube and forums about how much they hate Microsoft Word, about how needlessly difficult it is to use. Some users are even so angry that they write out their frustrations in a stream of profanity. I can’t say that I blame them. Maybe we are all stupid or maybe Microsoft has made Word just too hard to use. Who knows?

Still, I ask why can’t it be easier? When clicking on header, why not have a box come down giving the writers an option? In this box could be a set of options (more option than one can be highlighted)  to choose from with the choices of
1. Enter individual headers manually
2. Start headers on a certain page number
3. End headers on a certain page number
4. Start new headers on a certain page number

Okay. So maybe it’s not perfect. But it makes a lot more sense to me than the way Word is currently set up. Because the way it’s set up has caused many people to rant and rave. I feel angry. I feel like all my time this evening was wasted trying to figure it out, only to be unsuccessful. This further means that I will be going into work angry tomorrow. Though I won’t be showing my anger outwardly, I will be fuming inside, feeling so far away from my goal of self-publication.

Screw you Microsoft and your Word program.

Boy, am I irate! Image from GIPHY. Copyright from Disney/Pixar.