Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me personally, my favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the simplicity and layout, and especially the little book and pen animation at the bottom.

However, using a older version of Word feels so much more useful and important than anything else. When I want to write, I pull out a chromebook, RDP into a windows XP vm running on a PVE server, and fire up 2003. I like
it because there are no distractions, the welcoming colors of XP, and all
the rest of the charm of XP and Office 2003. Most importantly though, it's distraction free, which creates a wonderful writing environment.

So for you, what's your favorite version of Office, and feel free to
share your writing routine. Im curious! And if you don't use Office, feel
free to share whatever it is you use! Im super curious about you guys.

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On Thu, 2 Jul 2026 00:54:56 -0700
"Nook8081" (VERT/PROTOWEB) <VERT/PROTOWEB![email protected]>
wrote:

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me
personally, my favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the
simplicity and layout, and especially the little book and pen
animation at the bottom.

However, using a older version of Word feels so much more useful
and important than anything else. When I want to write, I pull out a chromebook, RDP into a windows XP vm running on a PVE server, and
fire up 2003. I like it because there are no distractions, the
welcoming colors of XP, and all the rest of the charm of XP and
Office 2003. Most importantly though, it's distraction free, which
creates a wonderful writing environment.

So for you, what's your favorite version of Office, and feel free
to share your writing routine. Im curious! And if you don't use
Office, feel free to share whatever it is you use! Im super curious
about you guys.

I hated the "ribbon" when it was introduced, but it helped make things
easier in the end. Access to everything I needed right there, once I
figured where it was.

Pretty much the same as switching from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. I
liked my little boxes and what's with this stupid task bar at the
bottom!

It's interesting how we adapt. I wonder what would happen if we put
Windows 3.11 in front of AI and told it to make UI improvments, what
it'd come up with.
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Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: Nook8081 to DOVE-Net.General on Thu Jul 02 2026 12:54 am

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me personally, my favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the simplicity and layout, and especially the little book and pen animation at the bottom.

Over here i'm using microsoft word 2002 copyright 2001. It's my
favorite version.
Aka office xp.

If i need to do anything special i use an open source editor.

--
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Re: Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: nelgin to Nook8081 on Thu Jul 02 2026 11:48 am

Pretty much the same as switching from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. I liked my little boxes and what's with this stupid task bar at the bottom!

When Windows 95 came out, I actually liked the change right away. I thought the task bar was a convenient way to access the running programs, and I liked the Start menu. Also I liked the Windows 95 desktop and not having to use Program Manager anymore (which I always thought was a bit klunky). Overall I thought the Windows 95 UI was nicer than the Windows 3.1x UI.

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On 02 Jul 2026, Nook8081 said the following...

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me
personally, my favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the
simplicity and layout, and especially the little book and pen animation at the bottom. However, using a older version of Word feels so much

for me it's the lack of the ribbon interface that keeps me using the old versions. they still desperately hold onto that stuff even into Windows 11.. and for just about every program i've ever used that offers various icon push buttons and other attempts at ease of use, i turn them off if i can.

i'm glad a lot of things are functionally complete. i have a Windows 7 machine i used to print goofy monthly calendars with clipart and stuff, type documents, maybe burn DVDs or whatever.. nothing will break with a new version because i'll never install a new version. but i don't need to because i can do everything i want.

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Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: Nook8081 to DOVE-Net.General on Thu Jul 02 2026 12:54 am

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me personally, >> my
favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the simplicity and layout,
and
especially the little book and pen animation at the bottom.

Over here i'm using microsoft word 2002 copyright 2001. It's my
favorite version.
Aka office xp.

If i need to do anything special i use an open source editor.

That's what I do too, I have a free M365 subscription from my college, and I will use modern Office if I need to, but most of the time I just use this classic version of Office because I feel more productive in it. I used to
use a pirated copy of Office 2013 on my MacBook, but I didn't really like having the modern MacOS ecosystem right next to my copy of Word. It didn't feel disconnected and enough, on here I feel disconnected from any
assistance and I feel my thinking is unassisted and truly me here.

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Re: Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: fusion to Nook8081 on Thu Jul 02 2026 03:36 pm

On 02 Jul 2026, Nook8081 said the following...

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me personally, my favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the simplicity and layout, and especially the little book and pen animation > No> at the bottom. However, using a older version of Word feels so much >

for me it's the lack of the ribbon interface that keeps me using the old versions. they still desperately hold onto that stuff even into Windows 11.. and for just about every program i've ever used that offers various icon push > buttons and other attempts at ease of use, i turn them off if i can.

i'm glad a lot of things are functionally complete. i have a Windows 7 machine i used to print goofy monthly calendars with clipart and stuff, type documents, maybe burn DVDs or whatever.. nothing will break with a new version because i'll never install a new version. but i don't need to because > i can do everything i want.

I'm a power user so i don't like the ribbon, unlike nelge.

I know the shortcuts and I know where everything is. I never liked the ribbon.

--
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looking after some of the richest clients in the world...Now we do!"


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Nook8081 wrote to DOVE-Net.General <=-

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office? Me
personally, my favorite is Office 2003. I love the design, the
simplicity and layout, and especially the little book and pen animation
at the bottom.

Office XP was my favorite, aesthetically, but it wasn't until 2003 that
they added cached exchange mode to Outlook - which was a game changer.




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nelgin wrote to Nook8081 <=-

It's interesting how we adapt. I wonder what would happen if we put Windows 3.11 in front of AI and told it to make UI improvments, what
it'd come up with.

I remember 3.11 fondly, there was a lot of customization people were
doing with it at my job in 1994-1995. It was a far as 3.x could go.

I think adding Winsock support into Windows and getting my first real
taste of the internet is biasing me.

Norton Desktop, PC Tools Desktop were both popular and added
functionality to Windows. There was a workplace shell for Windows that
made it look/feel like OS/2, but I never saw it in the wild.



... Are there sections? Consider transitions
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Re: Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to nelgin on Fri Jul 03 2026 07:16:19

I think adding Winsock support into Windows and getting my first real
taste of the internet is biasing me.

Ah, trumpet winsock...that's going back a bit.

and PW1118.EXE was always one of the first things I would download. It's amazing how I can remember that from the mid 90's.

I did like the Cello web browser.

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Re: Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to nelgin on Fri Jul 03 2026 07:16 am

I remember 3.11 fondly, there was a lot of customization people were doing with it at my job in 1994-1995. It was a far as 3.x could go.

I think adding Winsock support into Windows and getting my first real taste of the internet is biasing me.

Norton Desktop, PC Tools Desktop were both popular and added functionality to Windows. There was a workplace shell for Windows that made it look/feel like OS/2, but I never saw it in the wild.

Yeah, despite any drawbacks of Windows 3.x, Windows 3.0 was the first version I used, and 10-year-old me thought it was just cool to see a GUI environment on a computer (at the time, I had used Apple II computers at school, and had used my dad's DOS-based PC at home - which is where I first used Windows 3.0). At the time, I didn't know of things like OS/2 or GeoWorks yet (which were arguably techncially better than Windows)..

When I got my own PC, I remember using some Windows 3.1 GUI extensions, though I don't remember what I was using (and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Norton Desktop or PC Tools Desktop). I remember using some GUI extension that displayed the time on every application window, though I don't remember what else it did. And I had found some shareware Windows 3.x add-ons on local BBSes, such as things that added a trash can to Windows 3.x for file deletion & recovery (and one in particular that had a trash can that looked like it was from Mac OS). Also, I enjoyed using the After Dark screen saver collection (and I think you've said you used to work at Berkeley Systems Software?).

Also I remember when the Microsoft IntelliMouse came out in the mid-90s, which included some enhanced mouse software for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, which had options for things like mouse pointer trails, and I remember thinking little utilities like that seemed pretty cool at the time..

For anyone into computers, I feel like the 90s was a time of a lot of cool computer innovations and significant change. I sometimes think about how computer upgrades were a lot more significant at the time. Things like adding a sound card, upgrading a CPU, adding more RAM, etc. all made a very noticeable difference, whereas most PC upgrades these days don't feel nearly as significant.

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Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: Nook8081 to DOVE-Net.General on Thu Jul 02 2026 12:54 am

Does anyone here have a favorite version of MS Office?

Yes, it is called LibreOffice.

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Re: Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: Nightfox to nelgin on Thu Jul 02 2026 12:26 pm

When Windows 95 came out, I actually liked the change right away.

My favorite change in Windows 95 was the introduction of the flat memory model... no more segment:offset bullshit.

Maybe they got that from Atari? :)

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Re: Re: Favorite version of Office?
By: Nightfox to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 03 2026 10:06 am

For anyone into computers, I feel like the 90s was a time of a lot of cool computer innovations and significant change.

As were the 80's...

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