will people ever learn?
Jan. 29th, 2004 04:57 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
japester.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
techrecoveryprobably not. People tend to be stupid.
Prime example, One of the ladies at my place of gainful employment regularly entertains and frustrates us as she learns to use her computer. Theoretically, she was employed with computer experience. This was laughably disproved when we discovered that she created new blank documents in MS Word (*shudder*) by quitting word, then restarting it. *boggle* was our response, immediately followed by "see the file menu, see the word new. think about it" 30 seconds later, she was enlightened.
Once again, today brings new meaning to the word patience. I recently taught her the joy of the print to pdf option available on OS X, (I'd hate to see this woman with windows) and she went "hey! cool feature, now I can send unmodifiable copies of my director's powerpoint presentations around!" well, she finally got around to using it today and it worked without any problems. She thought this was a problem. aren't all computers supposed to give errors all the time?
There is an option with powerpoint to print just the slides, many slides per page or notes, all of these selectable options. Well, she printed to pdf, didn't select anything fancy, just the slides, then went,
"Some of those slides had notes with them. How do I find them in Acrobat Reader?"
*boggle* I went, "did you select them in the print options?"
"I didn't print them, I saved them as pdf", she replied
"well, you used the print dialog box right?"
"yes" .... gentle pause while she tries to work this out. I still don't think she realised the concept of printing to an object that doesn't actually use reams of paper. (like paper tape, but I think that one's pre even me)
back to question one, "Did you choose to print the notes when you printed the presentation?"
no, she had not selected them.
so why the hell do you expect them to come out in the pdf then? *SCREAM*
So I finished up with the standard reiteration. "Computers only do what you tell them to" If you don't ask it to smack your cat, then it won't. *sigh*
Prime example, One of the ladies at my place of gainful employment regularly entertains and frustrates us as she learns to use her computer. Theoretically, she was employed with computer experience. This was laughably disproved when we discovered that she created new blank documents in MS Word (*shudder*) by quitting word, then restarting it. *boggle* was our response, immediately followed by "see the file menu, see the word new. think about it" 30 seconds later, she was enlightened.
Once again, today brings new meaning to the word patience. I recently taught her the joy of the print to pdf option available on OS X, (I'd hate to see this woman with windows) and she went "hey! cool feature, now I can send unmodifiable copies of my director's powerpoint presentations around!" well, she finally got around to using it today and it worked without any problems. She thought this was a problem. aren't all computers supposed to give errors all the time?
There is an option with powerpoint to print just the slides, many slides per page or notes, all of these selectable options. Well, she printed to pdf, didn't select anything fancy, just the slides, then went,
"Some of those slides had notes with them. How do I find them in Acrobat Reader?"
*boggle* I went, "did you select them in the print options?"
"I didn't print them, I saved them as pdf", she replied
"well, you used the print dialog box right?"
"yes" .... gentle pause while she tries to work this out. I still don't think she realised the concept of printing to an object that doesn't actually use reams of paper. (like paper tape, but I think that one's pre even me)
back to question one, "Did you choose to print the notes when you printed the presentation?"
no, she had not selected them.
so why the hell do you expect them to come out in the pdf then? *SCREAM*
So I finished up with the standard reiteration. "Computers only do what you tell them to" If you don't ask it to smack your cat, then it won't. *sigh*
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}