Goodbye Old Ways

January 2013

I did it!  I threw out some old magazines!   The magazines I tossed were computer magazines – WordPerfect.  Almost two decades ago, WordPerfect was the office staple of word processing.  I subscribed to the magazine to improve and acquire skills. Word processing, in the days before clicking around Windows, was a function of keyboard strokes – F6, Shift+F10, CtRL+F2 etc.

Aficionados (like me) memorized all sorts of complicated keystrokes.  So, I looked at the cover stories about tips that were featured:  “How to Create Envelopes,” “How to insert Bullets in a Document,” “How to Create Tables,” and “How to Merge Files.”

I discovered the features in word processing have not changed – just the technique to do so. The old ways had ou perform elaborate keystrokes.  What once took seven pages of complicated instructions to create an envelope is now a simple feature on the toolbar or menu to allow you create envelopes, merge files or create and manipulate tables.

Now, I should get rid of the Martha Stewart Living magazines.