Prof. Hinkle, I Need Your Help

 Word processors are naughty, naughty, naughty

I have a serious bone to pick with the jokers out there writing word processing software and packaging new computers.

Let's take the latter part first. I bought a new computer at Christmastime because my old HP bit the dust. I got a new HP, Windows 7, the works. I love it. Except for the works. Microsoft Works, that is. Oh, the program works fine until I want to cut something from a web page and then paste it into a document. Then the program hems and haws and then has an error and has to shut down. This is unacceptable. If Word Pad can accept a paste, Microsoft Works ought to be able to do so as well.

I'm spoiled, I suppose. My last HP came packaged with WordPerfect, which I love to pieces. Never, ever had a problem with that software, and I really put it through its paces. Not so Microsoft Works. Yes, I could shell out the whatever to buy a word processor; I get enough enticements from Microsoft Office to do so already. But is it too much to ask that a computer come pre-packaged with an acceptable word processor? Evidently, it is.

On to my next beef:

Because I don't care for Microsoft Works, I've downloaded the best alternative, being OpenOffice. Urgh.It does accept a paste from a web page, but if I have the temerity to cut something from an OpenOffice document and then paste it into a WYSWYG test editor on the web -- which I do so often, being a blogger and writer at Uncharted.net -- things go kerflooie. I get all this nifty little metadata that shows up like a sore thumb on the pages. Looks very ugly and unprofessional. If I try to edit it out, I have to have lightning-quick reflexes, like a buttered bald monkey, to highlight and then cut the offending text in the WYSWYG before it poof! disappears and then reappears like the aforementioned bruised digit when it's on the web page.

So get with it, folks. Meanwhile, I'll be pricing WordPerfect.

Update: Hah. Did a quickie Internet search on "cut and paste makes Microsoft Works crash" and found many, many others having this problem. Come on, Microsoft. FIX THIS PROBLEM. yeah, yeah, I get the point: These kinds of things are hard to fix because there are so many variables. Horse hockey. There may be a lot of variables, but something as simple as a cut and paste ought to be handled elegantly, with dignity. Not crashes and cussing.

Second Update: $199 for Word Perfect? On sale? Urgh. Maybe I can buy some papyrus . . .