Issues & Features Needed for Microsoft Office

I have been using Microsoft Office / 365 for all of my presentations, documents, spreadsheets, and more for decades. While I like it the best, there is a lot of room for improvement and like any software, it has issues. Below is my running list of these issues and features I think need to be implemented. Also, I state many times in public that I don’t think Office has changed much since the ’90s! It has not kept up with the times, especially PowerPoint.

Installing

• The Office install forces you to install apps you might not want to use, leading to eating up hard drive.

All Office Apps

• All Office apps should practice parity when it comes to short-cut keys etc. Even more important between Windows and Mac Office apps.
• When Office apps do an auto-save, it can lock up my computer for up to five minutes. Rebuilt my computer and still happens.

OneDrive

I have Tweeted many, many times with all the issues I keep having with OneDrive. I have also contacted them many times and nothing has really improved. I don’t think there are any developers left on the team! Syncing between my Surface, iPhone and macOS is a nightmare. Mr. OneDrive tells me it’s because I have too many files in OneDrive! What the hell! How is this my issue OneDrive? Also, I’m getting really tired of having to use EMAIL or thumb drives when I need to move a file quickly from one device to another device!

• How many days do I have to wait for a 9 min video to be pushed up from my iPhone 11? Short videos seem to work fine. I need this file!!!
• OneDrive continuously has issues figuring out recent photos on an iPhone which has led to months that I could not backup photos.
• Folders are missing from my OneDrive folder and they are not in the recycle bin.
• Much of the time, it stops syncing files WITHOUT telling me that my drive is full!
• With OneDrive on my iPhone… if I edit a photo or video and save that as a new image or video, it’s not detected properly and does not show up in OneDrive. So, I can’t transfer it off of my phone!
• It isn’t helpful to put a red X on a folder and not tell me what the issue is! Also, why do my folders get duped in another?!?!?!?!? So frustrating! I ran out of disk space due to this!!! I think the Windows apps needs to be re-written!!

ONeNote

• OneNote, have you tested iPhone app with LTE signal? It tries to sync and then just disappears.
• When I use a password for a Section, please show the login dialog on the same screen as OneNote.
• Custom tags do not show up in my dropdown. There seems to be a max number of Tags that OneNote will display. Everytime I open OneNote I have to copy previous tags. I have been contacting you about this for years! I have been telling Office about this for YEARS!

Outlook

• Outlook does not mine for email address to auto-load list from emails. Need this when I rebuild a computer.
• Someday, I hope to figure out how to create groups in Outlook on Windows 10!!

PowerPoint

PowerPoint does not seem to have kept up with technology. Here are just some of what I have been complaining about for many years, even to Office PM’s at Microsoft which seems to have gone on deaf ears.

• Audio fade-out doesn’t work. Can’t control audio volume in effects either.
• Can’t link videos to slides so they don’t add to the file size and save time.
• Can’t move animations from to template anymore (use to work before a recent update).
• Can’t setup defaults for effects (settings)!!
• On Windows 10 on my Surface 3, it can take close to 5 minutes to save one of my slide decks. Same deck on the MAC takes just a few seconds.
• Pictures and videos can’t have a keyed-out color.
• Videos can’t be made as the background. If I put a video as a background, the Morphed effect causes PowerPoint to just disappear.
• It’s 2022 and why can’t I insert a live webpage into a presentation?

Word

• When I’m working on a new edition of one of my books, I can often be heard cursing Microsoft Word! It’s terrible formatting docs to print as a book and even worse for the ePub format.
• Does not support Markdown documents!