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So I have a Surface 3 that I've been using as a portable workstation because when I leave for the day the things that need to get done don't suddenly stop needing to get done. I also have a Surface stylus pen and it's been pretty handy. It is way more convenient than having to pack a mouse for my tablet. The work I do is mostly text. (And if you couldn't guess that then uh I guess you're new around here?)
So Microsoft in it's infinite wisdom decided to roll out an update to Office 365 a week or so ago that changed the default behavior of the pen to ink mode.
Without any way to turn ink mode OFF. It used to be a toggle. This makes the stylus pen totally useless in Office if you're not drawing and given that most of the applications in the Office suite are built for large amounts of typing and text formatting there isn't a whole lot drawing going on. I'm sure somebody out there does do drawing in Office. I just don't happen to be part of that group. I personally used it as a mouse and a pointer because the stylus pen is way more accurate than the trackpad. In fact I still use it that way in other applications like Dreamweaver. Some buttons and drop-down menus are simply too small for finger taps and I have rather small fingers!
Now when Office 365 auto-updates it has never notified me of that fact. It just updates in the background and goes on its merry little way. You can imagine my surprise and anger when I settled down with Word and found the pen wasn't working as it had been. Cue two hours of trying to figure out what setting I accidentally changed. I had to go to Microsoft's support forums to find out what was wrong. (Good thing I already knew how to do that!)
I'm not the only person upset at this change. There are plenty more right here at UserVoice expressing just how foolish this change was. At least it's already being walked back. We'll see how long it takes to fix this mess.
So Microsoft in it's infinite wisdom decided to roll out an update to Office 365 a week or so ago that changed the default behavior of the pen to ink mode.
Without any way to turn ink mode OFF. It used to be a toggle. This makes the stylus pen totally useless in Office if you're not drawing and given that most of the applications in the Office suite are built for large amounts of typing and text formatting there isn't a whole lot drawing going on. I'm sure somebody out there does do drawing in Office. I just don't happen to be part of that group. I personally used it as a mouse and a pointer because the stylus pen is way more accurate than the trackpad. In fact I still use it that way in other applications like Dreamweaver. Some buttons and drop-down menus are simply too small for finger taps and I have rather small fingers!
Now when Office 365 auto-updates it has never notified me of that fact. It just updates in the background and goes on its merry little way. You can imagine my surprise and anger when I settled down with Word and found the pen wasn't working as it had been. Cue two hours of trying to figure out what setting I accidentally changed. I had to go to Microsoft's support forums to find out what was wrong. (Good thing I already knew how to do that!)
I'm not the only person upset at this change. There are plenty more right here at UserVoice expressing just how foolish this change was. At least it's already being walked back. We'll see how long it takes to fix this mess.
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