Showing posts with label office. Show all posts
Showing posts with label office. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Office 2007 help, someday maybe we can move beyond keyword matching

Type "edit background image" into Power Point's help and this is what you get:


Advent calendar, really?

There is a check box on the View ribbon that allows you to "hide background image" - so naturally when I click that and it makes the items I want to change disappear - I assume that it is a background image I need to change. Hence the chosen search terms.

But, alas it really isn't an image at all. It is a text box on the master sheet. Took me a few clicks and sorting out a red herring to get the text changed.

I wonder if help could be made smarter and see that I'm looking at the master sheet and I'm typing those search terms and .... well I think you see where I"m going. I'd like an AI help system so that it seems like I have a Power Point expert leaning over my shoulder. One who I can ask how do I do such-n-such? This "person" looks at what I'm trying to do and maybe through a mouse gesture and keypress combo, I'd get nearly human style help.

Sounds a bit like clippy - but smarter.



I'd like a video walk through of what I'm trying to do or a relevant help text to come up. Something that tells me the page I'm looking at doesn't have a background image, so unless I'm really looking to "add a background image", "edit background image" makes no sense.

Now that would be helpful.