Microsoft Office

Today I got in a brief argument with someone bragging about being "certified" with Microsoft Office after taking a class on it.  Today I am going to explain why taking a class on common software like that is absolutely useless.

First, let's take a look at what the prerequisites and requirements are for taking the exam. For the sake of this post, let's take a look at Microsoft Office 2010. Microsoft provides a great page where you can look at the skills being measured in the exam. For the sake of brevity, I'm just going to look at Word 2010.

Microsoft Word 2010

Sharing and Maintaining Documents
-Applying different views to a document.
Basically all you have to know is go through and memorize the "view" tab. This shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes to learn

-Apply protection to a document
I didn't actually know how to do this, so I googled it. The first link brought me to a page from Microsoft detailing exactly how to do it.

-Manage document versions
Basically, this is just opening the recovered files when you quit without saving.

-Share documents
If you have an email, you can already do this.

-Save a Document
Who the fuck doesn't know how to save a document?

-Add a template to a document
You don't even need to Google this to figure it out.

Formatting Content
-Apply and Manipulate page setup settings
Fuck around with that bar with the arrow and numbers on it.

-Apply Themes
Essentially the same thing as applying templates

-Construct content in a document using the quick parts tool
This sounds difficult. It's not. It's actually just pre-writing footnotes and watermarks and shit like that.

-Create and Manipulate Page Backgrounds
Again, easy as hell to figure out.

-Create and Modify Headers and Footers
If you've ever written any sort of research paper, you already know how to do this.

Creating Illustrations and Graphics in a Document
-Insert and format pictures in a document
-Insert format shapes, word art and smart art
-Insert and format clip art
-Apply and manipulate text boxes

This was any paper you wrote before 9th grade. If you don't know how to do any of this, you have to be literally retarded when it comes to computers.

Proofreading Documents
-Validate content by using spelling and grammar checking options.
First of all, you don't have to do this if you actually know anything about the English language. Second of all, this is just right clicking on the words that have that fucking red or green squiggly line underneath it.

-Configure Autocorrect Settings
If you've ever chosen the "add to dictionary" option, you know how to do this.

-Insert and modify comments in a document
This is actually a pretty cool feature used when multiple people are working on a document. It's incredibly user friendly. It takes less than 5 minutes to learn.

Applying References and Hyperlinks
-Apply a hyperlink
Easy as all fucking hell

-Create Endnotes and Footnotes in a document
Again, if you've ever done a research paper, you already know this

-Create a table of contents in a document
This barely has anything to Microsoft word, it's more about formatting it right, and that was already covered earlier.

Performing Mail Merge Operations
-Setup Mail Merge
-Execute Mail Merge

This may actually be the hardest part of the entire certification. But as it turns out, Microsoft Word practically does it for you.


There is absolutely no reason to take a class on anything Microsoft offers, because everything is user friendly, and pretty self explanatory, and Microsoft provides anything you could ever need to know about their programs for free. You can literally become a Microsoft Office Expert overnight. One week, or even one weekend fucking around with these programs and pages makes you as competent as you'll ever need to be.

Microsoft Office is fucking easy