Why do people use PowerPoint to print Graphic rich documents

[Davit2005]

Bit of a Rant follows

 

Everytime at certain times a a year we have loads of issues, we use follow me printing and tehe docs cause major problems due to the way it has to work.

 

A 1.55GB document sent to the printer today WTF, so deleted it from queue before it crashes the system again.

 

Can some one enlighten me as to why people use PowerPoint for this purpose??

 

End of Rant

Edited April 15, 2015 by Davit2005

[pcstru]

Can some one enlighten me as to why people use PowerPoint for this purpose??

Because when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

 

(which is to say that people try and solve their problems/needs using tools and techniques they already know).

Edited April 15, 2015 by pcstru

[pete]

Assuming student: because someone taught them that was a valid way to do it.

 

Assuming staff:

 

PaperCut has a per-printer "Deny print jobs with a spool size larger than:" option that we use to good effect.

[Oddbod]

Hmm… that'll be a muppet who only learnt how to use photoshop, to print a document they could have used illustrator for… seen those a plenty…

[Davit2005]

The other thing that gets me is when a student has been working on a document for 6 months, like the whole course, and has only one copy on a USB stick. Come work submission time the student does some more work and loses the whole lot

[localzuk]

Its quite a simple reason really - people aren't willing to leave their comfort zone. They've only ever used Powerpoint for anything graphics related so they won't even bother thinking "surely I shouldn't be using a presentation package for graphics work".

 

We have a fair amount of it here, but since we bought the Serif suite, some teachers have forced the hands of others by producing schemes of work that require the use of things like DrawPlus.

 

The other reason is, quite frankly, time and training. If the schools I've worked in are anything to go by, IT training for staff consists of a 1 hour slot every few INSET days. That's barely enough time to just look around a new piece of software, let alone learn some actual skills. Many members of staff simply don't have the time to learn these new programs as they have to do their usual job.

[thebatman]

... only one copy on a USB stick. Come work submission time the student does some more work and loses the whole lot

Don't get me started on USBs, staff and students alike here save there only copy of work onto USB and WHEN not IF they stop working or they delete the work, they expect us to recover the work. We wanted to stop USB drive access but SLT don't like that idea. Staff and Students have remote access to the files too so have no need for the USBs.

[Davit2005]

Yep, Students all have Office 365 with one drives so no excuse.

 

On the one side you could have staff telling students to make backups, all though as you we find staff are as bad.

 

We had an IT teacher at the last place who used to tell students to save regularly because you can't trust IT. For one what a stupid thing to say but also what happens if we have a powercut, while the servers are protected we can't afford to put UPS's on everything.

[Oddbod]

Yep, Students all have Office 365 with one drives so no excuse.

 

On the one side you could have staff telling students to make backups, all though as you we find staff are as bad.

 

We had an IT teacher at the last place who used to tell students to save regularly because you can't trust IT. For one what a stupid thing to say but also what happens if we have a powercut, while the servers are protected we can't afford to put UPS's on everything.

 

Hee hee!

Supporting IT is difficult enough…, but teaching IT…

Amusing that he played the cynic’s card mid-lesson. Did you put him on help desk afterwards to see how it is from your side?

[Davit2005]

Yep the type of teacher that wants a bit of software, you go thru the hell of installing, setting up licenses, can't register because the proxy and then won't actually learn it and then comes running to the office when it is obviously the issue that they don't know how to use the software properly

[pcstru]

We had an IT teacher at the last place who used to tell students to save regularly because you can't trust IT. For one what a stupid thing to say

It looks like good, sensible advice to me.

Save often - check. Extremely sensible advice. Some of our users need to learn to save files ... at all!

Don't trust IT - check. If we trusted it we wouldn't spend money on backups or put in redundancy for critical services.

 

but also what happens if we have a powercut, while the servers are protected we can't afford to put UPS's on everything.

Surely that is why you save often and don't trust IT?

[Davit2005]

It looks like good, sensible advice to me.

Save often - check. Extremely sensible advice. Some of our users need to learn to save files ... at all!

Don't trust IT - check. If we trusted it we wouldn't spend money on backups or put in redundancy for critical services.

 

 

Surely that is why you save often and don't trust IT?

 

Sure it is a good Idea and I always say to users that you should start saving an important document as soon as you start work on it.

 

It's just the way he comes out with it that wound me up to the point of actually mentioning it. He did not have to add the bit "because you can't trust IT"

[Oddbod]

Just learning to save would be a good start…

 

“Can you recover my vital work from last lesson, I need it for my exam/portfolio/term mark”

“Should be able to, let’s see… [checks server] de-duplication has just run… So, where did you save your work then?”

“Save it?”

“Yep, which course group folder did you save to?”

“Oh, I didn't save it. I thought you could just recover the work after I switched off the PC…”

 

I giggle at these now… and point to a sign I made to save me from expletive laden replies “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who have lost all their work and those who have yet to…”

But then I'm grateful that they don't learn, as I would be out of a job if they did… ;D

[SeanVin]

Because it is better than word! You should see the carnage when our food and textiles students try to rescale a graphics intensive word document produced on A4 to A3, when the deadline for their exam course work was yesterday!

 

It is the same every year, and every year we tell the teaching staff that to tell the students not to use word. Frankly it is unfair on the students if they are not advised to use the appropriate software.

[elsiegee40]

Sure it is a good Idea and I always say to users that you should start saving an important document as soon as you start work on it.

 

It's just the way he comes out with it that wound me up to the point of actually mentioning it. He did not have to add the bit "because you can't trust IT"

 

I think you're taking that a bit personally. Even I say it when trying to impress the need to backup in people. It's a phrase they understand even if it is not strictly accurate.

 

I started my career working for an insurance company in a building plagued by power failures. You learned very rapidly to "keep pressing save" the hard way.

 

You may not have UPS on all your servers, but if save is done frequently enough then there is a good chance that only a small proportion of work done is lost when BT (other utility companies are available) stick their digger through the power cables.

[elsiegee40]

Back on topic, I knocked up this poster about compressing images due to my frustration with massive graphic rich documents

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/office-software/112177-compressing-pictures-microsoft-office.html

[dbarry722]

Sure it is a good Idea and I always say to users that you should start saving an important document as soon as you start work on it.

 

It's just the way he comes out with it that wound me up to the point of actually mentioning it. He did not have to add the bit "because you can't trust IT"

 

I'm never done preaching to pupils (and staff) about not working directly off any usb device. Work off the network drive and if you have to transfer then fine use the usb device. If you make any amendments, copy back from usb to network and work on network area.

 

I've a keypen that has broke off the usb connection. I'm now a micro electronics engineer attempting to recover important data by building a rig to reconnect the two parts together. Where's the version on the network....? What version.?? Its all on the keypen. What also really peeves me off is the attitude of staff who think I can work miracles and it imperative I recover her work.

 

Tough!! They were all told. Not my problem!!

 

[emoji51][emoji51]